SNECMA and General Electric (A)

The cases retrace the history of the GE-SNECMA alliance, from its inception in the 1970s, and the choice of its initial design, to the mid 1990s, when the partners face the first serious crisis in their relationship.

To illustrate how the careful design of an alliance (role differentiation and complementarity, governance structure and mechanism, interface processes) can overcome the difficulties faced in cooperation between partners with very different starting positions and subject to the pressure of different stakeholders, in particular their home governments.