How risk considerations can affect inter-organization relationship decisions

The new trends in inter-organization relationships push towards network solutions: companies are interestedin relationships with partners and customers to overcome resource dependence, enter too risky market orsimply differentiate their business portfolio. The present study focuses on network organization aiming athighlighting threats and opportunities to investigate the double nature of the risk concept. In literature therisk concept is often associated to the amount and probability of business losses and the effort is on managethe risk at operative level. In this paper the risk is evaluated in pair with the opportunities is brought in andthe risk management is tackled both at strategic and operative level. The aim is then to investigate riskcharacteristics in network environment and provide a decision support tool able to control risk in designingand running network organization.