ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses how the concept of networking has been gradually and practically applied to the economic development policies of Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) within the framework of this dual capacity. The national expansion of the ‘World Class Manufacturing’ initiative has resulted in a number of TECs operating what may be termed as performance improvement (PI) networks. The TEC considers PI groups to be its most successful inter-firm networking project, and although the TEC and Business Link take responsibility for the administrative ‘paperwork’ of the networks, the chair of each group is allocated from the network participants. Little evidence was found of TECs catalysing joint purchasing networks, that would give small and medium-sized enterprises buying power through accessing the economies of scale associated with large organisations. The aforementioned examples suggest that the most effective and sustainable networks are initially based on informal relations, such as those developed through voluntary attendance at ‘learning’ workshops and seminars.
