Causes and Consequences of Network Evolution

In this chapter we analyze a firm’s propensity and timing to cooperate and enter the industry’s innovation network. The conceptual framework considers three groups of determinants – organizational, relational and contextual. Selected factors within these groups are assumed to cause network change processes at the micro-level – tie formations and tie terminations – and shape the structural network configuration at the overall network level. The elements of the framework are substantiated by drawing upon evolutionary ideas and concepts from organization science, sociology and evolutionary economics. The following chapter is organized as follows: We start with a brief introduction in Sect. 9.1. Section 9.2 provides a literature review and introduces the theoretical cornerstones needed for an in-depth discussion on evolutionary network change. Based on these ideas we derive our conceptual framework in Sect. 9.3 and formulate a set of testable hypothesis in Sect. 9.4. Section 9.5 addresses some methodological issues and provides an overview of data and variables used. In Sect. 9.6 we introduce our empirical approach and present estimation results from our non-parametric event history model. Section 9.7 concludes with a summary and discussion on the implications of our key findings.