The role of network capability in firms
A firm's network capability refers to its ability to build, handle and exploit relationships. Research article demonstrates that these capabilities are interwoven in a complex configuration with the other capabilities and competencies of the firm and in practice, are very difficult to separate from them.
– Rather than assuming that firms inherently possess network capability, our aim was to discover if the shared managerial logic of top management teams confirms its presence, professor Jukka Vesalainen and project director Henri Hakala explain.
The paper introduces a framework for strategic capability architecture and investigates how network capability emerges from among the configuration of other capabilities in industrial firms.
While capabilities are common part of the managerial talk, they are rarely verified as “real” and competitive advantage building. In order to understand how managers perceive, process and interpret network capability, we guided the management teams of industrial firms through a novel five-step process of introducing, identifying, critically screening, challenging and verifying the capabilities of the firm.
– As a result we were able verify capability architectures for each firm, that consist of truly competitive advantage producing capabilities.
Results show that network capabilities are central to the formation of customer capabilities. Network capabilities also play an important role as assets contributing to the formation of other capability sets.
– The networking capabilities act in unison with other capabilities through three different strategic logics termed partnering, value streaming, and horizontal allying, Vesalainen and Hakala tell.
Article was published in Industrial Marketing Management, which is one of the top level journals in the field of industrial and business-to-business markets.
Jukka Vesalainen and Henri Hakala (2014). Strategic capability architecture: The role of network capability. Industrial Marketing Management 43, 938–950.
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