ABSTRACT
Firms and organizations build or enter networks with other firms or organizations for numerous reasons, such as to find and maintain customers, suppliers, collaborators and partners, personal relationships, or even as a means of providing a platform to exploit a yet unarticulated future opportunity. As knowledge becomes the most important competitive asset of firms, the need to acquire and create it is a key factor why firms engage in networks.1 Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired magazine, argues that communication and networks ‘are the economy’ since ‘communication is the foundation of society, of our culture, of our humanity, of our own individual identity, and of all economic systems. This is why networks are such a big deal.’2
