HOW NETWORK MANAGERS CONTRIBUTE TO INNOVATION NETWORK PERFORMANCE

Innovation networks that aim at the joint development of products, services or processes represent a particular form of inter-organizational business networks. In order to yield useful results from these collaborations, networks need to be managed thoroughly. By appointing a dedicated network manager to administrate, coordinate, and regulate, the management of tasks is bundled and centralized within a single entity. However, to the best knowledge of the authors, no empirical research has yet been conducted, investigating the impact of a network manager's availability, relevance, and influence on network performance. Using the interaction-oriented network approach as conceptual foundation, we analyze network managers' direct and indirect influence on the network's relational and goal achievement performance. Our results suggest that a network manager enhances innovation network's core management functions, which in turn improve the relational performance (RP). Moreover, RP was found to significantly drive the goal achievement performance (GAP).