Network configurations in the white goods global value chain

Markets, hierarchies and networks are alternative mechanisms of resource allocation in the economy. Of these three fundamental mechanisms that help explain how the economy really works, networks have been the least studied and understood. Recently, however, we have been able to observe an exponential growth of network studies in organisational and management research (Borgatti and Foster 2003). The central argument of network theory is that economic processes are embedded in the structure of social relationships (Granovetter 1985). Due to embeddedness, firms vary in their opportunities and constraints, depending on their position in the network of interfirm relationships (Dyer and Singh 1998; Borgatti and Halgin 2011; Greve, Shipilov and Rowley 2014).