The design of networks in their institutional and organizational aspects is a key determinant of their competitiveness. Consequently managers in agricultural and food industries have to address the question of governance design, i. e. of choices concerning the content and the architecture of...

Efficiency arguments explain why commercial intermediaries exist and will continue to be involved in the exchanges despite the spread of digital networks. Commercial intermediaries provide producers and consumers with a set of information, logistic, securization and insurance (and liquidity)...

This paper provides new evidence on the contractual governance of technology licensing agreements. Using an international sample of licensing contracts, we explore how contracts are designed to deal with specific contractual risks. In particular, we comparatively assess the influences of...

The design and topology of a neural network is still an important and difficult task. To solve the problems of topology posed by the introduction of connexionism, new approaches are proposed, and especially a combination of induction rules with a statistical estimation of the neuron coefficients...

What is the role of co-evolution in the adaptation of a population of firms to a hostile environment ? To answer this question, we revisit network sociology starting from Kauffman s biological computer model. We apply a qualitative methodology to update exploitation and exploration mechanisms in...

This paper applies a social capital perspective to study how business units use an individual’s social capital to explore their environment and exploit resources available from individual networks. We explore this matter inductively by analysing the development and exploitation of social...