Business Relating Business: Managing Organisational Relations and Networks

`With few exceptions, professors of marketing are balanced and diplomatic and avoid being personal or original. They hide behind references to Journal of Marketing articles; it makes them feel secure. Not so Ian Wilkinson. No doubt well-read, he explores the networks of B2B marketing on his own terms, with originality; business dancing is such a creative example. Read his book and learn to business dance!'
- Evert Gummesson, Stockholm University, Sweden

This book assesses the nature and development of collaborative advantages as a means to boost international competitiveness as well as the performance of both organizations and nations.

Business Relating Business argues that business performance depends on the way a firm is connected to other firms and organizations and not just its own skill and resources. The book synthesizes thinking from marketing, management, economics and international business with evolutionary biology and complexity theory, as well as integrating many years' research on interfirm relations and networks. It develops the management and policy implications of adopting relationship and network perspectives and sets out an agenda for future research.

Ian Wilkinson brings together the latest thinking and research in the area and this book will be of particular interest to academics focusing on a wide range of subjects within business and management and marketing including: industrial and business-to-business marketing, marketing channels, supply chain management, purchasing, relationship marketing and management, strategic alliances and joint ventures, business strategy and competition. The book will also appeal to economists as well as researchers in management and economic sociology, industrial and organization structure and strategy.