Claves del derecho de redes empresariales. AAVV

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СКАЧАТЬ firms, with the rest being medium-sized, form the Beta network, which has one central hub and 40 local depots throughout Germany. The network management unit Beta LLC is headquartered at the central hub and has about 150 administrative and operational employees. Beta’s financial endowment stems from the partners’ capital shares as well as handling and administration service fees. The resulting revenues are first used to cover the headquarters’ and the hub’s running costs. Remaining profits are eventually paid to the shareholding partners — just as possible deficits will also be compensated by these legally liable partners. As a consequence, substantial investments, for example, into the alliance’s infrastructure, cannot be made without the involvement of the respective shareholding partners. Network HQ organization is widely determined by its legal status as a limited liability company and its economic dependency on the relatively small number of alliance members (equity holders). Like Alpha, it consists of a management board, a supervisory board (chaired by the CEO of the largest investing partner), and a yearly general meeting, composed of all equity holding partners. In contrast to Alpha, the Beta alliance exhibits further organizational units for participative decision-making processes: regional groups, the supervisory committee, focus teams, and the partner meeting. Depending on the location(s) of the respective depot(s), every partner company is member of at least one regional group. Here, executive management representatives meet quarterly to discuss current regional problems and to exchange, assess, and select improvement initiatives. The supervisory committee in turn consists of one delegate from each regional group. The committee regularly discusses relevant region-spanning issues and prepares decision memos for the partner meeting, acting as a link between regional groups, focus teams, and the partner meeting. However, both the regional groups and supervisory committee can delegate topics to specialized focus teams for concrete elaboration. Focus teams are assembled as needed by partner company experts and Beta’s line and/or staff departments, such as marketing, IT, operations, and strategy. Overall, network partners possess extensive strategic, operational and design authority.

      In its day-to-day business, Beta LLC as network HQ executes an operative coordination and control function, since all shipment data converges there. Moreover, the LLC’s employees take responsibility for central hub operations, line-haul timetables, alliance marketing support, IT system development, data clearing and performance monitoring, process standards, and dedicated staff training. However, unlike Alpha, the central management unit’s CEO and his staff are responsible for facilitating inter-partner exchange and participative decision processes with regard to network maintenance, strategy, and optimization. Therefore, they take care that all respective meetings proceed regularly, are prepared properly, and are attended by the correct representatives. Furthermore, Beta LLC enforces partner rule compliance, keeps control of all current project initiatives, and takes over implementation for major initiatives on behalf of the alliance partners. An overview of the key Alpha and Beta features is presented in table 3.

       TABLE 3: Overview of Key Alpha and Beta Characteristics (as of 2008)

	Alpha	Beta
No. of membersRevenuesShipments	>100 Shareholders> €100 million>5 million	>10 Shareholders and associates> €100 million> 5 million
Alliance management	Network HQ as privately held limited liability company	Network HQ as privately held limited liability company, forums, workgroups
Network HQ’s responsibility	Network operations and design	Network operations, network marketing (incl. tender management)
Partner firms‘ responsibility	Customer acquisition, Marketing, production	Customer acquisition, production, network design (standard setting, etc.) through participation in forums and workgroups
Other	No territory protection, multiple alliance membership, optional alliance network usage	Territory protection, single alliance membership, obligatory alliance network usage

      Source: adapted from Albers &Klaas-Wissing (2012)

      Both alliances provide similar products and services within the same geographical area, resulting in similar provision requirements. Furthermore, they achieve and handle virtually similar revenues and shipments per year. Although present in the same business context and revealing very similar operational characteristics, both alliances differ in the way they cooperate in order to cope with their operation scale (that is, shipping volume and geographic density): whereas Alpha pools over 100 small member firms with low shipping volumes and restricted geographical scope, Beta integrates roughly a tenth of that number, but with partner firms of comparatively larger size and scope, respectively. Since coordination costs incurred by the alliance’s activities are to a large extent affected by the number of partner companies involved, Alpha, Beta and their respective member companies consequently have to deal with different organizational challenges in terms of cost-efficient partner integration and coordination. Alpha relies on high standardization levels, as well as on its administrative processes, and serves as a highly efficient operations platform for its members, although it does not allow customization to individual members’ needs. By contrast, Beta is a much more participative and flexible organization that reflects the requirement of catering to member needs and preferences.

      The analysis shows that there is no “one best way” of alliance organization in the LTL business, since Alpha and Beta’s differing organizational designs seem to match the requirements of their specific situational settings. Their differences can be widely related to the different number of partner companies within the alliance and the quest for low coordination cost. In the highly competitive LTL industry, the examined alliance networks seem to have found effective and, at least temporarily, efficient governance arrangements that allow them to compete with the large and integrated logistics corporations. The substantial number of failing business networks in the LTL industry, albeit not all and exclusively related to ineffective and inefficient structures, support the view that the variety of effective organizational arrangements is not endless, and that networks need make sure that they identify and implement such effective organizational structures in order to provide the benefits that their members expect.

      Therefore, business networks can be encouraged in that organizational forms are available that can contribute to their and their members’ competitive advantage. However, they also need to be cautioned in so far as the most effective and efficient forms must be tailored to their specific situations. In addition, member political interests and potential conflicts between the network management and members more often than not prevent implementing, or even identifying, the most effective organizational solutions, and therefore risk the well-being and survival of the network and at least some of its members.

      Network organization structures and processes need to take the specific, idiosyncratic conditions of the network and its members into account to devise the most effective and efficient organizational solution. Networks therefore must understand “the situation”, i.e. understand the aims and needs of the own network, the characteristics of the industry and the environment in order to be able to design the network organization accordingly. In this context, generic designs can be starting points or reference points, but most likely will not correspond to any effective network governance model for a real-work business network.

      Since it is also unlikely that every innovation, major progress, and new insight willbe generated locally, the permanent assessment and monitoring of own and competing networks is important. For this purpose, different business environments and industries should also be taken into account. Telecommunications providers may well learn from alliance networks in the airline industry, and trade fairs from the automobile industry.

      Research shows that firms benefit from past alliances if they manage to effectively store, retrieve, and disseminate knowledge on former management practices, for example by forming dedicated positions or functions for alliance management purposes (Kale, Dyer & Singh, 2002).Member firms and network HQs are therefore most likely to benefit from their continuous involvement in identifying, addressing and solving network-related issues. However, despite the important role of experience in forming stable cognitive schemes and reaction repertoires (Albers & СКАЧАТЬ