Business network as organizational memory and heuristic problem solving. Insights from a literature review

The aims of this paper is to give a base of discussion about the relation between business network and organizational memory and heuristic literature. More precisely, the paper compares different approaches to heuristics and propose an evaluation of the role of heuristic processes in business network. Following an analysis of heuristic based on the ecological rationality approach, a view where business network are a base for activating heuristic processes and problem solving is proposed. On the methodological level, the work presented here is conceptual, based on a wide-ranging literature review.In business networks heuristic rules emerge and are taught and learnt. Business network can give a base for retrieval of information as part of the organizational memory. At the same time, search rule and decision rules are part the base to define heuristic problem solving. In business network memory can be stored in actors, resources and activity. Actors’ cognitive activities are central issues in the capability to acquire information, but organizational memory in business network refers to stored information from interaction and actors’ history that is brought to bear on present behavior. This information is stored as a consequence of implementing activities to which they refer, by actors’ recollections and through shared interpretations.