The Emergence of the Business Network Approach

• Relationships between commercial actors have existed for thousands of years as highlighted by Hadjikhani and LaPlaca (2013) and Hadjikhani in the final chapter of this volume. However, research on relationships between business actors, often summarised under headings such as industrial marketing or B2B, has a more recent origin. In the words of Hadjikhani and LaPlaca (2013: 294), relationship research ‘existed in society but had little scientific identity or inquiry’. This is even truer for research on wider relationship systems, that is, business networks. However, as will be demonstrated in the present volume, the situation in the beginning of the twenty-first century is quite different. Research on business networks is lively and manifested by a large number of publications. A search for ‘business networks’ in the databases SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI and A&HCI for all years until 2015 (with the restriction that the journals publishing the papers should be classified in the Subject Category ‘Business & Economics’ in all 156 journals) resulted in 553 hits, with the first papers published in 1992. Publications then did not accelerate until the early twenty-first century with an all-time high in 2012 of 70 hits, and somewhat lower figures in the following years. However, it should be noted that the 2015 figures merely refer to the first part of the year (Fig. 2.1) and will increase.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Network

Business

Bibliometrics

Business Studies

Företagsekonomi

library and information science

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)