Activity Interdependence in Industrial Networks - Exploring the Structural Interconnectedness of Activities and Resources

Journal article, 2014

Industrial activities are never undertaken in isolation, but need to be connected to each other in order to enable the production, exchange and use of industrial products and services, and related processes. This paper focuses on this connectedness by exploring upon the interdependence existing between individual activities. Three existing interdependency typologies are drawn upon, represented in Thompson (1967), Richardson (1972), and Håkansson et al (2009). All these have been extensively used in relation to the Industrial Network Approach (INA), and are subsequently recog- nized as relevant starting points for further exploration. The four alternative interdependency types presented in this paper enable the description and subsequent analysis of how activities connect in industrial networks. In relation to the existing typologies within the INA, these alternative types do not only enable an increased specification of how activities actually connect to each other. They also draw upon an underlying principle of the network model (Håkansson, 1987) by exploring upon one network dimension, resources, in the analysis of another dimension, activities.