NETWORKS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIO-BEHAVIORAL FACTORS AND COMPETITIVE PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Among the complexity of the competitive context, the networks of companies have been emerging as an interorganizational alternative for the improvement of the enterprise competitiveness, whose performance is inherent to the relations with socio-behavioral factors, which is subject of this article. These relations had been evaluated in two supermarkets’ networks, the Central Mais network which comprises 33 companies and the Unimercados network which is made up of 17 companies. The research enabled analyses of exchange and creation of value and financial and structural increment, relating them to four socio-behavioral factors identified in the literature as: commitment, trust, cooperation and social connections. The analysis of the results made it possible to verify that the dualism of the coopetition permeate the relations in the studied networks, revealing the need of an interdependence vision. Relating to the supermarkets’ networks, it was verified that the Central Mais network is not managing to convert its best exchange and creation of value factors indices into financial increments to its  associates due to low participation rate of its associates, for not being so committed as well as not being able to visualize possible advantages of this relation. In the Unimercados network, paradoxically, the internal cohesion may be limiting its growth in terms of exchange and creation of value and inhibiting the search for external connections. These analyses do not aim to be conclusive, however, they tend to be in a reflective plan, working as subsidy for future researches in this field.