Collaborative network of firms: antecedents and state-of-the-art properties

Abstract

The concept of collaborative networks has attracted considerable attention, especially in two knowledge domains: innovation and operation management. Although collaborative networks have evolved into many forms, their central role in triggering debates has not gone unnoticed. In this paper, we aim to contribute to these debates through a bibliometric review of a decade of research on collaborative networks (2002–2015). By using a combination of document co-citation and bibliographic coupling analyses, we unveil the origins and evolution of collaborative networks over time by analysing the references from the most important academic contributions. Our goal is threefold: first, to systematise the state of the art in the Input-Process-Output (IPO) framework; second, to elucidate the antecedents of the research field on collaborative networks (research streams originating from the field, main authors and journals) by organising them in six thematic clusters; and third, to show how the antecedents shaped the IPO framework. While ‘collaborative networks’ used to belong to two distinct domains, the research agendas seem to converge because of the interactions between their most active authors. As such, cross-fertilisation occurs with the International Journal of Production Research, which plays a central role in this process.

Keywords:

• virtual enterprise
• innovation management
• collaborative networks
• literature review
• bibliographic coupling
• document co-citation analysis

Notes

1. http://charteredabs.org/academic-journal-guide-2015/.

2. https://www.ebscohost.com/.

3. https://www.scopus.com/.

4. https://www.webofknowledge.com/.

5. Refer to the Supplementary Material n.1 for a complete list of the articles.

6. Of 3136 cited references, 344 meet the threshold of having a ‘minimum number of citations of a cited reference = 2’.

7. The complete list of the articles included in the six clusters is available upon request.