1. Introduction

Due to globalization and technological developments, virtual organizations and networks have emerged in the last decade as new organizational structures and continue to gain importance on the market. This is especially true for networks of freelancers and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Although virtual networks have been studied for quite some time, there is still need for research regarding their inner dynamics and the mechanisms of leadership and governance. Network governance is an interesting topic because inter-organizational networks are typically characterized by a lack of formal hierarchies and roles and have no formal structure of leadership. Thus, it is sensible to assume that informal actions of individual stakeholders play a crucial role in shaping and governing the network.

In our study, we investigated whether the concept of micro-politics is useful to explain behavior in virtual networks. The term ??micro-politics?ˉ refers to informal actions of individual stakeholders to gain power and exert influence within an organizational setting. Originating in organizational science and psychology, micro-political behavior within organizations has been extensively researched in the last decades.

The aim of our paper is to transfer the concept of micro-politics from the intra-organizational setting to the inter-organizational level. To investigate whether micro-political behavior is a feasible perspective on virtual networks, we conducted a qualitative interview study with representatives of various networks, questioning them about their perception and use of actions to gain power and influence.

Therefore, the contribution of our work is to extend the concept of micro-politics to inter-organizational-or virtual-networks and to provide first empirical insights into structures and tactics of power within such networks.

The paper is structured as follows: In section 2, we discuss and define virtual networks, as we understand them in our study. In section 3, we introduce the concept of micro-politics within organizations and transfer it to inter-organizational relations. Section 4 describes the methodology of our study. Results are presented and discussed in sections 5 and 6. We conclude the article by discussing implications for the design of virtual networks and the supporting ICT from a researcher?ˉs as well as a practitioner?ˉs viewpoint and describing prospects for future work.


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