Startups networking: how and when to act?

Networking can be defined as the conscious process through which organizations act to achieve their objectives in interaction with partners. Ritter and Ford (2004) argue that organizations network by either conforming or confronting towards partners in existing relationships; either consolidating its network position or creating new relationships; and either coercing or conceding the behavior of its partners. Lui and Ngo (2005) and Tjemkes and Furrer (2010) developed other typologies of actions in the interaction process that include acquiescing, compromising, creating, avoiding, defying and manipulative network actions. The latter typologies have been used to study networking by startups (e.g. Thorgren, Wincent, & Boter, 2012). These previous studies showed that despite of their liabilities of newness and smallness, which make it more difficult to know how and when to act, startups still have room for taking actions. In these studies a single type of action at the time was investigated, for example acquiescing. This limits our understanding of startups’ use of alternative actions. Moreover, existing research into established firms showed that the decision to act in a particular way is influenced by both the willingness and ability to act. The rational underlying a particular action is expected to be different for startups than for established firms because of their fundamentally different characteristics, such as a lack of experience and resources. Therefore, the questions addressed in this paper are: what is the range of actions from which a startup chooses and when does it choose a particular action? These questions are addressed by comparing the network action typologies of Ritter and Ford (2004), Lui and Ngo (2005) and Tjemkes and Furrer (2010) to develop a comprehensive research model. This research model goes beyond their typologies by including the rational underlying the particular actions. Then, this research model is tested by investigating the interactions between a Dutch startup, which develops a new medical device, and its partners. In this way, this study is able to create more in-depth insight compared to existing research that takes a quantitative, cross-sectional approach. The initial findings show that (a) the startup is not always willing to conform to partners even when it is highly dependent on them and (b) the startup’s surrounding network influences its ability to act in a relationship

The relationship between variety and new product development in multipartner alliances: The moderating effect of power asymmetry

Power asymmetry exists in almost all multi-partner alliances. Literature on interpersonal teams suggests that these power differences influence the degree to which variety in partners’ functional purpose and characteristics results in successful new product development. However, little is known about power asymmetry in multi-partner alliances in general, and its effect on the relationship between variety and new product development in specific. Therefore, we investigate the moderation effect of power asymmetry on the relationship between functional, organizational, and industry variety and new product development in multi-partner alliances. For this purpose, we use a database of 409 alliances with multiple partners granted funding from the Netherlands Technology Foundation STW between 2000 and 2004. We find that the negative and positive effects of functional and organizational variety on new product development success in multi-partner alliances are amplified, if power asymmetry is high rather than low. Furthermore, we show that high industry variety increases the chance that a multi-partner alliance will result in new product development success as well as failure, if power asymmetry is low. In addition, we find that the odds of new product development success are usually higher regardless of the level of industry variety, if power asymmetry is high. These results suggest that to get a clear understanding of the benefits (or costs) of variety in multi-partner alliances, future research should always take power asymmetry into account. Moreover, they highlight that business managers should carefully design their multi-partner alliances, both in terms of variety and power relations

The land administration domain model: advancement and implementation

This paper uses developments across a global range of case countries to justify the updates and explain likely implementations. The aim is to provide readers a state-of-play LADM snapshot, and also provide information on likely future additions, modifications, and functionalities

Identification of IT-Needs to Cope with Dynamism in Collaborative Networked Organizations—A Case Study

Collaborative Networked Organizations (CNOs) are increasingly common in current dynamic markets. The participants in a CNO try to achieve a common goal while acting on market opportunities. Information technology (IT) facilitates collaboration between participants within a CNO. In this paper, we show how CNOs cope with network-dynamics related to their IT-needs. Two sub-characteristics of network dynamics, respectively many-to-many relations and interaction patterns, will be investigated. In the end, we are trying to answer the question regarding what IT-needs CNOs have, to cope with CNO-dynamism. Based on a literature review we developed a framework on CNO-dynamism and executed a multi-case study within four CNOs. We conclude that all framework components are recognized within the CNOs. CNOs appeared to mainly cope with dynamics by using collaborative platforms, task management systems, and conference facilities