NETWORK ORIENTED ENTERPRISE – CHARACTERISTICS, COMPONENTS AND BENEFITS: COMPREHENSIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept of network based economy refers to the interconnectivity of the current business environment, in the context of the global economy, where the main way of progress is given by the participation in a network. On the other hand, the network orientation of a business organization has as a priority its integration within physical or virtual networks, in order to increase its efficiency, acquire new information and finally achieve competitiveness. This paper carries out an extensive literature review, and it will explain different characteristics related to the two concepts, as well as their components. Thus, the present research is of a theoretical nature, carried out in a qualitative manner, because a series of articles from the scientific literature have been analyzed. Also, this study will identify the benefits of an organization orientation towards business networks in order to facilitate incremental and radical product, service and process innovation, as a result of the fact that innovation has a high importance for a company in order to ensure its competitiveness in a sustainable manner in the turbulent economic environment in which it operates. Moreover, the benefits of focusing on business networks are also propagated on the processes of ensuring efficient human resources at company level, as a result of the fact that the dynamic economic environment brings with it a need to correlate employees’ skills with the new needs existing in the business environment. Thus, business organizations must be constantly on the lookout for best practices in human resources, which is made easier by their participation in networks. Finally, the main benefit of this research is the providing a new perspective on a company’s business network orientation.