Optimal structure patterns for resilient corporate networks

Abstract

Corporate networks are sets of companies maintaining formal relations between them in the form of contracts (INSEE, 2016). This type of network is generally affected when unexpected events happen, such as financial crises or other disasters. The notion of corporate network resilience appears, and it is a field increasingly studied. This resilience is defined as the ability to adjust the activity of the system to retain its basic functionality when errors, failures, and environmental changes occur (Gao, Barzet & Barabási, 2016). It is critical for firms that are members of these corporate network to increase their resilience and get prepared for future unexpected events. Otherwise, being unprepared could lead to bankruptcy. We have seen in the past years the consequences of financial crashes on companies. The resilience of a firm in a corporate network is impacted by different elements such as the properties of the network, the size, and the structure. In this thesis, we focus on the impact of the structure of the network of a company on its resilience. We propose a way to analyze empirical data, in order to find the most resilient structure for different problems. We illustrate our methodology with a case study of a network of companies in the oil-gas industry and provide advices to obtain a resilient structure for a company to survive against downturns, economical or technological.