Business Relating Business -- Or Shameless Self Promotion!

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

 http://books.google.com/books/about/Business_relating_business.html?id=no-FpmuekEc

Business Relating Business argues that business performance depends on the way a firm is connected to other firms and organisations and not just its own skill and resources. The book synthesises 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.
It 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 organisation structure and strategy.

Contents

Introduction: Relationships and Networks Are Us 
1. The Nature and Role of Relations and Networks in Business 
2. Why Business Relations and Networks Exist I: Specialisation and the Economics of Insourcing
    and Outsourcing 
3. Why Business Relations and Networks Exist II: Value Creation and Innovation 
4. Business Mating: Establishing and Developing Business Relations and Networks 
5. Relationship Attractors: Typologies of Business Relations 
6. Business Dancing: Managing and Being Managed in Business Relations and Networks 
7. Strategies for Firms in Business Relations and Networks: The Extended Enterprise and 
    Soft-Assembled Strategies
8. Strategies for Policy Makers in Business Relations and Networks: Evolving Evolvable Relations
    and Networks 
9. Reinventing The Future of Business Relations and Networks 


Reviews

‘This is a most informative, comprehensive, and well-written book. It is full of interesting detail, and the analysis – though involving many complex ideas – is presented in a coherent and logical style that ensures the reader’s interest in retained throughout. It is very suited for its intended market – final undergraduate and postgraduate students in a variety of disciplines, including business, business organisation, marketing, and customer-relationship management.’
– First Trust Bank Economic Outlook and Business Review

'This book demonstrates that no organisation is an island, but is part of a complex structure composed of a myriad of other organisations. The author provides an analytical framework within which an organisation’s marketing strategy may recognise the opportunities and challenges offered by the interrelated networks within which it operates.’
– Don Dixon, formerly of Temple University and Penn State University, US

‘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