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Informal Managerial Networks and Formal Firm Alliances

A Multilevel Investigation in Biotech

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Schmalenbach Business Review Aims and scope

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between managerial-level advice ties and organizational-level alliance ties in the context of an institutionalized biotech cluster. Cross-level processes are assumed to influence networking activities of managers and their organizations and lead to specific structural patterns characterizing networks with two levels. Applying exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to multilevel network data collected in a German biotech cluster we find that formal strategic alliances and the informal exchange of advice are inseparably interdependent. Managers have a higher propensity to exchange advice if their organizations are allied. Moreover, managers with many informal ties belong to firms with few alliance partners and vice versa.

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Notes

  1. All individuals included in our sample held some kind of managerial responsibility within their organizations. Therefore, we continue referring to them as “managers”.

  2. Multiplexity describes the existence of more than one type of relation between two actors (e. g. Wasserman and Faust 1994).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology, Mail H25, 218, VIC 3122, Hawthorn, Australia

    Julia Brennecke

  2. Mercuri Urval Management Consulting GmbH, Holstenkamp 1, 22525, Hamburg, Germany

    Irena Schierjott

  3. Department of Business Administration, Chair for Organization and HRM, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Platz der Alten Synagoge 1, 79085, Freiburg, Germany

    Olaf Rank

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  1. Julia Brennecke
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  2. Irena Schierjott
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  3. Olaf Rank
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Correspondence to Julia Brennecke, Irena Schierjott or Olaf Rank.

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All authors contributed equally.

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Brennecke, J., Schierjott, I. & Rank, O. Informal Managerial Networks and Formal Firm Alliances. Schmalenbach Bus Rev 17, 103–125 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41464-016-0003-x

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