Interfirm Collaboration Networks


Book Description

The structure of alliance networks influences their potential for knowledge creation. Dense local clustering provides information transmission capacity in the network by fostering communication and cooperation. Nonredundant connections contract the distance between firms and give the network greater reach by tapping a wider range of knowledge resources. We propose that firms embedded in alliance networks that exhibit both high clustering and high reach (short average path lengths to a wide range of firms) will have greater innovative output than firms in networks that do not exhibit these characteristics. We find support for this proposition in a longitudinal study of the patent performance of 1,106 firms in 11 industry-level alliance networks.




Interfirm Collaboration Networks


Book Description

The structure of alliance networks strongly influences their potential for knowledge creation. Dense local clustering provides transmission capacity in the network by fostering communication and cooperation while non-redundant connections contract the distance between firms and give the network greater reach by tapping a wider range of knowledge resources. However, since firms are constrained in forming alliances, there appears to be a trade-off between creating transmission capacity versus reach. We argue that small world connectivity (i.e., simultaneity of high clustering and short average path lengths in a sparse, decentralized network) helps resolve this tradeoff by enabling transmission capacity and reach to be achieved simultaneously. We propose that firms embedded in alliance networks that exhibit high clustering and short average path lengths to a wide range of firms will experience greater knowledge creation than firms in networks that do not exhibit these characteristics. We find support for this proposition in a longitudinal study of the patent performance of 1106 firms in 11 industry-level alliance networks.







Dynamic R&D Networks


Book Description




Inter-firm Collaboration, Learning and Networks


Book Description

Developments in technology and globalisation have led to an upsurge in inter-organizational relations. This book surveys the current field, connects differing perspectives and answers questions about who should collaborate, why, and how.




Revising concepts for interfirm collaboration


Book Description

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: Technical advances and strategic reconsiderations in the Business-to-Business (B2B) market have led companies to meet new challenges with innovative forms of collaboration. Since 1999, industrial organizations have separately attempted to enable common interfirm trade with the help of online trading platforms and e-marketplaces. In most industries, the use of these platforms has been reduced to low numbers of intra-industry transactions between first-movers and strategic visionaries. Despite their damped optimism, companies' readiness has progressed along with the market potential. Tackling the initial weaknesses, an integrative B2B trading network that is based on true interoperability and openness is now well-positioned to exploit this increased potential. At the example of Eastman Chemical Corporation, this paper analyzes the possibilities of creating a completely revised interfirm collaboration network. Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: Index of figuresIII Index of tablesIV List of abbreviationsV 1.Introduction1 1.1Statement of purpose1 1.2Research focus and goal2 1.3Outline2 2.The case of Eastman Chemical Company3 2.1Company background3 2.2Overview of corporate e-business portfolio3 2.3Backbone of current IT infrastructure4 2.4Strategic focus in the chemical industry6 3.Comparison and extension of collaboration forms7 3.1Organizational responses to current challenges7 3.2B2B collaboration models8 3.2.1Traditional view of collaboration8 3.2.2Selected non-equity interfirm relations9 3.2.3Selected equity interfirm relations9 3.2.4Strategic outsourcing of non-core activities10 3.2.5From portals and catalogues to e-marketplaces11 3.3Review of collaboration models14 4.Creating a framework for dynamic collaboration17 4.1Current challenges and unsolved problems17 4.2Meta-market framework requirements18 4.2.1Ensuring security and privacy18 4.2.2Adapting and standardizing online laws19 4.2.3Enhancing trust20 4.2.4XML-enabled web semantics21 4.2.5Extending on UDDI as global directory services23 4.2.6Extending on Web Services for standardized communication24 4.3Feasibility appreciation of a new collaboration model25 5.Introducing the dynamic collaboration network model27 5.1Operational deployment and integration of a MetaHub27 5.1.1Connectivity and implementation processes27 5.1.2Initiation and funding29 5.1.3Structuring transactions and negotiations30 5.2Extending towards a dynamic [...]




Managing Dynamic Networks


Book Description

Collaboration of organizations reshapes traditional managerial practices and creates new inter-organizational contexts for strategy, coordination and control, information and knowledge management. Heralded as organizational forms of the future, networks are at the same time fragile and precarious organizational arrangements, which regularly fail. In order to investigate the new realities created by technology-enabled forms of network organizations and to address the emerging managerial challenges, this book introduces an integrative view on inter-firm network management. Centred on a network life cycle perspective, strategic, economic and relational facets of business networking are explored. The network management framework is illustrated onto a broad range of European inter-firm network examples in various industries rendering insights for new management practices.




Design and Management of Interfirm Networks


Book Description

Interfirm networks include franchising, retail and service chains, cooperatives, financial networks, joint ventures, strategic alliances, licensing, public-private partnerships and new network forms in the digital economy. This book gathers the latest research studies that approach these networks – and the creation of innovation under the conditions of a complex, dynamic, knowledge-intensive and digital economy – from an interdisciplinary perspective. The studies, all of which were written by respected experts, explore how firms can improve their competitiveness by securing access to innovation, knowledge, complementary resources and capabilities otherwise not available to them. In addition, they highlight how, driven by an unpredictable environment, firms embedded in inter-organizational networks are increasingly transforming from co-operators to collaborators and valuable co-creators of innovation.




Interfirm Networks


Book Description

This volume examines the nature of interfirm networks and their role in promoting industrial competitiveness. Where previous work in this area has tended to be descriptive, the distinguished contributors to this volume present a balanced theoretical and empirical approach to interfirm networking drawing on a variety of international case studies. I




Contractual Networks, Inter-firm Cooperation and Economic Growth


Book Description

This insightful book presents a legal and economic analysis of inter-firm cooperation through networks as an alternative to vertical integration. It examines comparatively various forms of collaboration, ranging from consortia to multiparty joint ventures and from franchising to dealerships. Collaboration among firms of different sizes helps to overcome numerousweaknesses of the modern western industrial systems. It permits the governing of vertical disintegration without increasing fragmentation and transaction costs and allows firms to benefit from resource complementarities, favoring division of labour. The contributing authors, primarily focusing on Europe and the US, address important ways in which legal systems provide a framework for inter-firm coordination. It is clear from the analysis that significant obstacles to collaboration still remain, and the authors call for legal reforms at European and Member States level.