| Summary: | In the third millennium, competition has become tough and unpredictable and all organizational regardless of their size and scope of operation are facing fierce competitive challenges. In management, one of the most reliable ways to cope with these challenges quickly and effectively is strategic alliance or partnership. Consequently, strategic alliance has attracted lots of attention from the researchers and managers over past years. Technically, strategic alliance is a systematic approach to share the resources, acquire more capabilities, and finally create cooperative and competitive advantages. This study addressed the concept of strategic alliance amongst Malaysian SMEs in different industries and tried to create a regulatory framework for the SME strategic alliance in Malaysia from a holistic view based on the statements of the sampled
SMEs’ executives. The findings of the study showed that in conducting a strategic partnership program the first step must be selecting a potential partner and this process requires a full understanding of partners across two dimensions: 1. Resources and capabilities, and 2. Cost and risks. In addition, strategic alliance can shape domestically as well as internationally and also in the form of a network of multiple alliances and the tendency of an enterprise in forming such partnership programs indicate the attitude of executives toward the alliance. Finally, it also has been found that learning and sharing knowledge resources is a critical factor in success of any strategic alliance.
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