Position in inter-organizational networks and profitability and growth potential

The purpose of this study is to empirically clarify the relationship between a company?s position in the network structure of inter-company collaboration and its profitability and growth potential. In particular, by categorizing and analyzing companies located at the center of the network, we attempted to gain insight into the generation and growth process of so-called platformer companies. According to previous research, companies that are at the center of collaboration among various companies vary by industry and product characteristics. This research focuses on the Internet of Things (IoT), which is an industry in which inter-business relationships are important for collecting and utilizing big data across industries as an object of analysis. As a research method, we extracted the text information of newspaper articles related to IoT and analyzed the transition of the relationship between companies using social network analysis. Network analysis based on newspaper article data showed the possibility of one process to grow from a niche company to a platform leader and eventually to a large company.