Mind the network gaps -

In academia, an online database search of citations with ‘international development’ and ‘network’ shows a considerable rise in the numbers of these between the 1960s and the 1990s.2 At the level of practice, there are a growing number of advertised jobs, training courses and requests for advisory and support services from formal ‘named networks.’ There is a growing challenge to develop a more sys. [...] The deficiency lies in the limited understanding about how to conceptualize, develop and follow through on the strategic intentions of a network.’ Despite the volume of work carried out since then, the evaluators of a major donor agency saw fit to repeat this comment in their findings 10 years after Creech and Willard made their statement: ‘a fundamental deficiency in the current practice of netwo. [...] The construction of such models can help in establishing a number of different properties of the network, by abstracting from the nodes and the links key measures relating to the structure of the overall network. [...] The need to combine social and technical elements of a network encourages a detailed description of the concrete mechanisms at work gluing the network together, and how they are context-specific and situated within social relations and power dynamics. [...] Implications for network managers and researchers The following questions might usefully be posed in the context of a given network: • What is the overall pattern of exchanges and value creation in a network as a whole? • How healthy is the network and how well is it generating value for its members? • What impact does each input have on the network roles involved in terms of value realisation? •.