I recently conducted research on networks in VET which underlined the extensive benefits of networks to both participants and organisations.

Cohen and Prusak (2001, pp.61) find that networks provide an interlocking web of connections and help people develop their identities. Additionally, they find that:

• membership of a network implies a commitment to the group and its work and to cooperation
• network membership implies connection, based around the trust, understanding, and mutuality that support collaborative, cohesive action.

My research found that:

• networks help individuals to acquire new information and resources and share with their peers their explicit and tacit knowledge about their profession
• networks encourage members to reflect on and potentially improve their own practice
• networks help people further develop their identities, in this case, as VET practitioners or collaborators
• networks enable individuals to learn more about their own organisation – which is the common focus of networks reported on in the literature
• networks also enable individuals to learn about industry, if they are a provider, or about providers if they are from industry.

Cohen and Prusak (2001, p.61) find that many of the benefits that individuals derive from networks and communities – a sense of membership and purpose, recognition, learning, and knowledge – can also provide benefits for the organisation. Networks and communities contribute to the development of social capital in organisations, defined by Cohen and Prusak (2001) as a company’s stock of human connections:

Social capital consists of the stock of active connections among people: the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviour that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible (p.4).

In addition to developing social capital, Alter and Hage (quoted in Fulop and Linstead 1999, p.446) find that the business benefits of organisations working together include:

• opportunities to learn and adapt and to develop competencies or products
• a gain of resources – time, money, information, raw materials, legitimacy, status
• an ability to manage uncertainty and to solve invisible and complex problems
• an ability to specialise or diversify and to fend off competitors
• rapid responses to changing market demands.

Many different types of organisations were involved in the 2003 networks I studied, from enterprises, to industry associations, to provider groups, to government agencies. The benefits of participation for these groups varied, but the benefits were many, including:

• developing a better understanding of each other’s needs
• working together on training programs
• creating a climate of trust for future collaboration.

The findings from the 2003 networks confirm research by Ford et al (2003) who found that networks are essential to viability in contemporary business:

All companies are becoming more dependent on their relationships with those around them. And all these companies and relationships must cope with pressures and capitalise on opportunities from wider afield in the network (p.xi).

My research on networks is contained in the following report for ANTA - Building Industry Training Networks - available from http://reframingthefuture.net (click on ‘Publications’ and then click on ‘sub-program 4’).