論文要旨

論文要旨

Abstract

This dissertation looks at how organizational field boundaries in inter-firm networks influence network effects (benefits from cohesion and structural holes) and network change. It focuses not simply on organizational fields but on what happens at their boundaries.

In the empirical section, each study focuses on a different aspect. In the first study on the emerging Japanese nanotechnology field, I find some evidence that field boundaries increase structural hole effects while they decrease cohesion effects.

In the second study on the Japanese biotechnology industry, I find that field boundaries can be spaces where influences can filter through from other fields.

The degree of filtering can be dictated by network structure.

In the third study on the Japanese pharmaceutical industry, I argue that field boundaries can slowly weaken through M&As, making an outsider firm more central in the target field.

Finally, in the fourth study, I investigate the different fields around Toyota Motor Corporation and theorize that field boundaries can be managed by powerful members. I argue that Toyota can create field boundaries that act as insulators that separate different fields.

These studies are all placed in a systematically drawn up theoretical framework that I present in Part I. I review the main literature on fields and organizational fields, starting with Warren (1967), Martin (2011), Bourdieu (2005), Bourdieu & Wacquant (1992), DiMaggio & Powell (1991), Scott (2013), Wooten & Hoffman (2008), all the way to the more recent Powell et al. (1996), Fligstein & McAdam (2012), Furnari (2014), and Zietsma et al. (2017). I find Fligtein & McAdam’s (2012) definition as the most developed and build on Zietsma et al. (2017).

Chapter 4 puts all the material together to describe my field concept. I accept

that 1) fields can be multi-level and nested, 2) networks are not equal to fields,

but they are a structural representation of some aspects of fields, 3) roles,

hierarchy, and power are important in fields, 4) symbolic systems such as norms,

values, frames are inseparable from fields, and 5) different forms of capital and

tangible objects can shape the power relationships within the field and thus the

networks. Then, in Chapter 5, I define field boundaries based on the field

concept explained above and give some reference points for what I mean by

field interaction