Networking and the competitive advantage of supply chains

The paper seeks to elaborate on the competitive advantage of supply chains from the perspective of networking that is employed in a twofold sense. First, it is used to explore the issue of network competitive advantage, which is considered to deliver benefits to all major actors constituting the supply chains, while in the second sense networking is brought to demonstrate whether actors, as well as relationships formed by these actors, possess the necessary characteristics to deliver the network competitive advantage. Based on this conceptual reasoning, we then deliver theoretical propositions that assist in deeper understanding of how the network characteristics of supply chains can contribute to deriving the network competitive advantage of supply chains. Specifically, the study shows that most of these characteristics have a positive impact on the value of network rent. Likewise, the paper also points out that the specific characteristics of networking are mutually interdependent and remain in intermeshing and overlapping relationships. As a consequence, the independent variables, when considered holistically, may mutually interact in such a way that they may produce contradictory outcomes.