Networks and business renewal

/ edited by Henrik Agndal and Björn Axelsson. - Jönköping : Jönköping International Business School, ©2002. - 263 p. ; 24 cm. - (JIBS Research Reports).
Individual economic actors, be they firms or human beings, cannot control all the resources or perform all the activities required to produce and distribute goods and services. All actors rely on interaction with other actors, interaction that leads to the formation of relationships. The totality of an actor's relationships forms a web, commonly referred to as a network. Over the past two decades, the networks of individuals and firms have been at the focus of substantial research efforts, the fundamental role that interaction between economic actors plays in the organisation of business activities being recognised by most scholars.
This edited book focuses on networks and business renewal. It comprises three parts, consisting of a total of eleven chapters contributed mainly by scholars at J6nk6ping International Business School. The first part focuses on network structures, the second part on the change of network structures, and the third part is concerned with various uses of networks and relationships. Specific contributions deal with e.g. networks and industrial-districts, the social networks of actors in family firms, networks as patterns of cooperation, how networks can form brands, how social networks are transformed into business networks, how networks can be used to facilitate learning, and how inter-firm relations benefit from the introduction of information and communication technology.

Indice

Editors' Introduction 7
Networks and Business Renewal 7
Overview of the Book 16
Part One - Networks and Structures 19
Editorial Introduction 21
Industrial Districts' Morphology: A Research Shift Towards Networks and Firms, di Fernando Alberti 25
No Family is an Island: A Social Network Approach to Corporate Governance and the Strategy Process in Family Firms, di Mattias Nordqvzst 59
Different Network Species as Networking Structures, di Björm Axelsson and Johan Larsson 81
Networks: Markets as Organisations and Organisations as Markets, di Tomas Karlsson 103
Part Two - Changing Network Structures and Transforming Relationships 121
Editorial Introduction 123
Strategic Networks - Deliberate and Emergent?, di Olof Brunninge 127
 
Networking, a Juicy Fruit for Internet and IT Brands - How Strategic Networking can Build Balloon Brands, di Anna Blombdck 147
Relationship Transformation - The Development of Social and Structural Capital, di Henrik Agndal and Ulf Nilsson 171
Part Three - Utilising Networks and Relations 181
Editorial Introduction 183
Pedagogical InnovatiVeness in Supply Net Development, di Björn Axelsson and Johan Larsson 187
ICT Infusion and Interfirm Relationships - An Exploratory Case Study, di Jens Hultman 215
Learning in Benchmarking Networks, di Helgi-Valur Fridriksson and Johan Larsson 233
The Role of Antecedent Relations in the Internationalisation of SMEs, di Hennk Agndal 251
Editorial References 261