This article studies density and strength of ties in innovation networks. It combines issues of ‘competence’ with issues of ‘governance’. It argues that in networks for exploration there are good reasons, counter to the thesis of the ‘strength of weak...

There is a tendency to see trust and control by formal agreements as substitutes. According to transaction cost economics trust is unreliable, and some form of control is needed to reduce hazards of opportunism. According to others, high trust allows for a limited extent of formal control....

This article connects theory of learning with theory of governance, in the context of inter-firm relations. It recognizes fundamental criticism of transaction cost economics (TCE), but preserves elements from that theory. Two kinds of relational risk are identified: hold-up and spillover risk....

Transaction cost economics faces serious problems concerning the way it deals, or fails to deal, with bounded rationality, the efficiency of outcomes, trust, innovation, learning and the nature of knowledge. The competence view yields an alternative perspective on the purpose and boundaries of...

This paper gives a survey of insights into inter-firm alliances and networks for innovation, from a constructivist, interactionist perspective on knowledge, which leads to the notion of 'cognitive distance'.It looks at both the competence and the governance side of relationships.Given cognitive...

Taking into account both competence and governance issues, and six dimensions of tie strength, this article argues that in networks for exploration there are good reasons, counter to the thesis of the 'strength of weak ties', for a dense structure of ties that are strong in most dimensions.By...

In this article we provide an empirical illustration of hypotheses, developed in the literature, on the role of density and strength of ties in innovation networks.We study both exploration and exploitation networks in the Dutch multimedia and pharmaceutical biotechnology industry.We find...

This article connects theory of learning with theory of governance, in the context of inter-firm relations.It recognizes fundamental criticism of transaction cost economics (TCE), but preserves elements from that theory.Two kinds of relational risk are identified: hold-up and spillover risk.For...

Moral outrage was the response of the Chinese press, when Cheng Kejie, one of the country's highest officials, Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) and former Governor of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, was arrested on grounds of corruption on 25...

In the 1950s and 1960s there was a debate about the nature of an agricultural cooperative: the cooperative as extension of the farm, the cooperative as vertical integration or the cooperative as a firm. We revisit this debate with various concepts from the theory of the firm that have been...