Network Approach to Strategic Management – Exploration to the Emerging Perspective

The traditional strategic management theories have strong emphasis on accumulating and controlling resources within a single firm. However, the shift towards increasingly networked business environments raises a question whether these theories can still be considered as valid. Most organizations have limitations in terms of resources they can possess internally and hence need to develop a range of external linkages to gain access to needed resources. In this paper, existing strategic management perspectives are analysed from the point of view of how they have integrated the idea of interorganizational networks into strategy theorizing. The analysis reveals that only few researchers, mainly from two research areas – the industrial network theory (IMP) and strategic network research – have touched the issue. Moreover, combining the idea of networks and strategic management is still an emerging and rather amorphous perspective. The authors argue that the strategic management field would definitely benefit from cross-fertilisation of ideas and thus propose a synthesis towards a network approach to strategic management, together with implications for further research. 1 This study is part of the LIIKE Research Program “Finnish Companies and the Challenges of Globalization” funded by the Academy of Finland and the National Technology Agency TEKES. Research funding from Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation is also gratefully acknowledged. 2 Please address the correspondence by mail to Joni Tikkanen, Sonera Corporation, P.O. Box 543, FIN-00051 SONERA, Finland, or by email to [email protected] and [email protected].