Towards a theory of inter-organizational networking the Euro-Atlantic security institutions interacting

The article of record as published may be found at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-007-9027-9This article combines inductive and deductive theory building to identify building blocks for a theory of inter-organizational networking, a phenomenon that has gained prominence in international relations, but is largely neglected by lR scholars. Organizational and network theory are identified as the major starting points for theory building. Hypotheses are generated rrom the network of Euro-Atlantic security institutions, which has become the most sophisticated network of its kind since the early 1990s. The article looks specifically at the genesis of dyadic inter-organizational relations and of entire networks, at the relevance of networking for policy output and at the system effects that networks have on individual organizations. The theoretical findings are presented so as to allow a transfer to other geographical and functional areas of networking