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In the recent past more and more attention has been dedicated to the development of a network approach. Unfortunately, in many cases efforts undertaken so far have chosen a static point of view neglecting the time-factor involved; or, if they paid attention to it, they were comparative-static at best. As a consequence, evolution of networks as a period-of-time-based phenomenon has not been explored as thoroughly as structures and conditions prevailing at a certain point of time. Furthermore, scholars so far have treated both strands of networks interorganizational and intraorganizational - separately, thus, more or less neglecting the interrelations existing between them. But it is exactly these interrelations that drive the dynamics of network phenomena. This article taking a truly dynamic perspective puts the emergence and evolution of networks into the context of the interrelations between intraorganizational and interorganizational networks. To achieve that, it identifies five effects which may help to explain the rise, prevalence and stabilization, as well as the demise of bilateral relationships and even of whole network-structures.

Combinatorial auctions are formulated as frustrated lattice gases on sparse random graphs, allowing the determination of the optimal revenue by methods of statistical physics. Transitions between computationally easy and hard regimes are found and interpreted in terms of the geometric structure of the space of solutions. We introduce an iterative algorithm to solve intermediate and large instances, and discuss competing states of optimal revenue and maximal number of satisfied bidders. The algorithm can be generalized to the hard phase and to more sophisticated auction protocols., 4 pages, 4 figures, minor changes, references added. To appear on PRL