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The purpose of this paper is to explore a concept that has been less examined in empirical research on school organization, namely Network Learning Capacity (NLC). It is proposed that teachers’ professional networks enhance teachers’ individual NLC. This process leads to a formation of professional community (PC) and therefore affects the level of organizational learning (OL).

The quantitative study with multiple methods comprising social network analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was conducted. Data were collected from a school implementing the International Baccalaureate (IB) programs in Taiwan.

Findings suggest that certain network positions were crucial in forming NLC on instruction. In addition, reflective dialogue, shaped by NLC, is the key component in establishing learning in this case school.

As the first of its kind in an educational context, the study highlights the linkages between network position and the development of professional learning community, which is mediated through NLC. This study contributes to illuminating the process of how PC practices and OL can be promoted in schools.

This paper aims to report “positively deviant” experiences of three public sector networks seeking to enhance organizational and system level capacities. It is the authors' thesis that the knowledge base concerning the true benefits and pitfalls of networks can be captured and interpreted only through intense, ongoing learning effort embedded in practice on the ground, combined with sustained in‐depth observation and collaborative research.

The paper describes through case examples why and how different kinds of networks within different jurisdictional contexts and different organizational cultures are being used to enhance the climate for change towards better health care and improved health. The authors describe the contexts, structures, processes and impacts of three “positively deviant” networks.

The network form can provide opportunity for nurturing changes and innovations within large organizational and complex system environments. This opportunity to create additional and different pathways for improved decision making and service provision comes with challenges that should be recognized.

The authors' experiences indicate that, for networks, a key component of success relates to pulling and pushing at the edges of multiple connections and boundaries in “positively deviant” ways. This pushing and pulling is intrinsically evidence of organizational and intraorganizational learning – in the examples presented – for the improvement of health care and health.

Other networks can learn from the reported experiences and add their own cases to the empirical understanding of how networks can make a difference; this in turn can help the conceptual and theoretical understanding of them.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

This paper aims to seek to explain the influence of power asymmetry and the moderating role of an organization’s absorptive and desorptive capacity on enhancing supply chain competence from its orientation to open innovation with its supply network.

To perform this study, the authors use data collected from 262 European firms. They apply regression analysis to test the moderating role of an organization’s absorptive and desorptive capacity on enhancing its supply chain competence from its orientation to open innovation.

The results confirm both the influence of power asymmetry and absorptive capacity on obtaining benefits that derive from an organization’s orientation to open innovation. The results do not, however, support the moderating effect of an organization’s desorptive capacity. Subsequent analyses performed in the study show that organizations that achieve complementarity among their own absorptive capacity and the capacities of its supply network manage to obtain greater benefits from its orientation to open innovation.

This paper responds to the need to study innovation in the context of a supply network and respond to calls in the literature on open innovation and supply chain management for the need to study the moderating role of absorptive and desorptive capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a policy map of professional learning networks (PLNs) in Spain. It includes initiatives prompted in Spanish schools in which social, political, cultural and educational elements are integrated. At the same time, it analyses which organization promotes each of the networks, the objectives pursued and the scope of the network in the territory in which it is created.

The methodology followed is essentially descriptive and incorporates the first experiences with school networks which have been disseminated in the Spanish literature. It stimulates reflection on the role networks are expected to play in relation to local developments in this specific school system.

The cases described (Castellon, Catalonia, Malaga and Seville) suggest a way forward for practitioners to advance toward an educational paradigm based on greater collaboration. This includes a partnership approach among professionals within and across classrooms, schools, communities, districts and education systems. In particular, the results place the focus of the network on the prevalence of the following school classification, included schools (community networks linking to the territory), extended schools (socio-educational networks), equity schools (equity fostering networks) and partnership schools (school-to-school support networks), whose objectives and scopes are reviewed.

With the Spanish context in mind, it is essential to recognize that more empirical evidence is still needed to make a significant contribution toward building knowledge in this research line. Indeed, sustainability seems to be an important point to consider in a short-term world where quick-fix solutions are required. However, PLNs need time to know how beneficial they really are, for example, in terms of student outcomes and school improvement.

The argument developed assumes networks as a mirror wherein the present and future of education takes place. In this sense, the scientific and educational communities have both a challenge and an opportunity to rethink the potential of networking and collaboration in education. The article tries to be attractive to a specialized reader or one simply interested in the problem of networks in education and the reality of PLNs in Spain.

The network society demands a network school environment where communities are part of a local character strategy.

This document offers an interesting view on networks that not only focus on education but on social and welfare issues and it aims to target education from a broader perspective; so resulting in opening schools to the community, which is not a widely covered topic in education research. In summary, the paper can be considered as a pioneer study in the Spanish context, which contains valuable information about PLNs, their origin and current status in this part of the world.

This chapter focuses on learning networks. The authors describe the six facets of knowledge networks for learning contexts. The importance of three facets is called out, including geography, topology, and nodes. The authors provide four networks, including pedagogy networks – that is, teachers, certification and professional learning networks, school networks, and informal and collaborative learning networks.

This paper aims at reviewing the extant knowledge management (KM) research field within a strategic alliance context to understand the historical roots, its temporal progression, current state and potential future in a meaningful way.

Data for this study was retrieved from the Scopus database using a systematic literature search process. The bibliometric characteristics of 393 research documents were analyzed using bibliometric and structured network analysis.

The findings of the study suggest that the publication in the field have been growing with an average rate of 8.48%. This analysis also lists the most productive and impactful authors, main outlets, and the most impactful secondary and primary publication in the field. In addition, the conceptual and intellectual structure of the research field was constructed and discussed.

This paper uses an objective and quantitative approach by reviewing the related publications and virtually included all the relevant publications in the analysis, which was seen to be uneconomical when doing traditional literature reviews.

The purpose of this paper is to investigates how organizational learning, absorptive capacity, cultural integration, specialization of the acquired firm and characteristics of transferred knowledge impact innovation performance subsequent to overseas acquisitions.

Survey responses from 222 Chinese multinational enterprises engaged in overseas acquisitions.

Differences between acquiring and acquired firms’ capabilities, while having a positive direct influence, suppress the positive impact of organizational learning and absorptive capacity, suggesting that multinationals require some basic level of capabilities to appropriate value from overseas acquisitions.

This paper investigates the impact of knowledge-seeking overseas acquisition of Chinese multinationals on innovation performance, as this appears to be the primary motive for making such acquisitions.

Knowledge-seeking overseas acquisition should be based upon the absorptive capacity of the acquiring firm and complementarity between both firms. In knowledge-seeking overseas acquisitions, establishing an effective organizational learning mechanism is necessary for improving innovation performance.

This paper reports on the behaviour and innovation performance of Chinese multinationals through analysis of primary data.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on a partnership-based mentoring model and the learning experiences of participant mentees and mentors. As part of the project, newly qualified teachers (NQTs) were supported to develop and implement a practitioner enquiry (teacher/action research) in a learning community involving two local authorities and an initial teacher education institution.

Qualitative data were collected from five semi-structured focus group interviews with key participant groupings to uncover perceptions and experiences of the partnership and professional learning therein. Analysis using an inductive and iterative approach pinpointed a number of emerging themes used to frame key elements of the findings.

Findings suggested that the partnership-based model promoted the professional learning and development of NQTs and their mentors in various ways. The nature and shape of the partnership had an influence on the quality of mentoring and support experienced. The community effectively supported the implementation of meaningful enquiry projects, which had clear connections to the enhancement of professional practice and pupil learning. However, specific tensions and conflicts emerged as hindrances to successful partnership-based mentoring in the specific context.

New insights into the role of a partnership-based mentoring scheme supporting practitioner enquiry-based learning of NQTs emerged. The local, layered community defining the partnership, and operating within the frame of a national induction scheme, was analysed. Benefits for partners were identified and specific challenges and tensions highlighted, both providing new evidence with potential to impact policy and practice. Policy developments supporting teachers to be mentors and enquiring professionals need to recognise the structural and support tensions that exist in contextual practice.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role intermediaries can play in an small to medium‐sized enterprise's (SME's) pursuit for corporate sustainability with a focus on eco‐innovation. The research identifies drivers and barriers for eco‐innovation, and highlights effects induced through collaboration between SMEs and local authorities, on the one hand, and consultancies, on the other.

This paper is based on an exploratory qualitative interview study among German SMEs of the metal and mechanical engineering industry that have participated in “Ecoprofit”, an intermediary based program that aims at introducing organizations to the concept of sustainable development through implementation of eco‐innovations.

The key findings are that first, the proactive approach by a public intermediary (here local authority) is one essential push factor to trigger eco‐innovations in SMEs with low absorptive capacity. Second, it is found that SMEs may need facilitation for eco‐innovation from different types of intermediaries (public and private) with different levels of support, which can range from customized and individual to more loosely held support, such as networks.

This study discusses the challenges of corporate sustainability with a focus on eco‐innovations for SMEs and proposes a “complex intermediary” consisting of a local authority and consultancies as one means to engage SMEs in sustainability. Moreover, it focuses on SMEs in the B2B context, organizations that are often overlooked despite their vast impact. Furthermore, by using a single industry approach, in‐depth findings for the metal and mechanical engineering industry are presented.