Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
14 The evolution of a strategic alliance network:
exploring the case of stock photography
Johannes Glückler
1. Introduction
Over recent years, increasing ef ort has been made to conceptualize an evolutionary
perspective within economic geography (Boschma and Frenken, 2006; Boschma and
Lambooy, 1999). Evolutionary approaches have theorized a variety of conceptions,
among others, the notion of path dependence in regional development (Martin and
Sunley, 2006), the role of technological and sectoral variety in regional innovation
(Boschma and Iammarino, 2009; Rigby and Essletzbichler, 2006) and the idea of co-
evolution in regional development (Schamp, Chapter 20, this topic). Explicitly or
implicitly, many geographical accounts of the economy rely on the notion of networks
to represent and analyse economic processes and modes of organization. A dynamic
perspective of network evolution, however, has experienced only little attention until
recently (Baum et al., 2003; Kilduf and Tsai, 2003; McPherson et al., 2001). The common
research strategies to focus on the temporal dimension of networks have been twofold.
On the one hand, contingency models of networks have analysed the appropriateness of
certain network forms for dif erent environmental conditions. Empirical research dem-
onstrates, for example, that when i rms operate under conditions of exploration, that
is, high uncertainty and high innovation rates, weak ties and loose coupling are more
benei cial than strong ties. In turn, when i rms operate under conditions of exploitation,
that is, stable market conditions and mature products, strong ties are more advantageous
(Rowley et al., 2000). On the other hand, sequential models of non-linear cyclical change
have been applied to the evolution of i rms (Hite and Hesterly, 2001; Lavie, 2004) and
regional clusters (Staber, 1997). Within the framework of organizational ecology, Staber
(1997) found that in the beginning of a textile cluster, dense networks with strong ties
between i rms were benei cial in order to circulate knowledge and to ally for joint lobby-
ing. In later stages of cluster development, however, when an increasing number of i rms
competed for the same resources, that is, labour, expertise, capital and so on, weak ties
became more important (Staber, 2001). Though these models recognize the ephemeral
nature of network structure, they are relatively silent on the endogenous mechanisms
that drive network evolution because they always use external environmental changes to
explain responses in network development.
This chapter aims at exploring and connecting network evolution with the wider
project of an evolutionary economic geography (Glückler, 2007). Concretely, this
chapter pursues two questions. First, are there endogenous network dynamics, that is,
mechanisms within network structure that drive the dynamics of inter-i rm networks
and help to explain future network structure? Second, is geographical proximity asso-
ciated with growth patterns of these inter-i rm networks? The empirical challenge in
evolutionary network research is to i nd appropriate longitudinal structural data on
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