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In today's competitive, globalized marketplace, the provision of services and products is a result of teamwork between several organizations. Relationships between organizations of any size are strategically important. If your supplier falls down at a crucial moment, it can have survival implications for your company or for other members of your supply chain. The management of these strategic assets cannot be left to chance and the same attention that you devote to finance, operations, HR, etc. must be applied to business relationships. Despite this, very few organizations focus on this or are even aware that they need to do it. Those that do are unsure how to do it. This is not helped by business schools that focus on either customer relationship management (CRM) or supplier relationship management (SRM) rather than collaboration between partners (Enterprise Relationship Management). This book is a unique'go-to'guide for all managers who should be looking at collaboration with other organizations as a new way to attain outstanding results that would not be achieved on their own. Currently, there is nothing else of this nature on the market. The book identifies relationship management as a pivotal management function. It presents a comprehensive, flexible, end-to-end management process that can be easily incorporated into the existing management structures. Further, they describe the crucial role of the relationship manager who is at the heart of the system and provides the drive to achieve high performance. Any company can tailor this discipline to the needs of its organization – whether an SME or a multi-national company selecting a new partner or managing existing relationships. This book covers the decision of whether or not to partner and with whom, the creation of an appropriate system of governance, the transition to operations, managing performance for continuous improvement, and, finally, controlled wind-up of the partnership. Throughout, diagrams to signpost the sequence of activities, checklists of important actions, and job-related worksheets are provided. In addition, there are numerous case studies in a variety of industries and public sectors that will be used as illustrations. Altogether these make this book ideally suitable for experienced managers as well as for training and induction purposes. Essentially, Implementing and Managing Collaborative Relationships: A Practical Guide for Managers shows managers how they can create and operate a simple and effective system of Enterprise Relationship Management that will enable them to maximize efficiency, resilience, innovation, and profitability.

HOW HR CAN STEP UP AND RISE UP These are exciting times for HR. Now is the time to lead a powerful people agenda for business success. Evidence proves that the best organisations have the most dynamic HR functions. However, HR cannot succeed alone. It can deliver only when its work is embraced, embedded and lived by leaders and managers across the organisation. The critical factor is HR's relationships. This book shows how HR can build strategic purpose and value-adding partnerships that drive business success and boost HR's credibility, influence and reputation. • Real-life HR experiences and practical approaches • New, research-led framework of seven HR Enablers • Self-inquiry and resources to re-energise and inspire HR people at all levels.

Jobs & Wozniak, Page & Brin, Ben & Jerry... any list of successful companies seems awash with cofounders who are a match made in business heaven. The benefits are obvious: by combining resources, knowledge, expertise and motivation, cofounders can often build something far more successful together compared to going solo. And yet... two-thirds of startups fail because of disagreements between founders. Why? Because cofounding isn't as simple as drawing up an agreement and shaking hands on it. In fact, there are seven steps required to build cofounding teams that win and last. Cofounding The Right Way will take you through these steps, one simple step at a time, from finding the right cofounders all the way through to structuring your team, splitting the equity, making sure everyone stays motivated and documenting it in your cofounding agreement. Is a partnership even right for you in the first place? That's Step No. 1! Get your cofounding team right, and you'll be in the best possible position to handle any challenge that's thrown in your direction. Get it wrong and not even the best business idea will be able to survive. Foreword by Mike Moyer, author of Slicing Pie.

Managing Alliance Portfolios and Networks is a volume in the book series Research in Strategic Alliances that focuses on providing a robust and comprehensive forum for new scholarship in the field of strategic alliances. In particular, the books in the series cover new views of interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and models, significant practical problems of alliance organization and management, and emerging areas of inquiry. The series also includes comprehensive empirical studies of selected segments of business, economic, industrial, government, and non-profit activities with wide prevalence of strategic alliances. Through the ongoing release of focused topical titles, this book series seeks to disseminate theoretical insights and practical management information that should enable interested professionals to gain a rigorous and comprehensive understanding of the field of strategic alliances. Managing Alliance Portfolios and Networks contains contributions by leading scholars in the field of strategic alliance research. The 9 chapters in this volume deal with significant issues relating to the management of alliance portfolios and alliance networks. These issues range from value creation in alliance ecosystems, management lessons from social enterprise, and a configurational perspective on alliance management capabilities, to the competition dynamics of alliance networks, internationalization of an alliance portfolio, and structural embeddedness of alliance networks during industry convergence. The chapters contain empirical as well as conceptual treatments of the selected topics, and collectively present a wide-ranging review of the noteworthy research perspectives on managing alliance portfolios and alliance networks.

This book provides approachable and insightful chapters that summarize state-of-the-art thinking and research on alliances and networks. Contributions by leading scholars cover foundations or fundamentals as well as frontier areas through a diverse range of perspectives. Topics include:the theoretical foundations of collaborative strategyfirms'partner selection and investment decisionscontractual foundations of collaborationrelational and behavioral aspects of collaboration, networks and portfoliosnovel collaborative relationships such as ecosystems and public-private partnerships, and the consequences of inter-organizational collaborations.For doctoral and masters students, as well as managers new to the area of collaborative strategy, this collection provides concise chapters and literature reviews that make it an invaluable resource. Business practitioners and consultants who want to learn about this area and the underlying theory will also find this book a useful reference.Contributors: A. Ariño, B. Arslan, N. Asgari, R.P. Bremner, S.M. Bruhs, C. Butter, S. Cabral, L. Capron, T. Chi, J. Choi, F.J. Contractor, Y. Doz, P. Dussauge, J. Dyer, K.M. Eisenhardt, D.W. Elfenbein, A. Gambardella, F. Habasche, J. Hagedoorn, D.P. Hannah, K.R. Harrigan, W. Hesterly, M.A. Hitt, W.H. Hoffmann, P. Kale, A. Keller, I. Kivleniece, T. Kretschmer, D. Lavie, S. Lazzarini, D. Li, J. Li, R. Madhavan, X. Martin, O.J. Martinez, K.J. Mayer, T. Mellewigt, L.F. Mesquita, W. Mitchell, K. Neumann, T. Nguyen, J.E. Oxley, C. Panico, L. Poppo, J. Prescott, B.V. Quélin, R. Ragozzino, J.J. Reuer, M. Rivera-Santos, A. Seth, B.S. Silverman, H. Singh, K. Singh, I. Stern, M. Stienstra, M. Sytch, S. Tallman, B.S. Vanneste, F. Wohlgezogen, X. Zhe, M. Zollo

Networking: Kontakte knüpfen und pflegen. Professionelles Networking ist eine lohnende Investition! Sie erleichtert das Leben, denn gemeinsam kommen wir alle besser voran – beruflich wie privat. - Ihre Investition: Zeit, Ideen, Energie, manchmal auch Geld. - Ihre Belohnung: Inspiration, Information, Ermutigung, Unterstützung. Die praxiserprobten Tipps dieses Ratgebers helfen Ihnen dabei, effizient zu Netzwerken. Zudem profitieren Sie von den Erfahrungen prominenter Netzwerker, die zu Wort kommen. Darum geht es: - Erhöhen Sie Ihre Berufschancen durch starke Netzwerke. - Erarbeiten Sie mit den integrierten Fragen Ihre Networking-Strategie. - Pflegen Sie Ihre Beziehungen sorgsam.

Entrepreneurship is undoubtedly a social process and creating a firm requires both the mobilisation of social networks and the use of social capital. This book addresses the gap that exists between the need to take these factors into consideration and the understanding of how network relationships are developed and transformed across the venturing process.Expert contributions from key scholars in the field illustrate how social networks evolve across entrepreneurial stages, using studies from different regions across the world. Offering a comprehensive understanding, they emphasize the role of formal networks created inside professions and firms. Also examined is the impact of context including both family and internationally variable institutions that can help entrepreneurs to access resources and competencies useful for their projects. The book concludes by emphasizing the various research challenges: which theories are useful for our endeavors and which new methods can be used to understand the dynamics of the venturing process?Dynamic and eminently practical, this book will be invaluable to scholars and students studying the entrepreneurial process and the impact of social networks. It will also prove a useful tool in aiding entrepreneurs to optimize the development of their networks and better manage their entrepreneurial processes.Contributors include: L. Aaboen, M.A. Abebe, A.R. Anderson, M. Brettel, D. Chabaud, H. Chebbi, M. de Beer, S. Drakopoulou Dodd, A. Fayolle, R.T. Harrison, F.M. Hill, S.L. Jack, W. Jansen, W. Lamine, H. Lawton-Smith, C. Lechner, C.M. Leitch, C. Leyronas, F. Lind, S. Loup, A.B.R. Lwango, R. Mauer, S. Mian, G. Mollenhorst, J. Ngijol, S. Qureshi, T. Redd, V. Schutjens, M. Virahsawmy, S. Wu

a curated collection of easily readable summaries of recent academic research papers from the world's leading business schools on networks and communications

This monograph presents a tactical planning approach for service network design in metropolitan areas. Designing the service network requires the suitable aggregation of demand data as well as the anticipation of operational relocation decisions. To this end, an integrated approach of data analysis and mathematical optimization is introduced. The book also includes a case study based on real-world data to demonstrate the benefit of the proposed service network design approach. The target audience comprises primarily research experts in the field of traffic engineering, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students.

Managing Multipartner Strategic Alliances is a volume in the book series Research in Strategic Alliances that focuses on providing a robust and comprehensive forum for new scholarship in the field of strategic alliances. In particular, the books in the series cover new views of interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and models, significant practical problems of alliance organization and management, and emerging areas of inquiry. The series also includes comprehensive empirical studies of selected segments of business, economic, industrial, government, and non-profit activities with wide prevalence of strategic alliances. Through the ongoing release of focused topical titles, this book series seeks to disseminate theoretical insights and practical management information that should enable interested professionals to gain a rigorous and comprehensive understanding of the field of strategic alliances. Managing Multipartner Strategic Alliances contains contributions by leading scholars in the field of strategic alliance research. The 10 chapters in this volume cover a number of significant topics related to the formation, operation, and performance of multipartner strategic alliances (i.e., alliances with more than two members) that are increasingly being formed in various industrial sectors. The chapter topics cover both the broader issues, such as the peculiar complexities of multipartner alliances that arise because of indirect or generalized reciprocities among its multiple members vis-à-vis the direct reciprocity within dyadic or two-member alliances, and the roles of power and multilevel embeddedness, and the more focused topics of managing triadic alliances, the evolution of an airline alliance, and the nature of value creation in a consortium. The chapters include empirical as well as conceptual treatments of the selected topics, and collectively present a wide-ranging review of the noteworthy research perspectives on the nature, management, and performance of multipartner alliances.

Some structural elements of networks carry over to features of dynamic competition in network industries that, through increasing return mechanisms on innovation based industries, generate sustainable growth and create industrial linkages as a backbone to industrial/economic growth. The project focuses on the integration of network structure, industrial competition and industrial growth processes into a coherent mechanism design. This text should be of interest to policy analysts/ makers, industry strategists/ consultants, students of industrial economics/organization, entrepreneurship/ management and economic journalists alike with interest in and focus on strategic and structural foundations of network economies and their industrial implications. The book is also designed to be used as a text for a course in business strategy as it could serve as a supplementary text to industrial organization and being part of the micro-foundations of economic growth and development neglected in the mostly macro-centered economic growth literature. Content-wise, links are drawn from the structure of networks to dynamic competition in innovation focused industries, its restrictions and abuses of dominance in market structures and potential future markets for antitrust, to the growth of industries through increasing returns mechanisms in complementary markets and the consequences for industrial growth and development. Coverage includes: 1. Integrating Networks, Dynamic Competition and Industrial Growth, 2. Networks, Technology and Competition, 3. Dynamics of Competition and Market Dynamics, 4. Increasing Returns Mechanism, 5.Industrial and Economic Growth: A Review, 6. Mechanism Design for Economic Development, and 7. Network-centered Industrial Growth. The central theme of this compilation is the interplay of competition, innovation, cooperation and market structure along vertical and horizontal industry lines. Interaction and interdependencies are facilitated and sometimes bottlenecked through networks most naturally prevalent in high technology industries. This forms the core basis of business strategy relating to the growth of business and complementary activities through innovation, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and related strategic choices.

Over the past few decades, alliance and networks have been generally examined individually. This Handbook sheds new light on this research by combining the two topics and focuses on highlighting their similarities.The expert contributors discuss topics surrounding the state-of-the-art in alliance and network research such as organizing opportunities in international entrepreneurship; transaction costs in alliances and joint ventures; diaspora networks; and national culture and international alliances. They go on to look at conceptual developments relating to born globals; subsidiary performance; internationalisation; and knowledge transfer and organisational learning. Finally, they present empirical evidence of international alliances and networks. They combine diverse types of studies including literature reviews, conceptual papers and empirical studies in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the topic.Researchers with an interest in joint ventures and alliance and networks, along with students and academics of international business will find this book to be a valuable resource.Contributors: S. Andersson, U. Andersson, A. Arslan, G.B. Awuah, P Ekman, M. Elo, C. Erixon, N. Evers, P.N. Ghauri, M. Hilmersson, M. Hsia-Wen Ho, M. Johanson, V. Kaartemo, J. Larimo, C. López-Duarte, H. Lundberg, T. Mainela, H. Makkonen, M. Marinov, S.T. Marinova, L.-G. Mattsson, H. Merchant, K.E. Meyer, N. Mirc, N. Nummela, R. Olkkonen, U.F. Ott, S. Papaioannou, E. Pernu, V. Puhakka, P.A. Ryan, S. Saarenketo, A. Salmi, P. Servais, A. Smith, A. Thyr, L. Torkkeli, P. Very, M.M. Vidal-Suárez, Y. Wang

Benjamin Frommann untersucht, ob und unter welchen Voraussetzungen Netzwerke eigene organisationale Kompetenzen entwickeln. Auf der theoretischen Grundlage der Strukturationstheorie nach A. Giddens beschreibt er Unternehmensnetzwerke als soziale Systeme. Das Netzwerk wird als eigenständige Organisationsform neben Markt und Hierarchie aufgefasst. Im Zentrum der Analyse stehen die Kompetenzen von Unternehmungsnetzwerken, die auf den Dimensionen Können, Wollen und Dürfen aufgebaut werden. Hierbei wird insgesamt eine breit gefächerte Übersicht über die Grundlagen und Einflussmöglichkeiten bei der Kompetenzentwicklung gegeben. Die Arbeit bietet der Kompetenzforschung eine gute theoretische Fundierung.

In today's networked economy, each organization is more and more shaped by the system of its long-term business interactions. Innovation processes cannot be successfully designed and managed unless the complex influences of business networking on innovation processes and innovation-related performances are clearly understood. But extant theories on business networks are fragmented, and each of them, taken singularly, provides only partial or poor understanding of the impacts of business networking on innovation performances. Based on qualitative research on three exemplary worst practices and on expert panel discussion and validation, Francesca Ricciardi develops novel quantitative models in this theory-building work to explain innovation performances in different interorganizational networks.

Am 17. Februar 2012 trat Christian Wulff nach 598 Tagen von seinem Amt als Bundespräsident zurück. Obwohl sich vor Gericht auch der letzte gegen ihn erhobene Vorwurf als haltlos erwies, reichte die öffentliche Demütigung noch über den Tag des Freispruchs hinaus. Niemals zuvor haben die Medien unseres Landes einen Politiker in solcher Weise verfolgt. Auch das Verhalten der Staatsanwaltschaften in Celle und Hannover wirft Fragen auf. Ging alles mit rechten Dingen zu? Nachdem sich bisher Andere mit der Causa Wulff auseinandergesetzt haben, schildert nun Christian Wulff aus seiner Sicht, wie die Affäre inszeniert wurde, was sich hinter den Kulissen abspielte und wie es sich anfühlt, derlei massiven Angriffen ausgesetzt zu sein. Auch seine eigenen Fehler benennt er. Ganz oben Ganz unten ist ein Lehrstück über Politik, Presse und Justiz, das nachdenklich macht.

Il lavoro analizza il ruolo assunto dall'impresa nel tessuto economico-sociale del nostro ordinamento. Particolare attenzione viene dedicata ad alcuni istituti cardine relativi all'impresa societaria, anche con riferimento agli aspetti patologici dell'esercizio dell'attività imprenditoriale, allorquando l'impresa si trovi in una situazione di crisi. L'attenzione viene quindi focalizzata su alcuni principi del diritto dell'impresa esercitata in forma collettiva, attualmente coinvolti in un processo che si può definire di destrutturazione o''decommercializzazione''del diritto societario. Emblema.

Relationships of individual and groups among three-plus firms represent the cornerstone concept in business-to-business (B2B) contexts. The three-plus firms include manufacturer-supplier to manufacturer-customer to distributor-customer, and facilitators (e.g., transportation and management consulting firms). The common thread of the five papers in this volume is that making sense and achieving deep knowledge of three-plus B2B relationships are necessary antecedents for achieving high operating effectiveness, high (on-time) efficiency, and sustaining profits for each firm in these relationships. As the titles of the five papers imply, reading the volume provides deep insights into the specifics of how high performing three-plus B2B relationships influences these three major objectives of the firm: National Cultures? Impacts on Western Industrial Buyer-Seller Relational Process Models; Developing Guanxi Relations; Industrial Buyer-Seller Relations in a Chinese Context; Adaptation in Business Contexts; Working Triadic Relationships; How Do Managers See It? Capturing Practitioner Theories via Network Pictures.

​Interorganisationalen Netzwerken wird nachgesagt, eine besonders flexible wirtschaftliche Organisationsform zu sein. Erst in jüngster Zeit finden sich Studien, die belegen, dass es auch in Netzwerken – bzw. allgemeiner: in Interorganisationsbeziehungen – zu strukturellen Beharrungstendenzen kommt. Diese Arbeit untersucht, inwiefern die noch junge Theorie der interorganisationale Pfadabhängigkeit derlei Rigiditäten erklären kann. Dafür werden vier Fallstudien von Verteilungspraktiken von Kooperationserfolgen in der opto-elektronischen Industrie untersucht. Im Ergebnis wird gezeigt, dass Netzwerkrigidität durch selbstverstärkende Koordinations- und Komplementaritätseffekte entstehen kann.

Organizing for Sustainable Effectiveness highlights research and practice aimed at understanding how organizations and more inclusive systems of actors develop a continuous, unfaltering focus on sustainability. It will examine how they organize to achieve expanded purposes, the associated changes in purpose and governance, relationships among various stakeholders, boundaries between organizations and other elements of the environment in which they operate, organizational systems and processes, leadership, competencies and capabilities. Thus'sustainability'is seen as entailing a continuous dynamic adaptive process in people, organizations and systems, striving to be as proactive as possible, moving'upstream'in improving and developing organizational processes and issues.

Education, Research, Health, Social Security and other “public goods” are organized by a mix of organizations, partly publicly-funded, partly private enterprises, partly public-private partnerships. The quality of the services relies greatly on the coordination and collaboration of these specialized organizations. How can cooperative relationships be built that guarantee trustful communication, binding decisions, and productive team-work? How can collaboration and competition be balanced? What are the differences between loose-coupled networks and tightly built collaborations and which type is the best solution for which tasks? How can mergers be managed as result of such collaboration? How must organizations prepare themselves and their internal structures to engage in trans-organizational collaboration? This volume investigates the potential and challenges inherent in collaborative ventures. It is based on the authors'rich experiences derived from consulting engagements and research projects in publicly-funded service organizations, non-profit organizations, public-private partnerships, and for-profit enterprises. The focus is on the role that management consultants can play in facilitating such collaborative ventures. Especially within the European context, this particular organizational form is becoming an increasingly common and powerful type of organizational system, and, as such, interventions that can ease and expedite their performance demand our attention and scholarship. As the authors skillfully document and illustrate, cooperative relationships and networks function according to their own underlying logic, which is typically grounded in a spirit of collaboration and negotiation. As they argue, the resulting dynamic reflects a different perspective on building interpersonal, intergroup, and interorganizational relationships, one that is removed from historic attempts at coordination through tight hierarchical control, which, as they underscore, is often “inflexible, bureaucratic, and incapable” of achieving the level of commitment and dedication necessary for success. Collaborative ventures involve goals that must be jointly pursued, the partnerships must strive for levels commitment, involvement and motivation from their members that go well beyond those that hierarchical top-down structures typically provide. As the authors convincingly demonstrate, such high levels of collaboration do not emerge on their own. Mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships, and strategic alliances are often launched with great fanfare, only to fall well short of pre-venture expectations. To truly work in practice, collaborative relationships and networks must be deliberately formed, developed, organized, and guided. Yet, as this volume amply illustrates, the underlying process is infused with a number of tensions – from the challenge of balancing collaboration and competition, to the appropriate mix of loose-tight controls and linkages, to ensuring commitment from members to the partnership while they maintain allegiance to their primary organization. This volume appeals to an international market. It is part of an effort to continue to learn across cultural perspectives, focusing on current thinking in the European context. The reader will become intrigued by the Austrian approach to organizational intervention, especially in the context of interorganizational settings.

The aim of the Managing Networks of Creativity is to improve our understanding of creativity and the management of creativity, as discussed in the fields of management (including strategic management, organization science, organizational behaviour, and entrepreneurship), economics, sociology, regional studies, and political science. While research on creativity has made several important contributions to the theoretical literature, little attention has been paid to the development and testing of formal theoretical models, especially in those cases where creativity is the result not so much of individual behaviour than the outcome of collective efforts, connecting individuals in organizations, social networks, projects, geographic clusters, and so forth. The proposed volume includes studies, both conceptual and empirical, which, as a whole,'deconstruct'the concept of creativity and the management of creativity by identifying specific situations, contexts, firms, clusters, and districts in which creative processes evolve. The reader is provided with in-depth discussions of theoretical issues and a range of descriptive cases and survey data that the authors use to explore or test concepts and models. Overall, the volume aims to integrate current debates concerning the role of creativity (and innovation) in economic and social development.

'This book investigates the beginning of social networks and provides perspectives on how they can enhance business, covering discussions on the main issues, challenges, opportunities, and trends related to the range of new developments and applications in business social networking'--Provided by publisher.

This book explores how naturally connected organizations ( NCOs) can survive and thrive in an increasingly unpredictable world using the principles of natural connectivity, organic growth and collaboration. It shows how naturally connected organizations are resilient through cycles of boom and bust. The book argues that the success of these organizations is in their design, and that they are the organizations of the 2lst century. They demonstrate that a natural way of running a global business can work. This book builds on earlier work on networks and contributes to the Organizational Design field of management study. Naturally connected organizations are associations of companies and/or individuals, which function via collaboration, communication and connectivity for a shared purpose. NCOs use organic organizing principles rather than control mechanisms'. Traditional organizations embrace mechanical metaphors, the results of which are engineered or re-engineered organizations based on command and control. NCOs are based on natural, organic metaphors.

Description based on print version record.

This book assesses the nature and development of collaborative advantages as a means to boost international competitiveness as well as the performance of both organisations and nations.Business Relating Business argues that business performance depends on the way a firm is connected to other firms and organisations and not just its own skill and resources. The book synthesises thinking from marketing, management, economics and international business with evolutionary biology and complexity theory, as well as integrating many years'research on interfirm relations and networks. It develops the management and policy implications of adopting relationship and network perspectives and sets out an agenda for future research.Ian Wilkinson brings together the latest thinking and research in the area and this book will be of particular interest to academics focusing on a wide range of subjects within business and management and marketing including: industrial and business-to-business marketing, marketing channels, supply chain management, purchasing, relationship marketing and management, strategic alliances and joint ventures, business strategy and competition. The book will also appeal to economists as well as researchers in management and economic sociology, industrial and organisation structure and strategy.

This compact and authoritative book brings together the topical themes of networks and governance to advance understanding of the determinants of local economic development in the context of increasingly global relationships.Analyzing the governance of networks is critical in understanding how individual localities are able to promote development and consolidate positions within global production systems. In addressing such issues, this book accomplishes a significant bridging of disciplinary boundaries, incorporating different theoretical and empirical perspectives on the meanings and roles of territory, economic development and different forms of networks and governance. Networks, Governance and Economic Development brings together the analysis of leading researchers in their fields, following their interactions at a European Science Foundation exploratory workshop. The chapters will be an invaluable resource to researchers working in the fields of regional economic development, economic geography and economic policy as well as postgraduate students taking modules that specialize in aspects of the above themes.

'This book presents a state-of-the-art discussion of conceptual and applied e-collaboration issues. Business organizations increasingly rely on collaborative processes to maintain their competitiveness. E-collaboration technologies are at the source of something that underlies most business, political, and even societal developments - intense human collaboration'--Provided by publisher.

Over the past five years, since the publication of the breakthrough first edition of Partnering Intelligence, thousands of organizations have increased their'partnering intelligence'(PQ). This all-new edition adds examples for making benchmark comparisons and an award-winning case study of Bank of America and Exult, Inc., to show the process in action. Other new features include the Win-Win Orientation Assessment, statistical information on the PQ Assessment, updated case studies, and PQ profiles of teams and organizations. This updated road map is for anyone who uses strategic par.

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 book provides a detailed, multi-disciplinary analysis of innovation networks in a variety of organisational settings. All the contributors are employed at Aston Business School, which is one of the UK's foremost institutions in terms of both teaching and research. The book illustrates the way in which innovation networks are formed and sustained in a variety of organisational settings: the public sector, public-private collaboration, national policy level, inter-organisational credit links, as well as the more traditional focus on manufacturing firms. The strength of the network approach is that it encourages detailed analyses of the dyadic links which must be mobilised in the innovation process. At the same time, networks provide a framework for exploring the multiple sources and pluralistic patterns of communication typical of innovatory activity. Therefore, in contrast to much of the innovation network research undertaken in recent years, the focus of this book is as much on notions of “network as method” as on “network as phenomenon”.

Cover title.