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This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

The great chartered companies that spearheaded early modern European empire combined economic accumulation and the projection of sovereign power. They operated through networks of geographically dispersed imperial agents, experiencing bottlenecks in the long-distance flow of goods and enforcement and significant lags in communication with, and among, their agents. We develop an agent-based model, comparing an entrepot and networked structure of metropole and outpost relations. The model enables us to highlight the associated outcomes of a range of dyadic and triadic colonial networks exemplified by the Dutch East Indies Company and English East India Company, respectively. It captures basic network structure and the impact of temporal lags bound up with the policing of agents and delivery of goods over great distances. We conclude, first, that overall profits are higher for the triadic form, but as the colonial entrepot becomes a bottleneck, it accrues a disproportionate share of those profits. Second, we reveal the potential impact of the bottleneck on the evolving triadic form. The closer the entrepot is to the metropole, the better the outposts perform; however, the entrepot itself fares much worse, ultimately depressing profits at the system level. Time lags are shown to pose significant challenges for both competitiveness and control; they are a seedbed of colonial autonomy.

Although extant post-acquisition literature has mainly focused on the integration of stand-alone firms, many acquisitions involve select units that were divested from former parents. Scholars have therefore recently called for moving beyond the dominant dyadic acquirer–target view of the acquisition process to a triadic view that considers the roles of, and interactions between, divestors, targets, and acquirers in the acquisition process. The authors set out to build an extended process view of such triadic relations based on a five-year longitudinal case study of one entrepreneurial company, acquiring two divested units from large multinational companies. The case sheds light on how divestors and acquirers together shape synergy realization efforts and identity-building by targets, causing dramatic shifts in perceptions of success throughout the acquisition process. The authors hope the case offers greater understanding, and triggers more research, into mingled integration and disintegration processes. The authors also highlight three impediments that can shape post-acquisition choices and discontinuous processes when acquiring divested units.

This paper explores the emergence and coordination of synchrony in networked groups like those that develop integrated product platforms in collaborative ecosystems. While synchronized actions are an important objective for many groups, interorganizational network theory has yet to explore synchrony in depth perhaps because it does not fit the typical diffusion models this research relies upon. By adding organizationally realistic features – sparse network structure and intentional coordination – to the firefly model from theoretical biology, I take some first steps in understanding synchrony in organizational groups. Like diffusion, synchrony is more effective in denser networks, but unlike diffusion clustering decelerates synchrony’s emergence. Coordination by a few group members accelerates group-wide synchrony, and benefits the coordinating organizations with a higher likelihood that it converges to the coordinating organization’s preferred rhythm. This likelihood of convergence to an organization’s preferred rhythm – what I term synchrony performance – increases in denser networks, but is not dependent on tie strength and clustering.

Contemporary emphasis on language and communication in mental health research and practice establishes the need for a communication model that addresses the variety of contexts – institutional, social, and cultural – in which attribution of mental disorders, treatment, and recovery occur. A ‘triadic’ approach to communication considers sufferers’: (1) transactions with environmental circumstances; (2) interpretive engagement with symbolic/discursive resources; and (3) relational interactions with others. Foundations for the model derive from pragmatism, systems theory, and theories of dialogue. A brief case study of depressive illness illustrates the value of the model. Implications for the organization of professional expertise in mental health fields are discussed.

The development of cities and regions is important for the economy. The most of the possible beneficial mechanisms of this growth can be achieved through the improved organizational performance. This chapter proposes the triadic analysis to the ethnic diversity with the implementation of talent and diversity management practices, in which diasporans serve as mediators. The research contributes to both theory and practice. First, since diasporans create spillover effect and provide transfer of knowledge and other capacities to destinations, their positive impact on cities and firms' performance is introduced. Second, we emphasize the specific practices, which are important to manage diversity issue and attract more skilled individuals, who can be further turned into diasporas. The research has implications for managers and policymakers emphasizing the benefits of diverse talent diasporans and possible strategies on how to leverage their skills and expertise.

The social and cultural duality perspective suggests dual ordering of interpersonal ties and cultural similarities. Studies to date primarily focus on cultural similarities in interpersonal dyads driven by principles such as homophily and contagion. We aim to extend these principles for sociocultural networks and investigate potentially competing micro-principles that generate these networks, taking into account not only direct dyadic overlap between interpersonal ties and cultural structures, but also the indirect interplay between the social and the cultural.

The empirical analysis utilizes social and semantic network data gathered through ethnographic studies of five creative organizations around Europe. We apply exponential random graph models (ERGMs) for multiplex networks to model the simultaneous operation of several generative principles of sociocultural structuring yielding multiplex dyads and triads that combine interpersonal ties with meaning sharing links.

The results suggest that in addition to the direct overlap of shared meanings and interpersonal ties, sociocultural structure formation is also affected by extra-dyadic links. Namely, expressive interpersonal ties with common third persons condition meaning sharing between individuals, while meaning sharing with common alters leads to interpersonal collaborations. Beyond dyads, the dual ordering of the social and the cultural thus operates as asymmetrical with regard to different types of interpersonal ties.

The paper shows that in addition to direct dyadic overlap, network ties with third parties play an important role for the co-constitution of the social and the cultural. Moreover, we highlight that the concept of network multiplexity can be extended beyond social networks to investigate competing micro-principles guiding the interplay of social and cultural structures.

The point that I wish to make is that we must be constantly aware of Shakespeare's “whining school-boy”, employ our pedagogy in the framework of its power, and be very humble while preaching our ideas, hoping to find the right way to bring a smile to the faces of our children. It is in this context that I wish to suggest a theatrical framework for teacher training, that is to say – theatrical representations of teaching as performance.

Balance Theory has accumulated an impressive record of empirical confirmation at both the micro- and macro-levels. Yet, it is unclear why humans consistently prefer balanced relations when imbalance offers the opportunity to reap material rewards. We argue that balance is preferred because it functions as a “compression heuristic,” allowing networks to be more easily encoded in, and recalled from, memory.

We present the results of a novel randomized laboratory experiment using nearly 300 subjects. We evaluate the independent and joint effects of degree of balance/imbalance and presence/absence of kin compression heuristics on network recall.

We find that memory for relationship valence is more accurate for balanced, rather than imbalanced, networks and that relationship existence and relationship valence are separable cognitive elements. We also use comparisons between kin and non-kin networks to suggest that humans are implicitly aware of the conditions under which imbalanced networks will be most durable.

We show that the tension/strain postulated to generate mental and behavioral responses to increase balance likely stems from cognitive limitations. More broadly, this connects balance theory to models of human cognition and evolution and suggests that human general processing ability may have evolved in response to social, rather than physical, challenges.