BUSINESS ASSOCIATION NETWORK: EXPLORING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG ASSOCIATES

Abstract

The paper moves from the assumption that Business Associations can be considered as a rich social context in which the associated firms can develop their collaborative attitudes. The relationships among firms - mirroring attitude to collaborate – can be usefully described and represented in the framework of Social Network Analysis. We focus on empirical data gathered trough a survey of 787 firms associated to a Provincial Headquarter of the Confederation of Italian Industry (Confindustria in Salerno), one of the most important Business Association in Italy. The aim is to explore the collaborative patterns within the Confindustria Provincial Headquarter, highlighting an emerging
business association network (BAN) characterized by peculiar attitudes as pointed out by a deepen description of collaborative attitudes typology, illustrated throughout multidimensional data analytic techniques.

KEY WORDS Business Association | Cluster Analysis | Inter-organizational
relationships | Multiple Correspondence Analysis | Social Network Analysis.

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