ISSN 1 746-7233, England, UK International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Management Vol. 2 (2007) No. 2, pp. 98-107 Strategic alliance for core competencies improvement in textile industries * F. Dadashian 1† , S. Shakibfar 1 , M. H. Fazel Zarandi 2 1 Textile Engineering Department, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran 2 Industrial Engineering Department Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. (Received March 16 2007, Accepted April 22 2007) Abstract. Strategic alliances are increasingly gaining popular for Textile companies to achieve fast and eco- nomical growth in today’s globalization. Strategic alliances are an important source of resources, learning, and thereby core competencies improvement. So managers have to make conscious decisions to develop cer- tain competencies so as to have all competencies that are required to be successful, firms look for strategic alliances and to leverage their partner firms’ competencies. However coordination with alliance partners is not easy; each part has its own reporting process and measures, and each brings its own perspective of what it wants to contribute to the alliance and what it intents to obtain from the alliance. Transcending these informa- tional and motivational asymmetries, as economists would phrase it, requires an open, transparent process in which both sides clearly articulate their expected contributions and their desired outcomes resulting in a docu- ment that summarizes the theory of the strategic for the alliance. Developing an Alliance Balanced Scorecard (ABS) can mitigate the natural conflict between alliance partners. It includes four-perspective framework: financial, strategic, operational, and relationship. This study has been made on how to apply the Balanced Scorecard on an alliance-making of 8 Textile companies as a result of a demand. We aim to provide a picture of what a prospective Textile Industries could look like, for the alliance-making in Iran, by developing an Alliance Strategy Map focused on the core competencies improvement. The work has been conducted as a qualitative case study at the Textile firms in Isfahan. The scorecard was developed by using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). We argue that results based on AHP analysis would help a company to make more informed strategic management decision concerning further investment for competences and key assets development, and outsourcing non-core assets and competences. This paper reports on the results of that empirical survey, and the results show that: Maintain market position; Expanding their competencies; Gain access to complementary resources; Compete against common competitor; Reducing risk and uncertainty are important influences on alliance making for textile companies. Careful strategic planning and good partnership preparation are essential for alliance success. Keywords: strategic alliances, textile, globalization, core competencies 1 Introduction Increasing, companies are using alliance to fill gaps in their own capabilities and to grow in new markets and regions. In fact of challenge of global competition, textile companies are increasingly using strategic part- nership to maintain competitiveness. Strategic alliances are “the relatively enduring inter firm co-operative arrangements, involving flows and linkages that utilize resources and, or governance structures from au- tonomous organizations, for the joint accomplishment of individual goals linked to the corporate mission of each sponsoring firm” [3] . Inter firm collaborations, such as strategic alliances and joint ventures, have become important business management instruments to improve the core competencies and competitiveness of companies, especially in * thanks for funds support. † E-mail address: dadashia@aut.ac.ir, saeed12@aut.ac.ir, zarandi@aut.ac.ir. Published by World Academic Press, World Academic Union