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themselves, since it is assumed to take place within actors as well. One important aspect of themodel is thus that it is voluntaristic, which means that the actors are assumed to have a freewill to act in the network, although this freedom is limited by the nature of the existingrelations.An activity is defined as the combination, development, exchange, or creation of resources bythe utilisation of other resources. According to Håkansson and Johanson (1992) there are twomain kinds of activities. These are transformation activities and transfer activities. Resourcesare changed through transformation activities, whereas transfer activities involve the transferof control over a resource from one actor to another. The activities in the network are relatedto each other, as it is assumed for all the basic variables.Resources have, according to Håkansson and Johanson (1992), a wide definition. They areheterogeneous, have attributes in an unlimited number of dimensions, and can be combinedwith other resources. The assumption that the less available a resource is, the more importantit is to gain control over it, corresponds with what could be expected. That an actor indirectlycan control a resource through a relationship with the actor who directly controls the resource,is a basic assumption which can be said to separate it from other theories in this field ofinquiry. This is not further elaborated in Håkansson and Johanson (1992). It is, however,consistent with the view in Johanson and Mattsson (1987) that access to resources does notdepend upon resource ownership in classical terms, but network position.It is then assumed that each of the elements constitutes a network structure. The threenetworks of actors, activities and resources are also combined in an overall network (cf Figure1). It should be noted that Håkansson and Snehota (2000) point to that an important finding10