Managers' brokerage for business model innovation: A case study

Abstract

Business model innovation is recognized as a key process for strengthening firms' performance in situations of strong competitive pressure and environmental changes. This process is driven by intra‐organizational advice networks between managers, which exchange different types of advice based on organizational learning mechanisms such as cognitive search (how to conceptualize and create a novel business model) and experiential learning (how to adapt and experiment a novel business model. Investigating what are the key figures emerging from such network is essential for an in‐depth understanding of the business model innovation process. By focusing on a multi‐unit firm operating in the personal care service industry, we use Social Network Analysis (SNA) to examine the brokerage role of managers when sharing different types of advice towards a novel business model. Our results show that middle‐level managers connect different managerial groups in different networks; however, differences exist between groups of middle managers, confirming their peculiar nature within organizations.