Interorganizational operations in value chains: Experiences from networked software firms

The aim of the paper is to describe interorganizational operations in the value chains and experiences of networking. The research approach is empirical and descriptive. Data was gathered by a mail survey from Finnish software producers. The results of this study indicate that networked firms had conducted 64% of defined interorganizational operations, while the percentage for non-networked firms was 26%. The networked firms had set mainly marketing and resource–use related objectives for networking. Lack of marketing resources was the most important reason for firms to join a network. The experiences from networking reflected mainly positive attitude towards inter-organizational cooperation. Furthermore, the networked firms in this study were larger than the non-networked firms, measured by business volume.