This study investigated factors within the firm that encourage organizational learning activities. The authors suggest that when the appropriate factors are present, the firm will more likely engage in learning activities integral in the development of interfirm partnering competence. The conditions for building partnering competence are found in the firm’s culture and climate in the form of le...

The development of research explaining the structure and operations of interfirm relations and networks in marketing channels and business markets is described. The focus is on the main contributors and research themes that have underpinned the development of marketing thought in this area since the beginning of the 20th century. I show how ideas have been borrowed from other disciplines such a...

A formalization of the Coase-Williamson-Cheung theory of the firm is used to examine the trade-off between the firm and the market as institutions for organizing production in a dynamic, general equilibrium model with increasing returns to labor specialization. The model considers the interaction of internal and external transaction costs and the gains to labor specialization in determining imp...

Interfirm networks are one of the core modes of corporate governance. However, its formation mechanism is not clearly and adequately delineated. This article highlights the significance of property rights to the formation mechanism of interfirm networks. Using interlocking directorate data from Chinese listed companies during the years 2000–2010, we investigate the association between ownership...

Knowledge, once generated, spills only imperfectly among firms and nations. We posit that since institutions and labor networks vary by region, there should be regional variations in the localization of spillovers. We investigate the relationship between the mobility of major patent holders and the localization of technological knowledge through the analysis of patent citations of important sem...

The radical political and economic reforms sweeping through former socialist countries during the last decade have opened rich opportunities for privately owned businesses to emerge and develop. Since the market institutions and infrastructures in these countries are largely underdeveloped, private firms in transition economies rely extensively on interfirm partnerships. This raises the questio...

Scholars have found contradictory effects of strong ties in interfirm relations. They are considered both beneficial and detrimental for knowledge acquisition and innovation. In consequence, the debate on this paradox is flourishing. We wish to contribute to the discussion using a construct –relational bondingoriginally developed in studies on vertical interfirm relationships in business-to-bus...

Intrafirm “cannibalisation” of a product’s demand by the firm’s own products is found to have a more robust and significant relationship to the probability of its withdrawal than does interfirm competition from other firms’ products.