Market-Oriented Horizontal Networks Among SMEs: Insights From Italian Cases,

Inter-organizational relationships have become both an academically rigorous discipline and an often pursued strategy by firms. Even if there is a wide body of the literature on this topic, some areas are still under researched; in particular market-oriented networks among SMEs and network dynamics as well are some aspects that deserve further studies. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to fill these gaps by understanding how managerial and organizational factors can help a successful network formation and development. This paper adopts an explorative case study approach comparing two networks of SMEs along different dimensions. Drawing both from the literature and from the field, a framework of analysis has been created in order to carry out a structured investigation. Our results suggest there are some elements firms need to pay attention to while forming and developing the network they are involved in and propose directions for future research.