Topologias de redes para estratégia relacional: um estudo no setor de calçados e bolsas

Abstract

Applying social network concepts to business environment, Granovetter (2005) argues that economic outcomes can be affected by standard practices established around social networks. Therefore, enhanced knowledge about economic stability and factors that lead tocompetitiveness in business clusters could be better understood through the development of social network research. In addition to that, business clusters represent flourishing objects for relationship studies and, therefore, their understanding is essential in filling theoretical gapsabout inter-organizational network dynamics (BELL; DEN OUDEN; ZIGGERS, 2006) and structures (PROVAN; FISH; SYDOW, 2007). Thus, an empirical study was developed about footwear industry, located in the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte. The research aimed toanalyze the role of relational and environmental factors shaping the network topology. It can be classified as a descriptive and explanatory study over the objectives and as a case study, coupled with experimental approach, over the scientific procedures. Data was collected by 22questionnaires and 26 interviews conducted with businessmen and specialists in the footwear industry. Analyses were primarily made by the software Ucinet (BORGATTI; EVERETT; FREEMAN, 2002). The results showed that relationship in the business cluster is characterized by absent or weak ties, because of low social interaction, lack of governance, and high competition between the companies. Contacts and friendship relations are more important to the density and number of ties, while cooperation and competition relations are stronger parameters to explain the learning network. The study showed that environmentalfactors can affect entirely the structure of the system, providing increased density and new relationships in the inter-organizational network. In this regard, it is noticeable that the prestige overrides friendship and the contact`s historical ties. Prestige also determines how desirable a company will be for cooperative relations under situations of opportunity or threat. Based on that, it is inferred a tendency of rich-get-richer processes. Further, the study suggests that the core structure in the network is not only responsible for the flow of information arriving to more peripheral nodes, but also it is responsible for the stability or instability in the cooperative environment.