Resourcing Inter-Organizational Networks: A Process View

The present paper argues for the importance of a processual view on the resourcing of inter-organizational networks. Many previous works, while elaborating on the potential benefits of networks in terms of resource access, take an organization- or ego-centric perspective. However, little systematic knowledge exists that explains how networks as social systems acquire or even generate the resources needed to enact and sustain this form of organizing. For instance, network structures and practices that enable the governance of and interaction in networks consume resources such as money, personnel and time. Against this background, this conceptual work proposes building blocks of a theoretical framework for understanding network resourcing: (1) sources of network resources, (2) the process of network resourcing on the network level as consisting of four sub-processes, (3) trajectories of network resourcing, (4) the multi-level embeddedness of network resourcing, and (5) related tensions. A process theory of ...