Paper info

ON THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL NETWORKS: THE CASE OF PHARMACEUTICALS IN FINLAND

Helena Mäkinen

The paper was published at the 17th IMP-conference in Oslo, Norway in 2001.

So far, we know little about how networks are created and how they evolve and developover time. Learning more about the stages or phases that a network goes through can forinstance enhance our understanding of how to deal with management aspects associatedwith network development.This paper discusses, from holistic perspective, how networks are created anddeveloped over time. There are a large variety of networks in high technology industries.A company can belong to several networks at the same time, which means that differentnetworks are overlapping.The creation and development are illustrated using as an example a new issue-basednetwork of the Finnish pharmaceutical industry. The data are based on writtendocuments of companies and their network. In addition, discussions with ownermanagersof the main companies and local industry experts on different occasionscomplemented the picture.The results show that the new pharmaceutical industry in Finland has succeeded inbuilding a growing national network, where actors work together in order to increase thevalue of the network. The case summary concluded that to a large extent the phasemodels presented in the theoretical framework were appropriate in describing theformation and development of the new network of pharmaceuticals in Finland during itsfirst operational years.The phases of network formation and development discovered were the following:(1) the awareness phase, (2) the formation phase (the identification phase, thenegotiating phase and the launching/establishing phase), (3) the growth phase and (4)the stabilisation phase. There have also been minor changes in the type of participatingorganisations over the course of time. In addition, the network has tried to strengthen itsidentity and it has changed its objectives.