NETWORK RESOURCES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF INTERORGANIZATIONAL EXCHANGE

My book, Managing Network Resources (Oxford University Press, 2007), introduced the idea of “network resources,” valuable assets that accrue to a firm not from within its boundaries but from its ties to key external constituents including but not limited to partners, suppliers, and customers.

As a follow up to this work, my coauthors and I are using a large-scale multi-respondent survey dataset to examine directly the performance of individual alliances from each partner’s standpoint and consider how each partners’ network resources, among other factors, may influence performance levels. By simultaneously assessing the performance of alliances from each partner’s vantage point and the role of network resources and other key factors in shaping ultimate success, this study present a unique window into interorganizational activity.

This is a book I have been eager to see. Gulati has done a service to his colleagues in bringing together in one convenient reference so many of his influential papers. More than is possible in journal articles, the book provides an integrated view, in broader perspective, of Gulati’s productive study of alliances as a network phenomenon
Ronald S. Burt

Hobart W. Williams Professor of Sociology and Strategy, University of Chicago