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In today´s networked economy, each organization is more and more shaped by the system of its long-term business interactions. Innovation processes cannot be successfully designed and managed unless the complex influences of business networking on innovation processes and innovation-related performances are clearly understood. But extant theories on business networks are fragmented, and each of them, taken singularly, provides only partial or poor understanding of the impacts of business networking on innovation performances. Based on qualitative research on three exemplary worst practices and on expert panel discussion and validation, Francesca Ricciardi develops novel quantitative models in this theory-building work to explain innovation performances in different interorganizational networks.

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Possible Positive and Negative Impacts of Business Networking on Innovation and Excellence.- Sustainable Altruism for Business Networking.- Ecology of Innovation in Organizational Settings.- Dimensions of Business Network Effectiveness and Motivations for Business Networking.

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Francesca Ricciardi has been a lecturer in "ICTs and the Information Society" and other similar subjects at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, since 1998.

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