Abstract
The inter-organizational learning approach has shown considerable growth in recent years. The concepts of trust and cooperation between individuals present in the New Economic Sociology (NES) approach of social relations emerge with great emphasis and are gaining prominence as a facilitator and propellant mechanism in transferring knowledge inside networks. This study aims to analyze the learning networks formed by fish-farmers organized into a cooperative to identify the characteristics of the network through structural analysis and identification of its critical actors. The study was performed with thirteen fish-farmers of a cooperative headquartered inMundo Novocounty, which is located inMato Grosso do Sulstate in the Midwest region of Brazil. Questionnaires and interviews with closed and open questions were used to collect the data. Measures of centrality (for individuals), density and reciprocity (in relations between individuals) were obtained from ORA software. The findings revealed that experience exchanges between fish-farmers, events participation, meetings attendance, speech audience and technical advice are the main forms of inter-organizational learning. Results suggest that the network has low levels of cohesion and that it is not taking advantage of its full potential. It was also found that there is a subgroup within the network that presents a high level of cohesion and shared learning based on cooperative informal relationships. Grounded in findings, suggestions for future research are presented.
Highlights
Organizational structures have shown changes over the years, as evidenced mainly by analytical structures of supply chains
The purpose of this paper was to identify the features of the social network formed by COOPISC fish-farmers through the structural analysis of networks and identification of critical actors
The analysis aims to provide data to encourage organizational knowledge sharing in the network and to identify the importance of the social network in obtaining inter-organizational learning
Summary
Organizational structures have shown changes over the years, as evidenced mainly by analytical structures of supply chains. These changes have resulted in major impacts on competitive strategies, forcing organizations to establish organizational arrangements based on cooperation with other organizations. The search for external partners to leverage the development and growth of an organization is required because it has limited human, financial and technical resources. To overcome these constraints, organizations can develop interactivity with their environment. Cooperation networks become instruments of exchange of information and technology, transaction cost reduction and increase in market access
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