Concentration Area: Organizational Networks
The Program seeks to analyze, critique, and expand the concepts of organizational networks, developing theories and methodologies capable of identifying, monitoring, and evaluating the performance of networks in their various manifestations. These networks can be investigated from different levels of analysis. When considering the object of analysis, the literature points, among other possibilities, to the observation of the isolated organization, dyads, and chains as a way to understand the networks they are part of, as well as the network as a whole.
On a theoretical level, the literature on organizational networks highlights two main approaches: (1) Social and (2) Economic. These approaches underpin the two research lines of the Graduate Program: "Strategies and Operations in Networks" and "Social Approaches in Networks," demonstrating the strong alignment between the concentration area and the Program's research lines.
Line 1: Strategies and Operations in Networks
This research line considers the economic and competitive aspects of business networks, focusing on projects that reinforce these specialties among its researchers. It is structured into two main thematic axes: i) Strategy in Networks and ii) Operations in Networks.
The Strategy in Networks axis covers the main competitive aspects related to business networks, with emphasis on studies on internationalization strategies, entrepreneurship in franchise networks, and business competitiveness in organizational networks. In this context, research is conducted on:
- Competitiveness of companies embedded in business networks;
- Internationalization strategies in franchise networks;
- Strategy and entrepreneurship in franchise networks.
The Operations in Networks axis includes research focused on interorganizational relationships, considering physical, informational, technological, and financial exchanges in environments such as Global Value Chains, Supply Networks, Business Clusters, and Local Productive Arrangements. The research developed in this axis covers topics such as:
- Competitiveness in clusters;
- Development of operational competencies in supply networks;
- Governance instruments in supply networks;
- Organizational performance;
- Project management;
- Interorganizational networks: evolutionary nature and competitiveness.
Line 2: Social Approaches in Networks
This research line assumes that every network, regardless of its purpose and nature, is composed of a web of social relationships that influences, directs, and conditions the actions, processes, strategies, decisions, and behaviors of the involved actors. Changes in this web of relationships directly impact the governance, processes, and outcomes of organizational networks.
The studies developed in this line seek to understand the correspondences between social relationships and other network variables, such as strategy, innovation, production practices, governance, content, structure, dynamics, and performance.
Currently, the line encompasses research on the following themes:
- Learning, social capital, and governance structure in intraorganizational networks;
- The influence of social relationships on the development, diffusion, and commercialization of innovations, technologies, and products in innovation networks;
- Institutionalism and neo-institutionalism in studies of practices in organizational networks, with an emphasis on public policies;
- Social networks, embeddedness, and social capital, and their interfaces with different forms of entrepreneurship and entrepreneur profiles;
- Trust, commitment, and power relationships, and their connections with classical themes in Administration.