Synopses & Reviews
This book conducts a survey into the ways in which the word 'network' has been deployed in a wide range of literature. In particular, it offers a commentary on how the idea of networks has been used to illustrate contemporary forms of socio-economic organization broadly conceived to also include the political aspects of networks. The book brings some intellectual clarity to the discussion of networks by asking whether it is possible to construct a clearly demarcated idea of a network as a separable form of socio-economic coordination and governance mechanism with its own consistent logic. In doing this, the primary contrast is with hierarchies and markets as alternative and already well understood forms of socio-economic coordination each with their own distinctive logic.
Review
"This is a timely and useful stock-take of the burgeoning literature on organizational networks."--Review of Political Economy
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [237]-261) and Index.
About the Author
Grahame F. Thompson is Professor of Political Economy and Head of the Department of Government and Politics at the Open University. He has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, Grifith University, UNAM Mexico, and Curtin University. He is the co-author of
Globalization in Question (with Paul Hirst, 1999) and editor of
Governing the European Economy (2001).
Table of Contents
1. Considering Networks: A Methodological Introduction
Part I: Theoretical and Methodological Issues
2. Hierarchies, Markets, and Networks: A Preliminary Comparison
3. Social Network Analysis, Transaction Cost Analysis, Actor-Network Theory: Three Approaches to Networks
4. Networks and the Issues of 'Excess', the 'Gift', 'Non-Exchange', and 'Trust'
Part II: Applications and Empirical Comparisons
5. Industrial Organization as Networks
6. Political Networks and the Politics of Network Governance
7. Networks and the International System
8. Conclusion