European Integration and Complementarities DrivenNetwork Alignment: The Case of ABB in Centraland Eastern Europe

The depth of industry integration between European ‘West’ and ‘East’ depends on thesimultaneous existence of several factors, which, through mutual complementarities,align global and local networks. This paper takes the case of Asea Brown Bowery (ABB),one of the first large investors in central and eastern Europe (CEE), to show that thesuccessful penetration of this company into CEE was the result of the simultaneousoccurrence of several factors, which had mutually reinforcing complementarities.Changes in the strategy of ABB towards knowledge-based services may be weakeningthese complementarities and dis-aligning local and global networks in CEE. Byintegrating the insights of Milgrom and Roberts (1995) on complementarities the paperfurther develops the ‘network alignment’ perspective (Kim and von Tunzelmann, 1998)on growth...