ABSTRACT
Successful innovation is driven by new ideas and new approaches; collaboration helps bring new ideas to fruition, but people need to make the connections in the first place. Networks are essential in creative project-based businesses, and with them come many opportunities to create the conditions for effective collaborations. They can bring divergent thinking and be used to building flexible, adaptable units that can respond quickly to change. This chapter explores network theory in relation to collaborative creative projects, drawing together key theories around strong and weak ties, structural holes, project ecologies, value in networks and entrepreneurial networks. With reference to particular roles in networks such as the broker role, it explores how certain people in organisations can stimulate collaborative activity. This chapter applies network behaviour to the publishing industry and explores how networks are central to effective collaborative working for publishers. This reflects a value vested in the network itself for the potentiality of experimentation and as a site for organisational learning.
