Title: Network resources and competitive advantage in productive cooperation networks

Authors: Ana Cláudia Azevedo; Rafael Morais Pereira; Fernanda Rosalina Da Silva Meireles; João Maurício Gama Boaventura

Addresses: Department of Business, School of Economics, Business and Accounting (FEA), University of São Paulo (USP), Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 908, Butantã – São Paulo/SP – 05508-010, Brazil ' Department of Business, School of Economics, Business and Accounting (FEA), University of São Paulo (USP), Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 908, Butantã – São Paulo/SP – 05508-010, Brazil ' Department of Business, School of Economics, Business and Accounting (FEA), University of São Paulo (USP), Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 908, Butantã – São Paulo/SP – 05508-010, Brazil ' Department of Business, School of Economics, Business and Accounting (FEA), University of São Paulo (USP), Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 908, Butantã – São Paulo/SP – 05508-010, Brazil

Abstract: Network resources are presented in the literature in a generic way with relatively little research analysing how results materialise in the network environment. Our aim in this study was to analyse which network resources are perceived as significant for the firms' competitive advantage. We conducted a survey of Brazilian firms engaged in a productive cooperation network. After factor analysis and canonical correlation analysis, the results showed two factors representing the network resources, one strategic and relational and the other rational and economic. The association of these factors with competitive advantage shows that strategic resources are perceived as being more influential over the firms' competitive advantage, mainly related to innovation outputs. We contribute to the systematisation of network resources and empirical verification of how they are perceived by the actors and are associated with their competitive advantage, considering the characteristics of a specific type of network - the productive cooperation network.

Keywords: network resources; competitive advantage; productive cooperation networks; Brazilian networks; quantitative analyses; factor analyses; canonical correlation.

DOI: 10.1504/GBER.2019.102552

Global Business and Economics Review, 2019 Vol.21 No.6, pp.712 - 731

Received: 09 Oct 2017
Accepted: 06 Aug 2018
Published online: 30 Sep 2019 *

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