Final answer:
Collusive strategies are often illegal and involve secret arrangements that restrict competition, while strategic alliances are legal forms of cooperation between companies to advance shared goals without breaching competition law.
Step-by-step explanation:
The key difference between collusive strategies and strategic alliances is that collusive strategies are often illegal because they involve anti-competitive behavior that violates antitrust laws, whereas strategic alliances are legal collaborations between companies to achieve a particular business objective, such as mutual growth or technology sharing.
Collusion involves a covert understanding between firms to fix prices, limit production, or engage in other practices that restrict competition and can harm consumers and the market. Agencies like the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are tasked with preventing such practices in the United States. Cartels are one form of collusion, being formal agreements to coordinate on anti-competitive actions. However, due to legal consequences, formal cartels are rare, and much collusion is implicit or tacit. On the other hand, strategic alliances are typically out in the open, with clear agreements made to cooperate in ways that do not violate competition law, like joint research and development, supply arrangements, or marketing partnerships.