Silva, Susana Costa eFerreira, Mário Pedro2011-09-082011-09-082010ANNUAL CONFERENCE, 7TH: CURRENT MANAGEMENT THINKING: DRAWING FROM SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES TO ADDRESS CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES, Paris, France, 16-19 May 2007. - Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference EURAM. 16p.http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/5291The low level of formality and the diversity of international alliances create an important challenge for researchers. Unlike mergers and acquisitions, alliances include various types of cooperation agreements between organizations and do not require formal registration. Therefore, in this field, secondary data is scarce and the few available international databases present several disadvantages. This manuscript attempts to discuss and assess options available to circumvent difficulties in database choice and usage for primary data collection. Results from an alliance survey show that the use of national databases and informal solutions, such as local knowledge and local networking can be valid options.engjournal article