A diver, for example, might want to watch clips of a top-performing competitor, said Thomas McDougal, executive director of the Lesson Study Alliance, a nonprofit education consultancy in Chicago.
As an indication of the kind of transformation needed, four American research centers have collaborated on a study, "Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st Century," that emphasizes the need to refashion NATO when it is at its most active around the world, but also when its strategic doctrine is outdated and domestic constituencies, especially in Europe, fail to see its relevance.
In particular, few researchers have studied alliance networks in the field of energy conservation in commercial buildings—a sector with unique barriers to greater diffusion of innovative cost-saving strategies.
"When we study alliances, we don't talk of control, but of industrial plans," he said.
After discussing the methodological challenges in testing this hypothesis, we do such a test by studying alliances in the health segment of the biotech industry in relatively small-domestic demand countries (Australia, Israel, and Taiwan) and by comparing the results with five large-domestic demand countries (UK, Germany, France, US, and Japan).
Numerous studies indicate alliance and rapport being some of the most reliable indicators of psychological outcome.
One-third to two-thirds of all alliances dissolve within a decade, depending on the industry, said Benjamin Gomes-Casseres, a professor at Brandeis University who studies corporate alliances.
Ideally, said Dr. Giorgio Roscigno, a former drug executive who led the study, the alliance will invest money in promising antibiotics, and gain some ownership.
This finding is consistent with previous studies on alliances success and failure (Foster, 1999).
Two potential mediators of change will be examined in the current study: therapeutic alliance and parenting.
