Concentration and aggregation of small and medium enterprises analyzed through a novel paradigm

A model is described and implemented, with the purpose of representing the non-equity collaborations among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In the real world these links are stable, but not strong. In this context the strong links are joint-ventures and participation exchanges, while nonequity collaboration (as a consortium) are stable, but leaving each enterprise as an autonomous entity. In particular, the governance of SMEs remains independent! but in the long term we observe a co-evolution of strategies among the enterprises which take part in the collaborative network. These activities could be the basis for a network formation and/or impact the topology of an existing network. In this work an agent based model is introduced, aiming to explore the dynamics behind network formation among SMEs. © 2009 IEEE