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


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