Corporate networking for strategic advantage

Abstract

This paper attempts to conceptualise some of the thoughts that are emerging in the area of corporate networking. While some research has been done in this area in the advanced western countries, nothing so far has happened in India. The purpose of this paper is to put our thoughts together to raise research issues. Networking has been discussed in several social sciences areas, but not much in the management discipline. Some recent research findings indicate that corporations derive strategic advantage not only by competition but also by cooperation. Such cooperative networking can be either for survival purposes or for deriving strategic advantage. There can be different types of networking such as formal-informal networking, primary-secondary networking and industry-institutional networking. The nature of strategic networking indicates that it has to be dynamic undergoing changes over a period of time. Such changes are influenced by a number of factors including the stage of the organization and its products on the respective life-cycles.