EFFECTIVENESS IN BUSINESS NETWORKS

Oxfam Novib, 2020

The world is a global village where small organizations can feel increasingly insignificant. Local communities are connected to a globalized economy that is driven by global flows of goods, services, capital, workers and knowledge. Within this global order, states, citizens, flora and fauna are impacted by the actions of international organizations, multinational corporations and global finance. To tackle local problems, local and national communities need networks to share knowledge, share resources and amplify their voice. When united in networks, Civil Society Organizations are better able to increase their influence, take a stand, find solutions and shape policy. Formal and informal networks of like-minded people and organizations provide civil society with the resources needed to overcome the status quo and advocate for positive change in the global economy. There is no single path to develop a networked mindset -we need to learn from our experiences, failures, dilemmas and solutions. The cases in this publication provide insights into strategies to establish (start-up) networks, coalitions and alliances. We also emphasize the importance of defining clear common goals as well as identifying the achievements of the networks (and the organizations within them) and the short-and long-term benefits for the cause. The cases stress the importance of ensuring effective communication within networks as well as acknowledging differences among members. These differences represent assets that require the network to allocate specialist roles to the participants. These cases provide insight into how to mobilize communities, citizens and actors and ensure coordinated action. Effective coordination and communication are key to network success. The cases show that technology plays a key role in coordination and communication, both inside and outside networks. Furthermore, networks can have a transformative effect on their members. Network growth requires adjustments by members, for example, in terms of targeting, collaboration, learning and the degree of formalization. The collection of stories presented in this publication shows hope for citizens' power and action, especially when combined across the globe in networks, regardless of whether these are global, northern, southern or other types of networks. Of course, how a network is portrayed is highly dependent upon the writer's perspective. Most cases in this publication are written from the perspective of the initiator, coordinator, co-convener or funder. This may result in some bias. However, as you can read, the authors succeeded in providing us with a glimpse behind the scenes, allowing us to reflect upon their work. The great value of this publication lies in the fact that these networks not only provide insight into their functioning but also their thinking, and the dilemmas they face. These insights into the dilemmas make this publication essential reading for influencing practitioners around the globe.

Handbook on Complexity and Public Policy, 2015

Greater understanding of what factors promote the formation of innovation networks and their successful performance would help policymakers improve the design of policy interventions aimed at funding R&D projects to be carried out by networks of innovators. In this paper, we focus on the organizations that can play the role of network intermediaries, facilitating the involvement of other participants and promoting communication and knowledge flows. Based on an original empirical dataset of organizations involved in five publicly-funded policy programmes in support of innovation networks, we identify different types of intermediaries based on an analysis of their positions within networks of relationships. We observe that agents that occupy broker positions-linking agents that are not connected to each other-are more likely to be found in technologically turbulent environments, while the agents that occupy intercohesive positions-bridging cohesive communities of network agents-operate in more stable contexts. Intermediaries in general are more likely to be local associations and governments. However, besides this, it is not possible to clearly identify types of organizations that are more likely to be either brokers or intercohesive agents: different innovation networks may require different organizations to mediate relationships between the other participants.

Micro-Foundations for Innovation Policy, 2008

In different scientific fields (e.g., organisation and business studies, economics), and in policy practice, there is growing attention for the importance of interorganisational relationships (iors) and networks (ions). Central issues are the functioning and performance of the business community in general, and the relationship between iors and ions for the innovative behaviour of organisations in particular. It is believed that having iors and being part of ions is beneficial to innovation. However, reviews that have been done so far, predominantly focus on the effects of so-called dyads on innovation (i.e., the iors between two organisations) (Pittaway et al. 2004), whereas only Provan et al. (2007) reviewed generic effects of complete networks on all kinds of organisational outcomes. Our main aim with this chapter is to identify features of socalled egocentric and whole (or complete) networks and their impact on the innovation of individual firms. Moreover, the findings on this relationship are used to evaluate the extent to which current Dutch innovation policy portfolio is geared towards ions. This chapter is organised as follows. Section 2 briefly introduces the relevance of the topic to the Dutch economy by showing to what extent innovation and collaboration are empirically associated. Section 3 introduces the research model and the main arguments supporting it. Subsequently section 4 reports on a review of the literature pertaining to the features of inter-organisational networks and their potential impact on innovation The fifth section shows to what extent current innovation policies impact on networks to achieve their goals. In the final section we draw some conclusions. 1 mint 1992/1993, (n = 689), r&d in 420 companies (South-East Brabant, mainly industry) 2 cint 1996, (n = 363), r&d in 224 companies (The Netherlands, mainly industry) 3 Standardisation 1996 (n = 886), r&d in 535 companies (The Netherlands, only industry) 4 iop Image Processing 1997 (n = 65), r&d in 42 companies (The Netherlands, full sample of one specific technological field) 5 iop Man Machine Interaction 1998 (n = 50), r&d in 38 companies (idem as in 5) 6 cisu 2002 (n = 144), r&d in 85 companies (Province of Utrecht, mainly industry) 7 cisii cbs 1998 (n = 17.193), r&d in 13.178 companies (representative sample of the Dutch population of companies) 8 Knowledge acquisition in partnerships. Poot & Brouwer 2001, (n = 2117) (idem as in 7) * average percentage of cooperation with polytechnic and university Targeted Cooperation required and evaluated Cooperation promoted but not required at funding application in funding application Untargeted NWO* fundamental research asking Measures that distribute R&D grants for team composition and former Measures that promote start-up founding cooperation.

The literature on networks is by now quite extensive. From social networks to organizational networks and beyond, networks have been and continue to be an emerging and developing field of study that has spanned many disciplines, including, but not limited to, organizational theory and behavior, strategic management, business studies, health care †The authors would like to thank Joe Galaskiewicz for his insights and comments during the development of this article. science, physics, and psychology. In recent years, there have been a number of review articles on social and organizational networks, most recently by and by . In general, there has been considerable progress in understanding what networks are, how they are structured, how they operate, and even how they develop.

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2012

Previous research has shown that formal networks can play a crucial role in the formation of technological innovation systems (TIS). Firms and other actors collaborate in formal networks not only to generate new knowledge but also to strategically create and shape supportive system resources such as technology specific R&D programs. This paper takes a closer look at the resources, which are developed and deployed by networks to facilitate the building up of a TIS. Networks rely not only on the organizational resources of their members but also on new resources developed at the network level including network governance structures, trust among network members, a common understanding of the strategic goals or a good reputation of the network. Our analysis shows that the capacity of networks to fulfill different tasks of system building especially depends on the network resources they are able to establish. With the differentiation of organizational, network and system resources we introduce a conceptual framework, which makes three important contributions. It highlights the strategic nature of (innovation) system building; it allows us comparing the contribution of different actors and formal networks in this regard; and it improves our understanding of how firm and system level processes are intertwined.