Network coding and cooperative channel coding have both proved their importance for cooperative communications in wireless networks. It has been shown that it is beneficial to perform both techniques jointly. However, no diversity analysis for this framework has been made. Furthermore, the network codes in the state of the art have weak points from a coding point of view. This paper proposes a new general technique to construct network codes as an integral part of the channel code. The diversity order of this framework is analyzed. Simulation of the word error rate performance of the new proposed joint network-channel code illustrates the benefit of joint network-channel coding.