Managing Network Resources
Alliances, Affiliations and
Other Relational Assets
Strategic Alliances for Today’s Interconnected World
The book synthesizes Gulati’s influential work on network dynamics from the last fifteen years, and presents the key findings from this extensive body of research. Gulati’s insights are important for scholars, students, and practitioners interested in the behavior of firms in an increasingly networked economy.
Today’s firms are increasingly embedded in networks of alliances and other ties that influence their behavior and performance. In this, his first book on the subject, Ranjay Gulati examines the “network resources” that arise from these ties, how successful firms manage these, and how they influence strategy, access to material resources, and perceptions of a firm’s legitimacy held by key external parties such as investors and banks.
This is a book I have been eager to see. Gulati has done a service to his colleagues in bringing together in one convenient reference so many of his influential papers. More than is possible in journal articles, the book provides an integrated view, in broader perspective, of Gulati’s productive study of alliances as a network phenomenon.