“قدرت توسط … چه کسی؟” چشم انداز شبکه در تکرار به عنوان استراتژی  “Powered by… whom?” A network perspective on replication as strategy

1. Introduction The idea that companies are not isolated islands (Håkansson & Snehota, 2006; Wilkinson & Young, 2002) is the basis for the exploration of new perspectives on the development of network strategies. From a relational view of industrial systems, recent studies find that a firm’s strategy is a continuing process of relating with specific counterparts (Anderson, Håkansson, & Johanson, 1994). Therefore, strategizing in that context impinges on the efficiency and effectiveness of the firm (Gadde, Huemer, & Håkansson, 2003). From this perspective, business relationships are a means for the firm to change its network position (Johanson & Mattsson, 1992), which is likely to influence the network structure. However, these studies do not explore how a change in a firm’s strategy might influence the business network and the possibility that those actions might take the form of a replication strategy (Baden-Fuller & Morgan, 2010; Winter & Szulanski, 2001). The characteristics of replication are the design, dissemination, and sharing of a particular configuration of resources and activities by several firms. In order to fill this gap, this study aims at assessing to what extent and how replication strategies that assume a collective nature change the structure of the focal network. The structure of this study is as follows. The next section frames the concept of strategizing within the network in combination with a conceptual framework for replication strategies. Section 3 addresses the methodological approach that the research has adopted. Sections 4 and 5, respectively, present and discuss the case study. The study concludes with a synthesis of its major theoretical and managerial contributions and some suggestions for future research.