The Role of the Plant Leaders

The management of manufacturing networks is considered to be high-level strategic management. As such, practitioners and scholars in the domain of network management show a tendency to overlook the role of individuals on the plant level. Namely, behavioral aspects of this microlevel are widely neglected. However, numerous examples from practice show how ignoring these behavioral aspects of individuals may be a major barrier for realizing network capabilities. The following chapter outlines why firms should-and how they can-include key individuals on the plant level. First, it explains why plant leaders are key individuals to consider not only for the plant but also for the network level. Subsequently, this chapter shows how plant leaders can be integrated into the strategic and coordinational aspects of network management. The insights provided in this chapter build on practical experience from numerous collaborations with manufacturing firms combined with the existing knowledge base from network management research(1).