Organizing Principles for Inter-firm Networks

Throughout this volume, we have reflected on the challenges that managers face in their everyday practice at the inter-firm level. Moreover, we have also examined a concise number of issues that must be addressed by them. Concluding this volume, it is only appropriate to present a comprehensive set of recommendations for network managers. Literature on network management includes an important number of recommendations on various issues troubling managers in such complex situations. However, a systematic, step-by-step grouping of such recommendations is still largely missing from the literature. In this chapter, we provide a set of managerial guidelines arranged according to a life cycle model of inter-firm cooperation. These guidelines are the outcome of in-depth research on specific instances of inter-firm networks as presented in the body of this volume. Specific actions are presented at each stage of the life cycle while a set of managerial implications is presented at the end of the chapter.

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