Joerg Sydow

Interorganizational Networks at the Network Level: A Review of the Empirical Literature on Whole Networks:

This article reviews and discusses the empirical literature on interorganizational networks at the network level of analysis, or what is sometimes referred to as “whole” networks. An overview of the distinction between egocentric and network-level research is first introduced. Then, a review of the modest literature on whole networks is undertaken, along with a summary table outlining the main findings based on a thorough literature search. Finally, the authors offer a discussion concerning what future directions might be taken by researchers hoping to expand this important, but understudied, topic.

Projects, paths, and practices: sustaining and leveraging project-based relationships

In this article, we examine how project entrepreneurs maintain and leverage long-term project-based relationships in highly uncertain and volatile project businesses with clients and key service providers across ever changing collaborative contexts. Based on a thorough analysis of TV project networks, using both quantitative and qualitative data, we find that project entrepreneurs form core teams with particular clients and service providers, and establish sequences of related projects thereby forming collaborative paths. These paths allow partners to exploit and stretch existing, and explore new capabilities and partner resources across time and contexts of collaboration. Paths are promoted by connecting practices partners apply to establish task and team linkages between past, present and potential future projects. Our findings promote a more processual understanding of project-based organizing and learning, and tie formation and maintenance in dynamic industry contexts. Copyright 2011 The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Associazione ICC. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

Path Constitution Analysis: A Methodology for Understanding Path Dependence and Path Creation

Although an increasing number of studies of technological, institutional and organizational change refer to the concepts of path dependence and path creation, few attempts have been made to consider these concepts explicitly in their methodological accounts. This paper addresses this gap and contributes to the literature by developing a comprehensive methodology that originates from the concepts of path dependence and path creation — path constitution analysis (PCA) — and allows for the integration of multi-actor constellations on multiple levels of analysis within a process perspective. Based upon a longitudinal case study in the field of semiconductors, we illustrate PCA ‘in action’ as a template for other researchers and critically examine its adequacy. We conclude with implications for further path-oriented inquiries.

Transforming Creative Potential in Project Networks: How TV Movies are Produced Under Network-Based Control

Project networks have been identified as dynamic, yet relatively stable organizational forms in project-based creative industries. They materialize in longer-term actor relationships which are actualized by and institutionalized through particular projects. This article examines how project networks transform creative potential for and beyond particular projects. The transformation process is enabled and constrained by the dialectic of network-based control which refers to the capacity of actors to reproduce relational power and autonomy within actor constellations in project networks. This study is empirically based on a qualitative analysis of two projects launched from project networks of two major German TV production companies. Theoretically, the study draws on concepts from structuration theory.

Terminating Institutionalized Termination – Why Sematech Became More than a Temporary System

The aim of this study is to inquire into the circumstances and mechanisms that drive temporary systems to become permanent organizations.This study is based upon a retrospective longitudinal case study (1980-1995) and informed by research on organizational path dependence. Our research object is SEMATECH, the leading global semiconductor manufacturing consortium.This longitudinal case study of the research and development consortium SEMATECH shows how and under what conditions a project, once its initial objective had been achieved, managed to turn itself into a permanent organization, i.e. it terminated its institutionalized termination. Based upon our findings, we argue that the postponing of this specific project‟s institutionalized termination can be understood by adopting a path dependence perspective that allows for the capturing of self-reinforcing processes in order to account for the stability of the (once temporary) system.

Barriers to process learning: Authority and anomie in regional clusters

In this article we consider the nature and implications of barriers to collaborative process learning that may occur in regional clusters. Our approach is rooted in research in interorganizational collaboration and focuses on interview-based research in photonics clusters in: Scotland and the West Midlands in the United Kingdom; Berlin-Brandenburg in Germany; and Arizona in the United States of America. From this research we develop characterizations of the barriers to collaborative process learning in clusters at three levels of analysis—the macro, micro and meso levels. We also develop an integrated conceptualization of these barriers, which reveals a difficult tension between ‘authority’ and ‘anomie’. This tension has implications for the management of process learning, but also connects with recent debate about whether learning is most helpfully understood as an individual or collective process.

Reviewing the Evaluation Perspective: On Criteria, Occasions, Procedures, and Practices

This paper demonstrates the importance of an evaluation perspective, describes the complexity of network evaluations and examines evaluation from the perspective of established theories.

Path-Creating Networks in the Field of Next Generation Lithography: Outline of a Research Project

This paper describes a research project that studies the development of manufacturing technology for semiconductors. It examines to what extent, under which conditions, and in which ways interorganizational network can actually enable the creation of a new technological path in this field. It gives a summary overview of the theory of path dependence, which has very recently been complemented by the concept of path creation. It introduces the empirical field of study and presents the specific research questions, research design and methodology.

Some Characteristics of High-Reliability Networks

This research note documents the initial findings of an ongoing ethnographic study at a fire and emergency service. This particular organization has become a focus of attention because of its skilled coordination of handling large‐scale organized events in cooperation with a large number of other organizations, thereby increasing their reliability. First of all, we will introduce the case and our observations, then discuss our findings against the backdrop of high‐reliability theory. We use these findings to characterize high‐reliability networks.

Organizing Networks for Path Creation and Extension in Semiconductor Manufacturing Technologies

How do collectives of organizations create a new technological solution or extend an already existing technological path in networked organizational fields? This paper contributes, first, to a general understanding of the recursive interplay between technology development and the processes of organizing innovation in networks by highlighting the role of collectives of organizations (and not only entrepreneurs) coordinated through interorganizational networks and by using a praxis perspective informed by neo-institutional and structuration theory. Second, and more specifically, this paper adds to the action and network turn in neoinstitutional theory by pointing to the importance of organizing collectives of actors through interorganizational networks in processes of field structuration as well as technology development. Third, it contributes to the literature on path dependency and path creation by developing the broader concept of path constitution that is based upon structuration and neoinstitutional theory and unpacks the process of building commitment and generating momentum. To all three ends the paper presents the field of lithography as a (now) networked organizational field in which several, partly overlapping sets of organizations struggle and/or compete with each other over the creation of a new path and the extension of an existing technological path.