Improving the collaborative network performance through the activation of compatible strategies

Abstract

Establishing collaborative relationships among the enterprises belonging to a network encourages them to jointly work in order to achieve common objectives that cannot be achieved if they work in isolation. The participation in collaborative networks involves enterprises to define their own objectives and subsequently, to identify the strategies whose activation promotes positive influences in all the objectives defined by all the networked partners. Nevertheless, in real networks, contradictions among the objectives defined by the enterprises may appear due to the heterogeneity that characterises its members. Accordingly, a model that supports the identification of compatible strategies is developed, based on the system dynamics method. The model takes into account that the strategies designed in one enterprise should promote the achievement of the objectives defined by other enterprises of the network. The identification of compatible strategies will allow the attainment of the objectives and consequently increase the levels of the network performance.