Conclusions and Further Implications of the Proposed Framework

Due to the nature of organizational networking, the research issues shaping the essence of DOMINO are examined from many different angles. This is to ensure that a wide range of interesting and relevant aspects concerning the domain of network management will be covered. The different backgrounds, assumptions, and agendas brought in by the DOMINO members invite for a collaborative argumentation, a new style of creativity and conversation. From the individual research efforts' landscape view presented in this chapter, it is obvious that the focused research endeavors presented findings with sufficient spread and versatility to address a substantial area in the field of network organizations. The close interaction among researchers prevents the research effort at the project level from becoming fragmented and provides results that maintain their initial focus while also they are building insights in specific common areas that can trigger further interaction.

The four basic themes that evolved out of this analysis—namely social networks, IOS platforms, business models, and network governance—illustrate an underlying commonality in research orientation within DOMINO, irrespective of theoretical background and of analytical perspective adopted by researchers. These four research perspectives provide the basis for a more in-depth research that will capitalize on these themes and produce the actionable results that DOMINO intends to present to the business community. To this end, the proposed framework will converge the outcome of the literature review concerning theoretical constructs and real-life cases, and thus reveal new trends and needs, justifying the effectiveness of current models according to the experience gained following their application. In particular, it collects data from individual research efforts in the field of organizational networks, and therefore could comprise the starting point of drawing conclusions and verifying theoretical constructs, so that practitioners could easily aggregate and interpret them.

However we acknowledge the reader that this framework serves practitioners as a roadmap useful for capturing manifold managerial issues. The analysis and the investigation of these issues aim to produce insights of scientific and practical work in the area of dynamic organizational forms. Moreover the ongoing work on DOMINO proposes a network management framework that will deliver orientation, guidance, and assistance for people who are somehow familiar with network management challenges. DOMINO's management framework will provide an overview and structures of network management issues. Thus, the actionable multidimensional framework for analyzing multidisciplinary network phenomena, presented in this chapter, comprises an important milestone that will lead to the final outcome of the DOMINO project, which is the network management framework.