Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 14
.
3
R2s for year-to-year QAP regressions of the alliance network, 1995-2005
New ties
All ties
Location
†
Point connectivity
Geodesic count
1995 to 1996
2
16
0.000
0.519**
0.638**
1996 to 1997
1
17
0.000
0.536**
0.654**
1997 to 1998
1
18
0.000
0.552**
0.668**
1998 to 1999
4
22
0.000
0.489**
0.587**
1999 to 2000
7
29
0.002*
0.461**
0.519**
2000 to 2001
3
32
0.003*
0.609**
0.655**
2001 to 2002
7
39
0.003*
0.544**
0.608**
2002 to 2003
8
47
0.004**
0.526**
0.607**
2003 to 2004
19
66
0.002*
0.428**
0.459**
2004 to 2005
21
87
0.004**
0.158**
0.123**
Notes:
*
p
< 0.05, **
p
< 0.01, 2000 random permutations;
R
2s are adjusted. Between 1989 and 1995 there were
only eight new entries and a total of 14 alliances. Year-to-year regression would not convey interpretable
results before 1995.
†
The information on the location of an agency is only available for 2005 and thus used consecutively for
regressions in each year of alliance network.
the nature of network expansion were discussed and empirically applied to the context
of inter-organizational alliances in stock photography. Although stock photography
is a small market in i nancial terms and has been largely ignored in academic research,
it is a particularly interesting organizational i eld for the study of network dynamics.
The market has experienced fundamental changes with respect to various dimensions:
digitization in technological terms, new licence models in institutional terms, and new
organizational practices as well as major new entrants to the incumbent i eld. It has been
argued that these environmental changes have given rise to new forms of sales alliances
between picture agencies. Despite the fact that agencies renounce a signii cant share of
revenue with a distribution partner, they increasingly now engage in domestic partner-
ships. Moreover, the sheer number and rate of new alliance formation has grown expo-
nentially over the last couple of years. Since this phenomenon is relatively recent and still
in an early phase, the evolving alliance network represents an ideal case for the study of
network evolution.
The analysis revealed that organizational homophily and popularity bias are relatively
weak conditions for estimating the locus of new alliances. Only organizational diver-
sity, that is, dif erence in i rm size, and geographical co-location were highly signii cant,
yet relatively weak predictors for network growth. The multiconnectivity hypothesis
(Powell et al., 2005) received stronger support. It was measured as the extent to which
two agencies were multiply and indirectly connected via alternative third parties.
Multiconnectivity explained on average half of the variance in the distribution of alli-
ances across the network over a consecutive ten-year period. In sum, two agencies were
more likely to form a sales partnership if they were located in the same metropolitan
region, had dif erent i rm size, and if they were indirectly connected through other organ-
izations in the i eld. On the other hand, while over time the tendency to cooperate locally
has increased, the impact of multiple linkages on the alliance network has decreased. This
