Theories Explaining Inter-Organizational Relationships in Terms of Strategic Challenges

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter presents three research lines that, although independently developed and focusing on different levels of analysis, share the claim that inter-organizational relationships are very important determinants of organizational strategic capabilities, such as competitiveness and innovativeness.Organizational Ecology theories focus on organizational populations and organizational communities, and show that inter-organizational relationships play different roles in different phases of organizational community evolution. When conditions of environmental openness allow new niches, cooperative and symbiotic inter-organizational relationships protect new and innovative organizations; but when the business environment gets saturated, inter-organizational competition results in organizational mortality, while cooperative relationships are likely to trigger negative inertial processes that hinder further innovation and make the system more and more fragile, until it finally collapses.The Resource Based View, on the other side, provides explanations on the possible positive role of inter-organizational relationships in yielding sustainable competitive advantage for individual firms. Trustful and effective relationships with business partners may allow access to valuable resources, and high-quality relationships are, per se, hardly imitable and replaceable. Therefore, the Resource Based View and its corollary, the relational based view, claim that inter-organizational relationships are a key potential source of sustainable competitive advantage.Knowledge Networks research, which is the third stream presented in this chapter, focuses on knowledge as the key resource that can be transferred, shared and developed throughout inter-organizational networks. Through social network analysis and graph theory, this research line investigates how the structure of the network, the nature of the relationships, and the characteristics of partners influence knowledge-related performances such as innovativeness.Because of their strong links with the three theories above, also some basic concepts of Dynamic Capabilities, Intellectual Capital and Social Capital literature are briefly presented in this chapter.KeywordsSocial CapitalOrganizational CommunityIntellectual CapitalDynamic CapabilityKnowledge NetworkThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.