Inter-firm Networks: Antecedents, Mechanisms and Forms

Organization Studies · 1995 · Volume 16 · Issue 2

Abstract

This paper is an effort to review and organize the now vast literature on inter firm networks, with the aim of assessing the important current forms of net work, the organizational mechanisms supporting them, and the main variables that have been shown to influence network emergence and shape. These results are achieved through a literature review encompassing a number of approaches across the social sciences. The paper can therefore be used as a typological state-of-art on inter-firm networks, and as a basis for developing hypotheses of relationship between network antecedents and forms.

Keywords

Descriptors: inter-firm networks, network organization, coordination mechanisms, organization theory

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