My understanding was that in a novel-in-stories, regardless of the other details, the stories progress under the larger overall story arc of beginning/middle/end.
And linked short stories, regardless of the other details, can be organized more loosely. For example, it could just be set in the same town, with characters showing up in each other's stories in varying degrees, like in the Lake Wobegon books, or it could be the adventures of the same hero, etcetera. But, the overall beginning/middle/end story arc isn't there.
Beyond that, I'm confused. Here's a link, if we can trust wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story_cycle
I'm wondering if the reason for the question is that we've all heard that novels sell better than story collections so we're overemphasizing being able to use the word "novel" in the book's description. However, in practice, I'm not sure at all that a publisher makes any big distinction between a novel-in-stories or a linked short story collection. It may be splitting hairs that doesn't make any difference anyway and best to just let structure follow story rather than the other way around. Does anyone know more on that?