An integrated methodology for the analysis of collaboration in industry networks

• DOI: 10.1007/s10845-011-0510-z
• Publication Date: 2011-02-14T06:17:31Z
• Authors: Dario Antonelli; Brunella Caroleo
• Keywords: 0502 economics and business; 05 social sciences; 8. Economic growth

In literature, a large number of studies on the Italian districts exhibit a portrait which points out the Italian economic specificity. A specific feature of the Italian districts is the large number of collaborative actions carried on by the associated enterprises which are not limited to the solution of the usual supply chain management problems. As not all the collaborative actions bring immediate (and measurable) economic benefits, there is the need for a reliable and unbiased method aimed at the identification and analysis of the collaborative patterns inside an industry network, to determine their presence and effectiveness. The proposed method uses a graph representation of the inter-firm relationships inside a network and induces the presence of collaborative behaviours by the analysis of the graph topology.