A série "Advances in Strategic Management" vai editar em 2008 o seu volume 25 dedicado à estratégia em rede. "Network Strategy" será organizado por Joel A.C. Baum e Tim J. Rowley e destacará três tópicos que interessa identificar, desde logo porque se tratam de tópicos relevantes de investigação. São áreas em que continua a haver imensa matéria carente de pesquisa.
"Network Entrepreneurship – Awareness of the structural advantages available to occupants of certain network positions should inspire firms and their managers to seek these advantages. Several perspectives, including structural hole and resource dependence theories, suggest that firms and managers take actions to influence the structure of relationships around them, constructing network barriers to entry that new entrants must overcome. However, there is limited understanding of the extent to which individuals, groups, and firms understand their networks sufficiently well to manipulate the network structure and/or their position within it strategically.
Endogeneity – Although the idea that structural advantages are available to occupants of certain network positions is widely accepted, this idea is based on cross-sectional studies. Is it possible that some advantages precede, rather than follow, network positions? Assumptions of causal order require further theoretical and empirical consideration.
Network Dynamics – Although the sources of network stability are well understood, how networks emerge and change over time is not. Research suggests that interfirm networks commonly exhibit ‘small world’ properties, but is virtually silent regarding why they are patterned in this way. Understanding both exogenous and endogenous drivers of network change is vital to improving our understanding of how networks emerge and take shape."
