Networks: A Question of Control

As with so many other aspects of knowledge assets, there are both bottom-up and top-down aspects to networks. There are many who study networks that see them as analogous to self-organizing, living systems that occur in nature. If you believe this, then you believe that organizations can organize themselves. There is a lot of truth to this and it makes sense to dig in, using the approaches we outline above to understand how a network is working organically so that interventions are effective. But it is unrealistic to believe that businesses will become completely self-organizing in our lifetimes, if ever. Read more