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What is the scope of brokerage network to be considered in thinking strategically? Given the value of bridging structural holes, is there value to being affiliated with people or organizations that bridge structural holes? The answer is “no” according to performance associations with manager networks, which raises a question about the consistency of network theory across micro to macro levels of analysis. The purpose here is to align manager evidence with corresponding macro evidence on the supplier and customer networks around four-digit manufacturing industries in the 1987 and 1992 benchmark input–output tables. In contrast to the manager evidence, about 24% of the industry-structure effect on industry performance can be attributed to structure beyond the industry's own buying and selling, to networks around the industry's suppliers and customers. However, the industry evidence is not qualitatively distinct from the manager evidence so much as it describes a more extreme business environment.

This chapter reviews the recent polarisation of debates in agrofood and rural studies, in particular the opposition between network (social relations, actor-network) and political economy analyses. It explores the contributions of different network approaches and draws on the French convention and regulation traditions, which provide alternative guidelines for confronting micro–macro tensions. Networks have similarly assumed analytical centrality in the new institutional economics and subsequent elaborations of the Williamsonian transaction costs paradigm have involved an approximation to some of the central tenets of social network analysis. Alternative traditions of political economy analysis (Global Value Chains (GVC), Global Production Networks) are now making an important contribution to agrofood studies. A distinctive feature of these analysts is their overture to social networks, actor-network, transaction costs and convention theory in the effort to capture the multiple dimensions of economic power and coordination. The possibilities for a fruitful convergence between these apparently conflicting approaches are best captured in the emergence of the concept of the “netchain”. At the same time, the intractability of values to absorption within economic transactions suggests the need to move forward to a focus on the tensions between netchains and social movements and a different type of network, the global policy network.

Dyadic multi-dimensionality informs the variation that exists within and between network ties and suggests that ties are not all the same and not all equally strategic. This chapter presents a model of dyadic evolution grounded in dyadic multi-dimensionality and framed within actor-level, dyadic-level, endogenous, and exogenous contexts. These contexts generate both strategic catalysts that motivate network action and bounded agency that may constrain such network action. Assuming the need to navigate within bounded agency, the model highlights three strategic processes that demonstrate how dyadic multi-dimensionality underlies the evolution of strategic network ties.

One of the leading themes emerging out of recent management and organization research on China is the work on the micro–macro link – specifically, the connection between micro, interpersonal connections, ties, and networks on the one hand, and macro, interorganizational relationships, firm strategies, and performance on the other hand. This chapter provides an overview of the literature on the micro–macro link during China's institutional transitions. Based on a systematic search of the literature, we review 22 papers in nine leading journals that have empirically investigated the micro–macro link, with a focus on the antecedents, contingencies, and outcomes of managerial ties and interlocking directorates. We also propose how the network structure of managerial ties will evolve from cohesion to structural holes in different phases of China's institutional transitions. We conclude with a brief overview of the influence of China studies on research in other contexts and with a call for future research deepening our understanding of the crucial micro–macro link during institutional transitions.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to establish some of the reasons why there exists a chasm between micro and macro disciplines of organizational sciences. We aim to suggest some fecund areas for bridging the gap between the micro and macro side of our science.

Methodology/Approach – In this chapter, we have polled our colleagues to ascertain the areas that they believe have the most potential to bridge the micro–macro divide. In addition, we have reviewed extant literature to identify some of the areas where bridging work has already started.

Findings – Through our survey and literature review, we have identified a number of areas which can help in narrowing the micro–macro divide.

Social Implications – By suggesting some ways to bridge the micro–macro divide, this chapter helps in setting future research agenda that will help in viewing organizational problems from multiple lenses. Our work also encourages the scholars from various disciplines to explore ways that can integrate the broad disciplines of organizational sciences.

Originality/Value of Paper – We have attempted to take the pulse of researchers in management disciplines concerning the chasm between micro and macro disciplines, and we have tried to integrate this information with the bridging research that has already been reported. Moreover, we have suggested a number of reasons why this gap is so difficult to remediate. We discuss how bridging the gap is connected to the way in which we train, develop, and reward nascent scholars in our field.

Coopetition (simultaneous cooperation and competition of actors) is still a relatively new concept in business, management, and tourism. However, several coopetition studies have focused on tourism and tourism destinations. Also, compilation literature reviews of tourism and tourism destinations have been published (Rusko, 2018). This chapter focuses on underlying coopetition networks of tourism and specifically of tourism destinations. Because of the typical features of tourism destinations, multifaceted connections in competition and cooperation – and coopetition – are present in everyday business and activities among actors of the destination. These coopetitive relationships cover several levels, they are present in micro, meso, macro, and meta level interplay of tourism destination. Furthermore, the analysis shows that several studies about coopetitive networks in tourism destinations do not use terms “macro” or “meta” though these seem to be the main levels of the studies. This only reveals the fertile dimensions of coopetitive networks in tourism. These various relationships form coopetitive networks that represent several dimensions and levels of actors, competition, cooperation, and coopetition. This chapter introduces these multifaceted perspectives of coopetition networks, which have been described in the contemporary literature about tourism and tourism destination.

In the absence of well-developed, formal institutional frameworks, informal network-based strategies have been argued to be especially viable in emerging economies. However, some empirical research has challenged these earlier theoretical arguments. In light of new evidence, this chapter develops a contingency perspective differentiating firms' networks as strong ties and weak ties. It suggests that while strong-tie networks are typically found during the early phase of institutional transitions, weak-tie networks are more likely to be developed and leveraged during the late phase of transitions. The upshot is that as the performance benefits of strong ties decline during institutional transitions, emerging weak ties' impact on firm performance is likely to increase.

Cultures don’t clash … people do. Hidden below the veil of “incompatible cultures” is a complex network of human-to-human interaction involving information-exchange transactions that have gone awry. The multitude of these troubled exchanges results in what is often branded as “M&A failure, due to culture conflict.”

This chapter presents a theoretical discussion that features practical dynamics of the post-merger integration (PMI) process. The aim is to cultivate a deeper understanding of critical, less-acknowledged micro-level aspects of the post-merger integration stage, specifically, those which underlie the development and maintenance of an organization’s culture and lead to organization performance. It is the unseen information exchange among human actors that leads to the perceptible post-merger outcomes, such as cultural unity and task performance. The quality of these micro-exchanges leads to the value capture from the M&A transaction, thus determining the success – or not – of the combination.

Presented is a synthesis of numerous existing theories, perspectives, and ideas from various scholarly communities, combined with a drill-down to the basic human interactions that define a culture and lead to positive performance. Information flow is the sustenance of an organization, so when merging organizations restructure the information flow is abruptly disrupted, often at pronounced near-term cost. The information-flow channels must be mended for social unification and performance value goals of the combined organization to be realized. The information-transporting social networks of the organizational actors must therefore adapt and intermingle across the old-organizational faultlines. This is accomplished when individual actors alter their personal social networks and retool themselves for a new set of information-exchange interactions.

In closing, the author counsels managers to focus on the dyadic information exchange of their direct-reports as an actionable approach to PMI management. The chapter concludes by pointing researchers toward studying the micro-level aspects of PMI and offers computer modeling and simulation, and laboratory experiments as effective ways to study PMI dynamics at the micro-level of organization behavior. Such methods may also lead to an ability to forecast outcomes of specific post-merger integration scenarios.

This exposition explains how Elementary Theory works and how it has been developed over the last two-and-a-half decades. Both increased scope and heightened precision are covered.

Theoretic methodology is explained. Using that method formal models are constructed analogous to empirical events. Those models predict events, design experiments, and guide applications in the field.

There is a widely held belief in sociology that theory becomes more vague and imprecise as its scope broadens. Whereas broader generalizations are more vague than narrower ones, this exposition shows that abstract theory becomes more precise as its scope broadens.

Here implications and limitations are closely connected. Regarding implications, this exposition shows that scientific explanations and predictions are viable today in sociology but only when exact theory is employed. Regarding limitations, the theory and research included in this exposition make clear why the empiricist search for regularities that dominates sociological research is so very limited in its results.

This exposition demonstrates that theory is the method of all the sciences and in particular the science of sociology.

The realities of economic life have forced most export-capable firms to “go global” because they will either “export or die” (Czinkota, Ronkainen, Moffett, & Moynihan, 2001). Exporting is the very first step of internationalization for many firms (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977; Cavusgil & Nevin, 1981) and most small businesses (Osborne, 1996). It continues to be an important mode of internationalization for firms (Charles & Beamish, 2003) and management research on export development has become “one of the most pioneering, established and mature streams of the export literature” (Leonidou & Katsikeas, 1996).