Dynamical Adaptation of Parental Care

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Collaborations in industrial networks: the co-evolutionary perspective

Currently, collaborations in production industry are experiencing a failure rate of 50%, if not more, and control of outsourcing is proving difficult; both findings from earlier research express the difficulties for managing networked enterprises. The lack of a problem-oriented understanding of the required systems setup and underlying control mechanisms might cause this. So far, academic research in management science has expanded models based on the individual company as an entity to address challenges posed by networks. Complementary approaches are required to match the specific characteristics of industrial and enterprise networks. The application of principles of complex systems from natural sciences to collaborative enterprise networks as socio-technical systems might yield these complementary approaches. Five themes emerge from this point of view: dynamic description, coordination possibilities, integrative innovation, path dependency and information sharing. Interdisciplinary research should expand the available knowledge on the underlying mechanisms of collaborations by adopting models from the natural sciences (science of complex systems, network sciences, science of complexity, evolutionary models), and may possibly offer new perspectives to avoid traditional pitfalls (culture, leadership, trust) and to address the five themes