This book examines the inter-firm networks created by interlock coordination through shared directors (inter-board) and managers (inter-department) at various levels: whole aggregate, core vs. peripheral companies, and distribution by country and sector. Presenting an empirical case study on all the limited liability or stock companies of the aerospace industry in the European Union and its interlock partners worldwide, the authors shed new light on these forms of coordination. Moreover, they reveal the relevance of shared managers’ coordination and hybrid manager-director interlocks. The book applies advanced statistical and social network analysis alike by combining firms’ attributes (e.g. standard economic-financial parameters) and topological indices for firms (e.g. centrality and cluster measures). By conducting the analysis at both the aggregate network level and the cluster or corporate group level, the authors show how extensive and intensive the interlock forms of coordination are, especially when dealing with shared managers. By testing seven hypotheses concerning the research stream on board interlocks and (more broadly) inter-firm networks, the study offers new insights into the role of the financial sector, on the relations between interlock coordination and firms’ performance, on the role of geographical, technological and organizational proximity, and on the relations between interlock coordination and firms’ size. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of organization studies, business and management studies, industrial and evolutionary economics, and economic sociology, as well as officers and policymakers at anti-trust regulation institutions.

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.

The purpose of this book is to provide a state-of-the-art overview of current research on spatial industrial clusters and inter-firm networks. Given the current political belief in many countries and regions that clusters can be a major vehicle for economic development and growth, it is important to have a good understanding of industrial clusters and how they emerge, grow, eventually stagnate and disappear. Also an understanding is needed about when and how to apply policy measures to support cluster development to increase economic welfare. This book contributes to the theoretical and empirical understanding of industrial clusters and cluster policies and offers a number of interesting case studies of industrial clusters and inter-firm networks from several different countries.

The focus of this volume is on the myriad dynamics associated with these interorganizational ventures. Emphasis is placed on (1) understanding the nature of these different interorganizational forms and (2) ways to enhance their effectiveness, creating and sustaining complex problem-solving capabilities and collaborative tendencies in a multiorganizational environment. While the orientation of many of the initiatives and interventions in this volume reflects a traditional organization-development (OD) focus, emphasis is placed on working across organizational interfaces, attempting to create the capacity and systemic potential for greater interorganizational learning and performance, rather than releasing human potential solely within an organization (see, e.g., Cummings, 1984). Consultants and researchers in this realm thus focus on spanning organizations, creating and modifying networks of participants that (1) have a stake in particular interorganizational outcomes and (2) depend on those inter-firm relationships and networks to accomplish their goals.

'This well-edited volume should be on the shelf of every regional development agency library. Its seventeen chapters written by 31 predominantly academic contributors are divided into four coherent sections: the first on cluster and network modelling, the next on empirical analysis, a third on case studies, finishing with two chapters on policy analysis and strategies.' - Tony Jackson, Journal of Economic Development This book provides a state-of-the-art overview of spatial industrial clusters and inter-firm networks. Given the prevailing political belief that clusters can be a major vehicle for economic development and growth, it is important to have a sound understanding of clusters and how they emerge, grow, eventually stagnate and disappear. It is also vital to know when and how to apply policy measures to support cluster development in order to increase economic welfare. This book illuminates both the theoretical and empirical issues relating to clusters and inter-firm networks, and presents a number of interesting case studies from a variety of different countries.

'A Handbook of Industrial Districts is a very well-organized and structured collection of scientific works on the theory of industrial districts.' - Roberta Capello, Regional Studies In this comprehensive original reference work, the editors have brought together an unrivalled group of distinguished scholars and practitioners to comment on the historical and contemporary role of industrial districts.

This book examines the nature of interfirm networks and their role in promoting industrial competitiveness. Drawing on a variety of case studies the contributors present a balanced theoretical and empirical approach.

Provides in-depth understanding about business-to-business (B2B) and organizational relationships. This title includes descriptions on how B2B networks form, function and develop and is for readers who want to delve into how B2B relationships actually work and, frequently, do not work.

Japan's post-war success in the assembly industries is frequently attributed to innovative approaches to organising production. This book illustrates how Japanese firms have tended to forge intircate networks of long-term interfirm business relationships.

In Economics, networks are increasingly used to describe the many links created between independent companies, as well as between them and other institutions (universities, banks, venture capital, etc.). In the current global and knowledge-based economy, they can be characterised as knowledge factories and knowledge boosters. They feed the internal processes of innovation (collaborative innovation) or the external processes of innovation, created by the propagation effects that come from inter-firm collaboration. The book explains how innovation networks are at the origin of the production of new knowledge that will be transformed and used in common as well as in separated production processes. This characteristic of networks as knowledge factories gives incentives to further investment in the production of knowledge and ensures the cumulativeness of the innovation process. Some of the authors clearly take a territorial point of view and study how clusters (in different parts of the world: Europe, Eastern Asia and North America) propelled by the quality of the innovation networks they enclose, can be characterised as knowledge pools into which the local actors will be able to draw to reinforce their individual and collective competitiveness. This book also includes analyses of the quality of the networks built within clusters, which may help their identification.