In this paper, we review and analyze the emerging network paradigm in organizational research. We begin with a conventional review of recent research organized around recognized research streams. Next, we analyze this research, developing a set of dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, levels of analysis, explanatory goals, and explanatory mechanisms. We use the latter two dimensions to construct a 2-by-2 table cross-classifying studies of network consequences into four canonical types: structural social capital, social access to resources, contagion, and environmental shaping. We note the rise in popularity of studies with a greater sense of agency than was traditional in network research.

This paper investigates the outcomes and durations of strategic alliances among competing firms, using alliance outcomes as indicators of learning by partner firms. We show that alliance outcomes vary systematically across link and scale alliances. Link alliances are interfirm partnerships to which partners contribute different capabilities, while scale alliances are partnerships to which partners contribute similar capabilities. We find that partners are more likely to reorganize or take over link alliances than scale alliances. By contrast, scale alliances are more likely to continue without material changes. The two types of alliances are equally likely to shut down, at similar ages. These results support the view that link alliances lead to greater levels of learning and capability acquisition between the partners than do scale alliances. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This study investigates the outcomes and durations of strategic alliances among competing firms, using alliance outcomes as indicators of learning by partner firms. We define strategic alliances as arrangements between two or more

Abstract. Large firms tend to overlap their boundaries in unstable environments and create strategic alliances and collaborations with their suppliers, customers and partners. In the automobile sector, firms are extended enterprises continuously innovating and creating new products through their dynamic capabilities. A large automotive company seeks to leverage its relationships with its customers and suppliers through networks creation. More specifically, partnering with the organizations, constituting a Dealers ’ network- providing after sales services to customers as assisting, selling, and repairing cars. The dealers ’ network consists of small and medium organizations that represent the automotive company and are the intermediary among it and its customers. Through this research, we are elaborating a model representing the collaborative relationship among the automotive company and its dealers ’ network that leads to knowledge creation and sharing about the automobiles components and services of this extended enterprise. We present a model illustrating the dealers ’ network organization and its interaction with the large firm. The collaborative knowledge network (CKN) contributes to the sustainability of the new product development (NPD) process of the automotive company. 1

This paper investigates how firms choose among acquisitions, alliances, and divestitures when they decide to expand or contract their boundaries. The dataset covers 9276 deals announced and completed by 86 members of the Fortune 100 between 1990 and 2000. Our findings support explanations based on resources, transaction costs, internalization, organizational learning, social embeddedness, asymmetric information, and real options, and suggest that these theories are highly related and complementary. We find less consistent support for theories based on agency costs and asset indivisibilities. The strong role of firm attributes explains in part why firms may pre-specify whether they will pursue acquisitions, alliances, or divestitures as part of their corporate strategies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Today, many knowledge-based technology applications form a business ecosystem: a set of complex products and services made by multiple firms in which no firm is dominant. For this paper the emerging radio frequency ID (RFID) ecosystem was built based on firms ’ alliance announcements, and propositions around the behavior of large, multi-line technology firms in this network were analyzed. The RFID network is used to empirically show that absorptive capacity, and exploration vs. exploitation theories may explain some behavior of large firms. Specifically, a propensity to form alliances in general makes it more likely large firms will join the RFID ecosystem, and more exploratory firms join earlier. Greater availability of slack resources also leads to the formation of more alliances in the network. The ecosystem perspective and these results may influence alliance decisions of firms entering into high cost technological innovations.

doi 10.1287/mnsc.1070.0712

transactions, and the boundaries of firms

Current research on distributed knowledge processes suggests a critical conflict between knowledge processes in groups and the technologies built to support them. The conflict centers on observations that authentic and efficient knowledge creation and sharing is deeply embedded in an interpersonal face to face context, but that technologies to support distributed knowledge processes rely on the assumption that knowledge can be made mobile outside these specific contexts. This conflict is of growing national importance as work patterns change from same site to separate site collaboration, and millions of government and industrial dollars are invested in establishing academic-industry alliances and building infrastructures to support distributed collaboration and knowledge. In this paper

This paper aims at contributing to the research concerning alliance dynamics by combining elements from research considering motives for alliance formation and alliance outcomes. This paper draws on the resource-based view of the firm, suggesting that firms ’ competitive advantages derive from their preferential access to idiosyncratic resources, especially tacit knowledge-related (based) resources. However, by integrating the resource-based view into the network perspective, the main arguments focus on the relationship between conditions for alliance formation and outcomes and the impact of learning on the dynamic evolution of alliances. The paper breaks with the traditional assumption of complementarity of resources (or resource-bases) as a necessity for successful collaboration, and proposes a different and more dynamic approach to alliance formation in the pursuit of what seems to be the ultimate goal of strategic alliances: Synergy. Ultimately, this paper identifies two different types of knowledge networks: Complementary Knowledge Networks and Synergistic Knowledge Networks, which, depending on the initial motivation and conditions, will lead to different outcomes in terms of learning and knowledge creation for the partners. Keywords: Synergy, Resource-Based View, Strategic Alliance, Knowledge CreationResearch on strategic collaboration between firms has received increasing attention in the literature during the last decade, reflecting the increasing frequency and importance of strategic alliances in

Based on ethnographic studies of two business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (EC) marketplaces and a review of interorganizational relationship literature, this paper proposes a model explaining why organizations form alliances to create and why organizations join B2B EC marketplaces. This paper proposes viewing B2B EC marketplaces as a public good. The paper uses public good theory as an umbrella integrating transaction cost and resource dependency perspectives with Oliver’s [1990] determinants of interorganizational relationships.