| The newly founded Standing Group on Business Network Research
wishes to introduce itself to EGOS' members and invites all interested
scholars to participate in its activities.
Studies on business networks have been flourishing in the
last decades. They have become one of the liveliest research fields
in organization. In practice, the phenomenon is of growing importance.
It is particularly relevant in Europe, because interfirm coordination
is one of the terrains on which European integration is taking place.
Recent collaborative endeavors(1) have shown that there are various
qualified academic groups working in the area, and have helped increase
their collaboration. These groups represent various disciplines,
theoretical orientations, and study business networks at a variety
of levels. They include:
- studies in organization science, institutional economics, structural
sociology and management;
- studies at the level of social and interpersonal networks,
on network structures within and between firms, on markets as
networks.
Despite mutual recognition and interest in one another's work the
field up to now lacks an institutionalized forum for exchanging
ideas and research results. The proposed Standing Group seeks
to remedy this state of affairs within the framework of EGOS.
Business network research has implications for, and can indeed
contribute to, the development of organization science more generally.
This is because:
- by employing a relational perspective, it tends to disentangle
typological and monolithic conceptions of organization forms (
e.g. ‘bureaucracies, markets and clans’) and to see
other sets of possible organizational configurations;
- it makes use of network analysis techniques supporting configurational
rather than traditional cross-sectional contingency research;
- it invites ‘cross-boundary’ organizational analysis
– whatever these boundaries are (of firms, nations, industries
or others) and a critical reflection on what organizational boundaries
are.
The proposed activities of the Standing Group on Network Research
include:
- providing an international forum for the exchange of ideas
and research results; organizing workshops at EGOS Colloquia,
so as to realize cumulative learning (see the separate Call);
- encouraging joint work among European scholars, through faculty
exchanges, joint submissions to European Programs for collaboration,
joint publications;
- organizing exchanges of doctoral students working in the area
of business network research and arranging doctoral symposia;
- possibly publishing a newsletter informing about relevant activities
in the field.
The Standing Group on Business Network Research aims at
becoming a wide and open community, albeit institutionalized and
able to constitute a reference for action and an arena for debate.
The Standing Group on Business Network Research is coordinated
by Anna Grandori (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and
Bocconi University, Milan, Italy) and Mark Ebers (Augsburg University,
Germany). Its sponsors include a number of internationally
renowned scholars, among them Amin (UK), Blanc (F), Cantwell (UK),
Child (UK), Cohendet (F), Grabher (UK), Grandi (I), Hagedoorn (NL),
Håkansson (SW), Jarillo (CH), Lampel (UK), Lomi (I), Nooteboom
(NL), Oliver (IL), Ring (USA), Sydow (D), and Van den Bosch (NL).
We invite you to join the Standing Group on Business Network
Research.
Specifically, we ask you to respond to the following three Calls:
Call for Standing Group participants: All those who are
interested in being kept informed on the Standing Group's activities
and in participating in its events should send a statement of interest
to both Mark Ebers and Anna Grandori.
Call for Standing Group activity organizers: All those who
are interested in contributing to the Standing Group's activities,
e.g. by organizing events or by suggesting other activities that
are relevant for the development of the group, are welcome to send
proposals to both Mark Ebers and Anna Grandori.
Call for Participation in the Standing Group's sub-theme at
the EGOS Colloquium in Lyon, 5 – 7th July, 2001: Click
here.
Contact
The Standing Group's coordinators welcome your response, preferably
by email, at the following addresses:
Mark Ebers mark.ebers@wiso.uni-augsburg.de
Anna Grandori anna.grandori@uni-bocconi.it
We look forward to hearing from you.
Anna Grandori and Mark Ebers
(1) A recent Europe-wide experience which helped in connecting
European scholars in the field has been the EMOT Programme (‘European
Management and Organization in Transition’), supported by the
European Science Foundation, directed by Anna Grandori and Richard
Whitley. Two of the five sections of the Programme were related
to interfirm boundaries and networks issues. Moreover, the last
four EGOS Colloquia devoted sub-themes to network research.
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