Project Description

Title of the Project:
BeNN - joint research, moderation and coaching of regional networks for new strategies of product use
Leader of the Project:
Dr. Matthias Teller, BfU, Karl-Marx-Str. 3j, 15831 Großziethen,
Tel.: +49 33 79-44 81 41,
Email: teller-bfu@t-online.de
Term: March 1. 2002 to December 31.2004

Problem Situation, Background, Starting Point

The realization of structures for a sustainable economy is strongly connected to the successful installation of networks. Especially the realization of strategies for sustainable product use needs multiple horizontal and vertical interconnections in the range of economy and socio-economics.

The re-use of products and their components, the sharing of products and use without possessing the products needs networking in order to achieve a job sharing in its different services.

Even though networking is meanwhile an often-used term the knowledge about its development and management is still in the beginning, especially for strategies for sustainable use. Networks have a high dynamic in their development. Therefore they need an adequate continuity of the consolidation of the base functions (e.g. economical functions, cooperative functions, functions for service, dialogue and marketing).

Considering this the basic research question is:
How do networks for new strategies of sustainable use have to act concerning structure and methods in order to become and stay successful?
From this question we receive a bundle of more detailed research questions focussing on the types of networks, their factors of success, development paths and so on.

Project Aims

The project will assist the realization of networks for sustainable use on four different levels.

• We will examine nine networks that are sponsored by the national research-program: " sustainable economy: chances and limits of new strategies of use, part A: regional approaches " and find out internal and external factors of success weak points. These will be compared with the examination of some existing conventional national and international networks.
• The development and management of a selected network will be accompanied by its supervision. The network managers will have the possibility to reflect the importance and methods of moderation.
• Preparation of guidelines for the successful development of networks
• Initially, we will examine international networks to consider the influence of socio-economical, socio-cultural and political factors.

Research Design

On a very empirical level we will describe and explain the structure and processes of networks. This will be done by analyses of social-, communication-, interaction-, power-, motivation- an interest- structures. The analyses of the network-processes are mainly related to the changes in these structures. All this will be done by investigating literature, interviewing experts, undertaking standardized interviews of networks as well as intervision of network moderation and supervision.

Expected Results

The project will work out concrete guidelines for the development and management of networks for sustainable strategies of use. It will evaluate the importance of moderation and supervision within a network.