A flagship firm is defined as a multinational enterprise which has taken on the strategic leadership of a business network consisting of four other partners: key suppliers, key customers, selected competitors and the non-business infrastructure. Successful flagship firms need to foster trust and...

This paper uses the D'Cruz/Rugman Five Partners Model1 to show how France Telecom has effectively partnered with suppliers, customers, competitors, and the non-business infrastructure to develop France's telecommunications cluster. The Five Partners Model is a cooperation-based framework for...

In this paper, we introduce the five partners model of the "business network". We argue that the cooperative, inter-industry and inter-firm relationships of the business network can ameliorate some of the costs found in markets and hierarchies. The business network is distinguished by a...