Network strategies and effects in an interactive context

• This paper develops a typology of networking strategies and their effects.
• The paper is based on a single case study, the company Ritek, its network strategies and their effects.
• The paper finds five types of network strategies and links these to intended and unexpected effects.
• The paper builds on industrial marketing research on strategizing by categorizing strategies and linking them with effects.

This paper adopts the industrial marketing approach to investigate how companies strategize in networks, and to link network strategies to different effects. Based on a case study from the optical recording media industry, the paper finds five types of strategies: complementary, shared, copying, company-rooted, and challenging. Effects indicate how the focal company's strategies triggered reactions of various magnitudes and characteristics. Specifically, effects diverge from intentions among parties not considered in the strategy, and increasingly so the more confronting the strategy is. This implies that the kind of strategy matters for the effects. This paper contributes to the growing interest for strategizing in business networks through introducing a typology of network strategies and effects.