An Emerging Paradigm for Network Development

As an issue in the study of international business, the emphasis on the study of networks has tended to focus upon the use of networks as an organisational form or response to opportunities presented by the internationalisation process (for a review see De Man, 2003). International business research has yet, however, to recognise that networks as an organisational form depend upon physical infrastructure being in place to support their interactions across space. If the discipline of international business is concerned with the study of business activities that cross politically specified boundaries, then it must not only examine the strategic and contextual impacts of this process but has also to consider the legal and physical means of access and how that access is achieved. Thus the study of international networks is not only about the networks themselves but also concerns access to markets, both legally and physically, and the process by which this is achieved. In other words, relational networks are facilitated and made feasible by matching physical networks. This underlines that the network economy as a theme of research in international business has two interrelated components: the relational component and the physical component. The emphasis of this volume is on the development of the physical infrastructure, or networks, that enable these relational networks to function and support the internationalisation process in general.