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This study aims to advance networking-based, construction-related business management (BM) knowledge, concepts and practices. The focus is on the supply side and therein networking between three or more companies on an equal, legal, managerial and organisational basis.

The literature reviewing process has resulted in the identification of 79 construction-related BM concepts published between the years 1990 and 2017. In this paper, the focused review reveals the degrees to which the authors have designed their BM concepts along the networking dimension.

Indeed, 33 (42 per cent) construction-related BM concepts have been designed along the networking dimension. There are 7 (9 per cent) high-degree, 11 (14 per cent) medium-degree and 15 (19 per cent) low-degree BM concepts. The high-degree ones include Bennett’s (2000) tapestry, Hobday’s (2000) project-based organisation, Cheng and Li’s (2002) partnering model, Love et al.’s (2002) long-term alliance, Kiiras and Huovinen’s (2004) virtual PM company, Helander and Möller’s (2007) network resources as well as Wikström et al.’s (2010) business networks.

Aligning with Penrose (1995), networking-based BM may imply a paradigm shift vis-à-vis managing in construction markets, i.e. it is envisioned that many researchers replace a firm with a business network as a unit of theorising.

It seems that the seven high-degree BM concepts enable firms to manage businesses with similar contexts embedded within construction markets in networking-based, viable ways.

There is very little applied theoretical knowledge about networking as part of construction-related BM. This exploratory, focused review may trigger future BM research along the networking dimension.

Social relationships play an important role in organizational entrepreneurship. They are crucial to entrepreneurs’ decisions because, despite the bleeding-edge technological advancements observed nowadays, entrepreneurs as human beings will always strive to be social. During the COVID-19 pandemic many companies moved activities into the virtual world and as a result offline Social relationships became rarer, but as it turns out, even more valuable, likewise, the inter-organizational cooperation enabling many companies to survive.

This chapter aims to develop knowledge about entrepreneurs’ SR and their links with inter-organizational cooperation. The results of an integrative systematic literature review show that the concept of Social relationships, although often investigated, lacks a clear definition, conceptualization, and operationalization. This chapter revealed a great diversity of definitions for Social relationships, including different scopes of meaning and levels of analysis. The authors identify 10 building blocks and nine sources of entrepreneurs’ Social relationships. The authors offer an original typology of Social relationships using 12 criteria. Interestingly, with regard to building blocks, besides those frequently considered such as trust, reciprocity and commitment, the authors also point to others more rarely and narrowly discussed, such as gratitude, satisfaction and affection. Similarly, the authors discuss the varied scope of sources, including workplace, family/friendship, past relationships, and ethnic or religious bonds. The findings of this study point to a variety of links between Social relationships and inter-organizational cooperation, including their positive and negative influences on one another. These links appear to be extremely dynamic, bi-directional and highly complex.