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Purpose -Strategic alliances generally represent inter-firm cooperative agreements aimed at achieving competitive advantage for the partners. In recent years, there has a dramatic increase in strategic alliances by multinational firms.This paper aims to explore the essence of these alliances and why they have become such a growing area of research in business in recent years. Design/methodology/approach -Discusses strategic alliances between corporations and institutions of higher education. The major underlying motives for creating these alliances and the critical success factors are also discussed. The paper also analyzes the success stories. Findings -Highlights the major advantages for the academic community -research funding and practical learning opportunities for students -and for industry -lower research and development costs and technology transfer opportunities that affect competitiveness. The drawbacks may include the partners' different working cultures and values. Finds that alliances must be supported by continuous learning and restructuring processes to overcome the differences. Originality/value -Extracts the valuable lessons that might help others to effectively utilize strategic alliances between corporations and institutions of higher education.

The intermittency of wind power has a decreasing effect on day-ahead spot prices. Data from Germany illustrate this effect and explain the underlying relationships. This short-term price effect leads to an adaptation process in the conventional generation capacity mix. In the long-run, a higher peak load plant share is required to cope with the increasing volatility of the residual demand. The result is an adapted merit-order. This merit-order intersects with an increasingly volatile residual demand curve and leads to a higher price volatility in the power market, which is going to trigger further adaptations. Therefore this article concludes with a list of open research questions, which can be derived from the illustrated relationship. These research questions should be investigated as soon as possible in order to induce the required adaptations in time.Die unstete Windenergieeinspeisung hat einen preissenkenden Effekt am dayahead Großhandel. Daten aus Deutschland zeigen diesen Effekt und erklären die zugrunde liegenden Zusammenhänge. Dieser Preiseffekt gilt in der kurzen Frist und führt zu einem Anpassungsprozess im konventionellen Kraftwerkspark. Um die zunehmend volatile residuale Nachrage zu bedienen, ist in der langen Frist ein höherer Anteil an Spitzenlastkraftwerken nötig, was eine Veränderung der Merit-Order zur Folge hat. Wenn diese angepasste Merit-Order auf eine zunehmend volatile residuale Nachfrage trifft, führt dies zu einem Anstieg der Preisvolatilität. Der zukünftige Strommarkt zeichnet sich folglich durch eine höhere Preisvolatilität aus, was weitere Anpassungsprozesse nach sich zieht. Der Artikel schließt daher mit einer Auflistung offener Forschungsfragen, die sich aus dem dargestellten Zusammenhang ableiten und schnellstmöglich untersucht werden sollten, um die benötigten Anpassungen einleiten zu können.

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