Managing (in) Networks E-Book

Timo Järvensivu

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 266

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

What is network management? What is the basis for vibrant networking? What kind of leadership is needed? What are the required tools and steps? This book answers these and other questions with research based perspectives, common sense practical solutions and experience from dozens of real world networks. The author PhD Timo Järvensivu has studied and developed public service and non-profit network management for over 15 years, initially as a university researcher and currently as a full-time entrepreneur and trainer.

Leseprobe

Contents

Introduction

Networks

Research

Practice

Cooperation based on trust

Networks, hierarchies and markets

The core of networking

Working together

Building knowing, trust and commitment

Knowing each other

Trust

Commitment

Learning together

Being an enabling leader

Leadership and management

Goal-orientation and emergence

Coordination and facilitation

Proceeding in stages

Compiling the network

Formulating goals and practices

Proceeding together

Evaluating and spreading the results

A deeper view

A learning community

Renewing and progressing

Communication

Dialogue

Opening up to cooperation

Opening up to the world

A network of networks

Conclusion

Managing networks as a framework

Bibliography

Thank yous

Introduction

This book is about networks and managing networks. I have studied and developed networks since 2003. Over the years I have come across two turning points which hopefully help to explain why I think this book is worth writing. The first was embarrassment: I recognised a big mistake in my thoughts about the practice of networking. The second was trust: I had to learn networking in practice and through that I finally learned to trust others and myself in the act of collaboration.

Through these turning points, I came to realise some of the most crucial points of networking: why and when it is needed and how it can be developed and managed successfully. I have written this book in order to share these ideas with you.

I stumbled upon the first turning point at the start of my career. I had just graduated as a Doctor of Economics in 2007. My doctoral thesis discussed values-driven management in strategic business networks.

Based on my research, I understood something about managing networks — and I imagined I understood quite a lot. What I understood I wrote in my thesis and I graduated.

The start of my career as a fresh post-doc researcher was promising. Already before my graduation, my thesis advisor asked me if I would like to run a research group at the university in one of his upcoming projects. I of course agreed — it was after all important to secure a job after graduation.

The project was interesting. I got to investigate regional development of elderly services from the point of view of managing networks. Because of my thesis, I was familiar with half of this topic: the management of networks. The other side, developing elderly services, was new to me.

At the start of the project it became clear that I did not know the half what I thought I did. Embarrassing.

Of course I knew a lot about managing networks, as a post-doc researcher is supposed to. I knew for instance that coordination and commitment are needed, as well as shared goals. Trust is also needed, because it opens the gates to sharing and co-creating knowledge.

I knew these kinds of basic facts of networking, and I thought that because I had this knowledge, I would be good at networking. But right away in that first project, my skills were challenged, so my research team and I started off with more mistakes than successes.

We had analysed the situation the project network was in and we had chosen a networking strategy we thought would work best. It turned out that there were many participants in the network that did not believe in the chosen strategy. We felt that we were not understood and we wondered why the participants hesitated with their commitment.

It took us surprisingly long to realise what was wrong. And when we realised it, I blushed with embarrassment.

The network strategy had been planned, but it had not been planned together. We had forgotten to include the network in the process! Not really connecting to the network, is it?

Later I realised that I had not respected the practical side of networking enough. I must have thought that practice is good, but theory is better. I put theory first and I did not care enough about the issues arising from practice.

Determined to do better, I decided to try a new way of thinking. I did not begin to think that practice on its own would suffice or that theory would be useless.

However, I began to wonder: what if the best theory is a perfect description of practice?

This would mean that good theory is based on practice and must also work in practice. And vice versa: a theory is bad if it is not based on practice or it does not work in practice. This realisation of the relationship between theory and practice is nothing new, and practice theory researchers know this very well. It just came to my mind terribly late.

How could or should this thought be applied to networking in the field? Let’s start with defining networking.

Networking is cooperation that is (1) voluntary, (2) implemented between free agents, (3) based on trust, (4) reciprocal and (5) done together.

Working in a network does not mean work which someone is forced to do or which is done from one side only. A true network thus cannot have a strategy, which someone else has created for the network.

The biggest mistake I made was to create a strategy for the network first and only then to include the network in the implementation. This did not work, because we were not able to gain the network’s trust later.

Slowly I began to get excited about the mistakes we made. We could actually learn from them! If an approach did not work, then we could look for one that worked in practice and make a theory of it.

For there to be a stronger connection between theory and practice, we decided with my research group to change our research method from interviews to action research. Action research is a method where theories are born in action and these theories are further used to develop actions. This creates a continuous cycle of learning where theory and practice shape each other.

My career progressed through new projects. With each project, my research became more and more based on practice. At the same time, my freedom as a researcher increased as I received personal grants for my research. Encouraged by my practical experiences and inspired by my increased freedom, I began testing new networking practices ever more boldly.

I worked in different projects in different roles: as a planner, expert, facilitator, coordinator, researcher, evaluator, and so forth. In our projects we created frameworks, tips and guides for networking and applied them to practice — and continued to learn.

My practice-based approach began to interest people from outside the academic world as well. My project partners were pleased and asked if I could continue working with them as a consultant. Why not, I figured. The work offered was interesting and was connected to my expertise. I said yes. One acceptance led to another, a third, a fourth, and so on. My career as a researcher subtly changed into entrepreneurship.

In the past I have been able to enjoy cooperation and learning in dozens of networks where I have developed, trained, researched, facilitated, coached, sparred, consulted, promoted, wondered and so forth. Some networks I have worked with for several years, and with others my encounters have been brief. All of them have been fruitful learning experiences.

My second turning point, learning to trust, took place during these development-filled years.

I noticed a recurring phenomenon in my work: I was often bothered by a feeling of insecurity, waiting for when I would encounter my next moment of embarrassment with a mistake I made. Situations I was responsible for (workshops, training sessions, expertise tasks, and so on) were shadowed by a fear of failure.

Mistakes were something I could learn from and I knew I should not fear them, but I still noticed myself thinking of ways to protect from embarrassing moments: “Be better prepared! Do not show your insecurities! Think about how to answer difficult questions without revealing you actually do not know the answer!”

Finally, luckily, I began to understand that my insecurities were connected to trust, or more accurately, a lack of trust. My fear was rooted in not daring to encounter my own flaws. I was unable to trust.

This was a shocking observation for me, because networking should by definition be based on trust. Why then were my networking experiences so often affected by my own insecurities and mistrust?

I decided to study in detail what trust is both in theory and in practice and how I should act in networks so that I could end my mistrust and start trusting.

I began with the basis of trust: trust feeds trust and mistrust feeds mistrust. Trust must begin with someone and a good place to start is with the person in the mirror. I would have to stop feeding fear and learn to trust. I began to practise trust in situations where my mistakes would normally arise, in situations where I felt insecure.

For instance, I began to practise assuming that others are trustworthy, instead of assuming them to be untrustworthy. In my trainings, I decided to trust that difficult questions from participants are always valuable and based on good intentions, even though they might leave me at a loss for words.

I started to tell participants that it is a good sign if I blush at challenging situations, because that means that we can learn something. I began to go confidently towards moments of embarrassment instead of running away.

My first experiments with trust created good experiences. Whenever I dared to trust, the network responded by demonstrating trust. Theory became practice and practice became theory. I learned to trust.

I did other similar experiments. Knowing others is important in networks, so I practiced getting to know people better, and I developed methods that would help participants in the network get to know each other better. Commitment is also important, so I tried different ways to support the participants’ motivation and opportunities for action. There were successes and failures, and we learned from both.

It is very doable to succeed in managing networks when both the basis and objective is reciprocal cooperation based on trust and when you suit your action to your words and your words to your actions. From practice to theory — from theory to practice.

* * *

I have written this book, because in my experience, networking theory and practice do not often meet. My goal is to offer a structured basis for networking and managing networks: how can we work, learn and lead together?

I begin with an overview of the underlying theoretical and practical principles of networking: what networks are and the perspectives from which networking is viewed.

Next I present the core elements of networking and describe how knowing, trust and commitment enable cooperation and continuous learning within networks.

I continue by describing the management of networks: what kind of leadership is required and the stages through which networks can best evolve.

At the end I present additional perspectives for in-depth collaboration and describe how to manage a network of networks. To conclude, I pull together the central elements of networking into a comprehensive framework.

* * *

And before I forget! I hope you find a good flaw in this book and bring it up. I will gladly blush at my mistakes and learn from them with you.

Networks

Research

Networks have been studied from compatible as well as conflicting points of view1. In Figure 1, I have listed 20 central perspectives. Most research on network management can be traced back or connected to several or most of these.

Most of the perspectives I present have been built around a specific research idea or notion. For example, research on social capital is connected by the use of the term ‘social capital’2. A central observation in this type of research is that trust has an integral role in strengthening cooperation.

A broader perspective, or really a whole field, is social psychology, which lies between sociology and psychology. This has been used for instance in social exchange theories, which view relationships between agents through costs and benefits3.

Sometimes with clear referencing, but more often as a background assumption, all network research is affected by resource dependence theory, RDT4. The core idea of this theory is shortly that we are all dependent of others’ resources, and therefore all action requires some form of interaction.

Whatever we do with our resources is possible only because we receive or have received support from others’ resources. It could even be said that resources do not exist without interaction.

Here resources are seen in a broad sense: resources are not only financial, productional or commercial. Human resources can be for instance capabilities, know-how, skills or human attributes, which are inherently valuable and which should not be reduced to mere commercial assets.

For example, children and their parents are tied to each other in multiple ways. Though a child’s umbilical cord is cut, her whole life is both biologically and mentally connected to her parents. Similarly, the parents are tied to their child. Though at first a child cannot do more than need and demand help from her parents, she innately owns her childhood through which she gives her parents parenthood.

It is easy to think of similar examples. Products and services cannot have buyers if there are no sellers, and vice versa. A nation would not exist without citizens and citizens would not exist without a nation. And so forth. The resource dependence theory reminds us that our mutual dependencies are deeply rooted in us. Systemically thinking, everything affects everything.

This does not mean that we are all in equal dependency relationships. On the contrary, power resides with those with plenty of valuable, rare, inimitable or non-substitutable resources needed by others5.

For example, nations as an institution (legislation, government) have great power over individual citizens. On the other hand, citizens as a collective (the people, voters) have the opportunity to overpower national institutions through elections or revolutions.

Figure 1. Perspectives to network research

A system such as a network can contain some people with more influence than others, but no single individual ever has absolute power due to the dependencies. Each member is dependent on the use of the power of others.

Network research is interested in studying the dependencies between network members and how the functionality and structure of their relationships can be developed for the network to function better.

It is especially interesting to observe how power afforded by resources is used in these systems. Is power used as a force to manipulate others or to make decisions from top down? Or is it used to build a shared networking platform and to improve the quality of interaction in a way that allows successful decision-making to be done together from bottom up? The first use of power is (by definition) hierarchical, and the latter can be seen (by definition) as network-like.

The resource dependence theory is closely related to the transaction cost theory6. Let’s inspect this word by word so we can understand what it means.

In this theory, transaction means exchange where different types of choices can be made. First of all, we can choose to make something ourselves. Instead of making something ourselves, we can choose to buy. Choosing between these two options is a make or buy decision.

The third option becomes available or necessary when something is needed that cannot be made by ourselves and cannot be bought. This ‘something’ must then be developed, and for this we need partners. Thus the third option occurs through networking.

Cost means investments, but also benefits which come with the different options. Theory means that a model has been made for considering the options, which allows you to form a considered make, buy or network decision.

Let’s look at an imaginary example. Let’s suppose you need to travel to a family celebration 150 kilometres away, but you do not own a car.

You can decide to do it on your own and walk. If you walk 8 hours a day, you will be at the party in about 4.5 days. If you have a bike, you could also cycle. By bike you might be able to make it in a day. You will not be spending much money, but you will be spending a lot of time. The benefits of these options are enjoying the outdoors and having time for your own thoughts.

If you do not have enough time or capabilities to walk or bike, you must consider buying transportation. If you have plenty of money and are in a hurry, you can choose to take a taxi. If you have a bit more time or you want to travel without spending as much money, you can take a train or a bus. In a taxi, train or bus you also have time for your thoughts, but you will not be able to enjoy the outdoors.

What if you have no money for the trip? You cannot travel by foot or bicycle, but you are also unable to buy your trip. You are left with the option of thinking of creative ways to travel or solving the situation in another way with the help of your networks.

You can for instance ask on Facebook if one of your friends would be willing to give you a ride. Or you can negotiate an alternative solution with your family: you can suggest skipping the party and compensate for your absence with a video greeting.

All three of the options (travelling by your own means, buying transportation or finding a creative solution with your networks) have benefits and shortcomings and different types of restrictions and consequences which you can consider while making your choice.

In addition to resources and transactions, network research often examines so called micro-level networking: occurrences, processes and microstructures between specific people or organisations. For example social network analysis (SNA)7 concentrates on connections between individual agents and the whole entity these connections form. Similarly in entrepreneur network research, the research subject is often the social networks of entrepreneurs which are connected to practical challenges and everyday work8.

Inter-organisational relations (IOR)9 research studies cooperation between organisations rather than individual-level cooperation. The research can for instance focus on the financial or technical aspects of cooperation. Some research examines broader macro-level phenomena: for example the evolution of networking as part of historical, societal, technological, political or other developments10.

In my own doctoral research11, the perspectives of resource dependency, transaction cost theory and social network research were a background influence, mostly as presumptions. I placed more importance on research relating to inter-organisational relations, industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP)12, strategic networks and partnerships13 and to a lesser extent the research around innovation networks14 and production networks15.

Industrial marketing and purchasing research (IMP) is mainly a network of Northern European researchers, which typically utilises qualitative case research: network cases are described in a versatile and comprehensive way by using a broad array of empirical research data, such as observations, interviews and written materials. The result is often an explanatory model, which says a lot about the investigated case, but also helps to understand other networks.

Research on strategic, innovation and production networks are not distinguished by their research methods, but by their research subjects: the studied networks are goal-oriented networks with a specific objective, such as developing new technology or increasing value production.

These research perspectives have an interesting contradiction related to management: IMP researchers have sometimes presented quite stark claims that networks should not be managed, because then they are actually not networks. Based on strategic, innovation and production network research, it could be claimed that networks have to be managed, because otherwise they do not produce value. This contradiction seems to come from differences in emphasis on what a “good” network or what “genuine” networking is.

IMP research often sees genuine networking as something that emerges from bottom up, which means that management can occur within the network, but the network as a whole cannot be managed. Strategic, innovative and production networks are however seen as successful when they can be clearly led and when they have been steered to be cohesive and produce value efficiently. Such outcomes cannot be done without managing the network.

The emergence and manageability of a network can be seen and often are seen as opposite characteristics or purposes. Examining this contradiction is relevant, because in practice efforts towards bottom-up emergence and top-down steerability seem to conflict constantly.

However, I do not find it worthwhile to debate if networks should be led or not. In addition, I do not find it useful to debate which is more important: emergence or manageability. The “correct” answer depends on the definitions of these notions, and the definitions are continuously in motion. Networks continuously face different situations and needs: sometimes steering is needed and sometimes self-organising from bottom up is a better way to proceed.

It is more important to be involved in the everyday work of the network and consider together with the network what type of management is needed in which situations. Sometimes one type of management is needed and at other times another type is needed, and occasionally a completely new approach needs to be invented.

In research projects, I have developed networks especially in the non-profit sector. In these projects, I have found good support from research on public network management16, which examines how a public agent can coordinate and support cooperation between the public, private and third sectors in a specific operating area. A lot of this research is based on practice and is therefore useful to my work and this book.

The policy network17 point of view has also been helpful. I have also utilised economic geographical research, which has examined to understand why and how some regions are more innovative than others18.

Institutional perspectives19 have proven beneficial in certain circumstances. They examine how different types of established institutions affect networks. Institutions can be enablers or barriers to change and innovation in networks. Such issues can be concrete, such as laws or administrative systems, or they can be abstract, such as ideas, values, norms or operating cultures. Institutional theories help find suitable methods or ways to proceed in different situations.

For example, in hierarchical operating cultures it is not reasonable to ignore the chain of command (at least not lightly), whereas in cultures with lower hierarchy, it is fully possible to be in direct contact with high-power policymakers even from the grassroots level.

In one project we noticed how the culture of working together can be different even in geographically close countries such as Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In Finland and Estonia hierarchy seems to be fairly low, whereas Latvia and Lithuania seem to have a higher level of hierarchy. Out of these countries, Finland has had the most time to build a more open culture. Estonia became free later, but in many ways has progressed at a quicker pace than Finland. Latvia and Lithuania are boldly searching for new operating methods, even though the culture seems to be opening up at a slower pace.

It has been valuable to understand that it is not always necessary to conform to institutions. They can be regarded strategically, they can be transformed, and they can be objected either quietly and in secret or openly and loudly.

Change becomes possible when agents have the courage to test and alter institutions. For example in the project mentioned above, we implemented bold networking experiments and noticed that even in more hierarchical countries such as Latvia and Lithuania, there was often a lot of curiosity, openness and readiness towards more open networking at the grassroots level.

The actor-network theory (ANT)20 has offered an interesting interpretation of agency and institutions in networking: who or what makes a network work? The actor-network theory is influenced by the philosophy of social constructionism and it often references the science and technology researchers Bruno Latour and Michel Callon.

At the core of the actor-network theory is the view that agency does not only belong to people or groups of people. There is also, or even primarily, agency in everything material (places, commodities, tools etc.) and non-material (customs, practices, ideas, beliefs etc.) that networks consist of in addition to people. It is important to remember that material and non-material matters should not strictly speaking be examined separately, because in practice they are inseparably connected to each other.

How can something material or non-material have agency? Can an ordinary object, such as a chair, be an agent?

Traditionally we consider the person an agent who has produced the chair to be able to sit in it. But let’s look at agency from the point of view of the chair for now.

Imagine two different meeting rooms. The first has a table and chairs and the other only has high tables to stand at. In the first room, meetings are probably held sitting down. In the second, meetings are probably held standing up.

Who or what makes the participants of the meeting in the first room sit? We could argue that the chairs are what make the participants sit, because without them, they would not sit, as is proven by the second meeting room without chairs. In the first meeting room the chairs are thus agents, or at least they have agency. A chair is a combination of material and non-material factors: it is an object which gives tangible form to the idea of sitting.

In this way we can try to understand the operation of networks by examining how material and non-material factors structure and build the network.

While working on my doctoral research, I was extremely excited about the theories and research results I have presented here. This excitement however clashed with reality when I began to work in concrete network projects. These projects showed me that I did not know how to apply my knowledge into practice.

Picture me at a network meeting held soon after my doctoral graduation. The objective of this meeting was to develop a concrete service — an info station — for senior citizens. I enthusiastically described to the meeting participants the research results of IMP researchers and discussed chairs as agents from an ANT perspective. This generated an interesting discussion, and it was fun — at least for me. Developing the info station however did not progress.

This does not mean that research is useless. On the contrary: research has led to many valuable realisations. Applying them to real life situations however requires rehearsal and critical evaluation.

In my work I always strive to ask: Why was this research produced and who does it serve? What does this research reveal and what does it hide? Who reaps the benefits and who suffers? How can these results be used in practice? Can the results be adapted? And so forth. Learning is stunted if these questions are not asked.

In this book I often say that networking is based on trust. This could lead to the conclusion that trust is always a positive thing. But what if this is not the case? Could it be that in some cases trust is good, but control is better? In which situations is it good to trust and in which situations is it not? There are always many sides to everything.

In Figure 1, I mention critical perspectives even though I have not found a sufficiently strong practice-oriented critical perspective to network research. There is need for such research.

Through practical experience, I have become convinced that both theory and practice are required. Networking can be successful when we act based on knowledge, boldly ask critical questions and agree on networking practices which suit each situation.

1 Hibbert et al. 2008, Brass et al. 2004, Araujo & Easton 1996, Ebers 1997, Grandori & Soda 1995, Möller et al. 2004

2 Nahapiet & Ghoshal 1998, Inkpen & Tsang 2005

3 Dwyer et al. 1987, Lambe et al. 2001

4 Hillman et al. 2009, Pfeffer & Salancik 1978

5 Barney 1996

6 Coase 1937, Williamson 1981

7 Scott 1988, Borgatti et al. 2009, Tichy et al. 1979

8 Zimmer 1986, Greve 1995, Greve & Salaff 2003

9 Oliver & Ebers 1998, Cropper et al. 2008

10 Provan et al. 2007, Hannah & Freeman 1986, Nelson & Winter 2002, Ferguson 2017

11 Järvensivu 2007

12 Håkansson 1982, Håkansson & Snehota 1995, Håkansson & Ford 2002

13 Gulati et al. 2000, Jarillo 1988, Human & Provan 1997, Zaheer et al. 1998, Kale et al. 2000, Zaheer & Venkatraman 1995

14 Ritter & Gemünden 2003, Dhanaraj & Parkhe 2006

15 Ernst & Kim 2002, Saxenian 1991

16 Klijn & Koppenjan 2000, Rethemeyer & Hatmaker 2007, Agranoff & McGuire 2001, Provan & Kenis 2008, McGuire 2006, Kenis & Provan 2009

17 Marsh & Smith 2000, Atkinson & Coleman 1992

18 Sheppard & Barnes 2000, Ferrary & Granovetter 2009, Saxenian 1990

19 Geels 2004, Osborn & Hagedoorn 1997, Oliver 1991, Scott 2005

20 Law 2009, Latour 2007, Callon & Latour 1981

Practice

Networking in tribes and packs is an ancient practice. Through biological and cultural evolution, homo sapiens has developed to act together in different types of groups (as well as in other ways, such as competing).

We often do not even notice when we cooperate. When someone falls on the street, you feel empathy and help her up — you offer your hand, she offers hers and you both pull at the same time, trusting that neither will let go. Or you quarrel at work and vent your feelings to trustworthy colleagues during a coffee break. You may also be inspired by an idea presented in a book you have read and tell your friends about it and you think together about how to use this idea. Such cooperation based on trust is taken for granted in everyday life and it is rarely pondered or defined.

As a researcher, I often notice having discussions such as the following:

“We do a lot of networking. It is second nature to us and we are very good at it.”

I am intrigued and ask for more information:

“That’s amazing! Tell me more. What do you do and how is your networking successful?”

“Well, it’s like… sort of… well, you know!”

Then I am told interesting stories of everyday networking. The descriptions are vivid and can teach us all a thing or two. However, these stories are rarely structured or systematic descriptions of what was done, how or why it was successful, and how what was learned could be used in other networks or situations. It seems to work in practice, but there is no theory to explain why it works.

In my development and training work I have noticed that theorising networking is beneficial in at least three situations: (1) People think they are doing networking work, but upon closer inspection it becomes clear that they do not actually know what networking is and they are doing something completely different; (2) People know what networking is and they think that their actions are networking practices, but closer inspection shows that their reality is not in line with the knowledge; (3) In practice the actions work, but there is no actual knowledge of what networking is or how networking could be developed systematically.