South West-Flanders is a region in Belgium with an almost unique concentration of firms - mainly SMEs - in what could be called the Ahousing and home furnishing@-business cluster. The extreme geographical concentration of these small and medium sized firms does not translate itself into a...

In Vlaanderen liggen alle plattelandsgebieden op relatief korte afstanden van stedelijke centra. Vaak zijn de afstanden naar het werk en naar bepaalde nutsvoorzieningen - net zoals in Nederland trouwens - niet groter dan voor inwoners van stedelijke gebieden. De economische interacties tussen...

De zonevreemde bedrijven vormen in Vlaanderen een belangrijk probleem binnen de huidige ruimtelijke planning. Zonevreemde bedrijven hebben niet alleen een ruimtelijke component (ze zijn zonevreemd) maar ook een economische component (het zijn bedrijven). Een realistische oplossing voor deze...

This paper investigates the role of the organization structure in process-based organizations. We argue that companies cannot be designed upon organizational processes only or that process management can be simply imposed as an additional structural dimension on top of the existing functional or...

In het Structuurplan Vlaanderen wordt uitgegaan van de notie "Vlaamse Ruit", die op termijn een stedelijk netwerk op internationaal niveau zou moeten worden. Concreet gaat het om de ruit Antwerpen, Gent, Brussel en Leuven. De Vlaamse Ruit bevat de grootstedelijke gebieden Brussel, Antwerpen en...

Interorganizational cooperation in some high-tech industries is no longer confined to two-company alliances, but entails industry-wide alliance networks. This article examines how industry analysis and network analysis can be combined to provide a thorough understanding of how network positions,...

The primary goal of this paper is to improve our understanding of the relationship between the positioning of companies in technology alliance blocks –substructures in the alliance network- and their innovative performance. In particular, we expect that a firm’s innovative performance...

Innovating firms often invest in a number of different technology projects, in different stages of development, using a wide range of distinct technology sourcing modes, such as strategic alliances, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. Recently, firms have also gained an increasing...

This paper looks at the special characteristics of radical inventions. It tries to identify those variables that differentiate radical inventions from non-radical inventions. Since radical inventions are very important for the economy as a whole and for the individual firm performances,...

Although the literature converges regarding the reasons why and how networks of technology alliances are formed, there is still lack of agreement on what constitutes an optimal network structure, once it has been formed. The aim of this paper is to fill this void and to determine what...