This paper discusses the conditions of birth and growth of business networks in the veterinary drugs sector based on Brazilian examples examined by the authors. The beginnings of business networks are approached from two paradigms, one advocating the idea that the birth and growth of networks depend on some variables’ historical processes which define social networks, such as trust, cooperation and commitment, and another postulating that these attributes are not necessary for the formation of networks, it being sufficient to have only consistent economic expectations and a proper agreement. The aim of this paper was to assess which of the two network paradigms (the social paradigm and the business paradigm) best explains the birth of two networks in the... |