Transient commitments and dynamic business networking

A business network is a dynamic organizational form, ever shifting and changing. Capturing conceptually the dynamics of a network is difficult. We seek to explicate and understand how transient commitments focused on instrumental activities unfold and how they lead to network dynamics. We study this using the activity and actor dimensions of a dynamic network. Our empirical data is based on the defense supply industry where a number of firms act, interdependently and yet also somewhat independently, to change and adjust their surrounding network and so bring new solutions to their customers.