Paper info

Strategic interdependence in networks: a governance perspective

Loïc SAUVEE

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

In the agricultural and food sectors, many networks are built throughinterorganizational strategies. To analyze the strategic interdependence in networks, theconcept of 'governance' is proposed. This concept is a way to link the structuralcharacteristics of networks with their strategic content. To do so, the suggestion is toconsider network governance as an institutional combination of an authority structureand of interelationship mechanisms. The role of governance will be to maximize jointvalue and minimize organization costs. Such a perspective helps in the understanding ofthe very nature of networks, which can be seen as an optimization of a strategy/structureinterplay. Here the relevance of this analysis is illustrated through an empiricalcomparison of two existing agrifood networks.