The importance of social relations of managers for the network performance

This paper presents results of the research on the significance of the social relations among managers for the performance of innovation network. It attempts to identify the types of informal and interpersonal relationships used by managers associated in innovation network. Furthermore, based on conducted research, this paper attempts to illuminate the importance of interpersonal relationships for the network performance. The results show that managers (1) maintain a wide range of social relations resulting from past experience and shared passions, and (2) use these relations for leveraging both internal (e.g. improvement of recruitment and innovation processes) and inter-organisational (e.g. establishment and improvement of collaboration and knowledge sharing) performance.