Firms face an environment changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Market opportunities in particular can arise and disappear in a short time. Unfortunately, the speed with which organizations can adapt their strategies and competencies to meet these opportunities remains limited. We argue that firms can address these individual limitations by cooperating with others for access to market opportunities and needed competencies. In this paper, we present a process theory of how a network of firms can reliably engineering and deliver products in the face of rapid market changes. In this theory, the success of the network is predicated on 1) identification and development of competencies, 2) identification and facing of market opportunities, 3) marshalling of competencies and 4) a short-term cooperative effort. Our theory is based on the experiences of Virtual Factory, an organized network for regional cooperation in the manufacturing industry
