In thinking about ideal alliance partners, Microsoft and Apple may not immediately spring to mind. But in fact, these often fierce competitors have a surprising history of collaboration; take for example, Office for Mac 2011. Working with, rather than against Apple, "Microsoft has once again made the Mac OS X version of its world-dominant productivity suite jive a lot more closely with the latest Windows version" (Hiner, 2010).

In "Finding the Ideal Partner," Kwicien (2012) asserts that many organizations can grow only by forming business alliances. HR executives are increasingly being called upon to find suitable alliance partners. When considering potential alliance candidates, Kwicien emphasizes the need to think originally, or "outside the box." He provides seven characteristics of the ideal alliance partner. One way for HR to encourage original thinking would be to ask the C-suite to consider new factors not previously considered when evaluating potential alliance partners. Drawing on the Required Resources and your own additional research, suggest three other plausible ways for HR to facilitate new ways of thinking about potential alliance partners.

Do you see any risk for the HR department in leading the charge of thinking outside the box in this regard? From a risk versus reward perspective, how might the HR department fail the organization by selecting non-traditional candidates?

• As an HR executive charged with finding ways to expand an organization, conduct additional research on characteristics of ideal alliance candidates.Describe a successful partnership that you found in your research. Would you characterize it as ideal relative to Kwicien's seven characteristics?Cite an example of a partnership that initially appeared to be ideal, but failed to come together as hoped.
• Describe how it has progressed thus far.
• If less-than-ideal partnerships can succeed, what is the lesson in that for HR professionals?
• Accepting Kwicien's premise about "thinking outside the box," suggest at least three ways for HR to facilitate original thinking in searching for alliance partners.Justify the use of a limited HR budget in pursuing "outside the box" alliance partners.
• What are possible negative consequences for HR in encouraging original thinking in the search for ideal alliance partners?

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