Managerial Networking Research Articles

Importance of Managerial Networking for Innovation in Governance Networks

Importance of Managerial Networking for Innovation in Governance Networks

Does only performance feedback matter in public organizations? Testing the moderating role of directional managerial networking on performance improvement

ABSTRACT Public management scholarship emphasizes the impact of performance feedback on organizational responses, but little attention is paid to the role of managerial networking. We use panel data of Korean quasi-governmental organizations (quangos) to examine these responses and the moderating effects of directional managerial networking. Findings reveal that negative feedback consistently leads to performance improvement, while positive feedback has adverse effects. Downward networking enhances improvement in low-performing organizations, whereas outward networking alleviates performance stagnation in high-performing organizations. This research contributes to the public management literature by offering a more nuanced understanding of organizational responses to feedback and the significance of managerial networking.

Managerial networking behavior for grant acquisition in nonprofits: an application of the behavioral reasoning theory (BRT)

Managerial networking behavior for grant acquisition in nonprofits: an application of the behavioral reasoning theory (BRT)

External information seeking and organizational ambidexterity in SMEs: Does empowerment climate matter?

AbstractAccess to external information is considered crucial to achieving organizational ambidexterity (OA) while presenting specific challenges for SMEs due to their limited resources. However, little is known about how SMEs can best benefit from their external information‐seeking activities for OA purposes, given specific organizational practices. Our paper addresses this research gap by analyzing the effects of external information seeking (i.e., environmental scanning and external managerial networking) on OA while considering the moderating role of empowerment climate in SMEs. Based on a survey administered to CEOs of 1439 French manufacturing SMEs, our main results indicate that empowerment climate positively moderates the effect of scanning breadth on OA but negatively moderates the effect of networking depth. This suggests that SMEs should emphasize external information‐seeking activities that are appropriate to their level of empowerment climate so that the positive effects on OA can be fully realized.

Personality traits and public service motivation as psychological antecedents of managerial networking

ABSTRACT Several studies report that managerial networking helps improve public service provision, so understanding and predicting why some public managers engage more in networking than others is critical. Psychological antecedents of managerial networking have not been examined previously, though from a personnel management perspective, identifying predispositions and motivations that drive networking is of utmost interest. Therefore, our study investigates the influences of personality traits and public service motivation (PSM) on managerial networking. Survey data from 207 high-ranking public managers reveal that PSM mediates the influence of extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness on networking.

공공조직의 제약요인이 조직성과에 미치는 영향 - 관리적 네트워킹의 조절효과를 중심으로 -

공공조직의 제약요인이 조직성과에 미치는 영향 - 관리적 네트워킹의 조절효과를 중심으로 -

Does managerial networking impinge our morality in Guanxi context? The moderating effect of corruption perception

This study explores the relationship between managerial networking and corporate morality in a guanxi context where personal relationship is widely used for organizational purposes. Using a sample of 6361 Chinese private firms, we find a significantly positive relationship between managerial networking and corporate social responsibility, including corporate charitable donations and environmental protection, and an insignificant relationship between managerial networking and the prevalence of business bribery. We also find that such relationships depend on corruption perception, that is, when corruption perception is high, the negative effects of managerial networking are more likely to rise but the positive effects of managerial networking are more likely to be weakened. These results are robust and consistent across various measurements and models.

The Functional and Managerial Network of the Imperial Parks (Yuyuan) in the Southern Song Capital Lin’an (Hangzhou)

As Hangzhou became the capital of the Southern Song Empire, new villas and palaces with parks were built for the imperial family in the city and on the shores of the West Lake. Emperors bestowed the parks and villas on important politicians, some related to the imperial family or to the empresses’ families. When politicians were downgraded or died, the emperors confiscated the parks and retransferred them to members of the imperial family. Apart from this political function, parks were assigned to specific uses, be it recreation and amusement or ceremonial purposes. Some parks came to be neglected or rededicated as nurseries to provide other parks with plants or timber. Yet most were famous not only for their horticultural accessories but also for their rock arrangements and artificial lakes, which imitated in miniature the West Lake scenery, requiring adequate management of their water supply system.

Corporate Investment Decision: A Review of Literature

This study is an attempt to review relevant literature on the theme of corporate real investment decisions. We have conducted a comprehensive survey of literature on the studies published in well-reputed journals of finance, i.e., The Journal of Finance, The Review of Financial Studies, and The Journal of Financial Economics, during the years 2010 to 2022. The theoretical analysis reveals that information asymmetry, cash holdings, policy uncertainty, idiosyncratic risk, governance quality, financing diversification, financial development, managerial network, investor protection, tax policy, etc., are prominent factors influencing investment decisions. The current review analysis is useful and has certain policy implications for investment managers regarding investment decisions. It guides on the factors that can impede or boost investment volume. Our study has a novel contribution to the literature by summarizing the voluminous empirical literature arranged on physical investment decisions.

Forming managers’ exploitation and exploration from the interplay of managers’ formal and informal networks in China: a moderated mediation model

ABSTRACT Managerial networks represent a crucial factor affecting managers’ exploitation and exploration. However, the theoretical mechanism linking managerial networks to managers’ exploitation and exploration remains poorly understood. Thus, we focus on the interplay of managers’ formal and informal networks and develop a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship between managerial networks and managers’ exploitation and exploration. An analysis of 269 managers working in 73 Chinese enterprises reveals that the consistency of managers’ formal and informal network has a positive indirect relationship with managers’ exploitation and exploration via knowledge creation. Environmental dynamism moderates the strength of this mediated relationship such that the mediated effects are weaker under conditions of high environmental dynamism and stronger under conditions of low environmental dynamism. By exploring this theoretical mechanism, this study contributes to the literature concerning exploitation and exploration at the managerial level and systematically analyzes managers’ relationship networks and behaviours based on social information processing theory.

Managerial networking and competitive advantage: the moderating influence of competitive intensity

Because economic action is embedded in networks of inter-personal relations, many scholars have highlighted the importance of social ties in resource exchange for competitive advantage. Thus, through their networking activities and personal interactions, firm executives build social ties not only with business players but also with political entities. Conversely, at the centre of every industry’s environment is the concept of competitive intensity defined by Barnett (1997) as the “effect that an organization has on other’s survival, regardless of tactics involved”. Taking into consideration that managerial networking is widely viewed as far more common, relevant and effective in emerging markets such as Kenya, and further noting that market turbulences in Kenya are generally attributed to competitive pressure brought about by trade liberalization, this study sought to first establish the influence of managerial networking on competitive advantage in medium and large garment companies in Kenya. Subsequently, the study sought to determine the moderating influence of competitive intensity on the managerial networking-competitive advantage relationship in the forestated companies. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted with a sample of 83 firms being drawn from a population of 170 firms. Data was collected through questionnaires where a response rate of 86.7% was attained. Descriptive analysis was undertaken to establish the characteristics of the industry in relation to levels of managerial networking, competitive intensity and competitive advantage. Inferential analysis thereafter, aided in establishing relationships between the variables. The study had hypothesised that competitive intensity negatively moderates the managerial networking - competitive advantage relationship. The findings, however showed that competitive intensity positively moderated the relationship. Consequently, this study recommends that under intense competitive pressure, firms need to identify redundant networks to abandon and strategic networks to retain and join. Further, organizations need to focus on utilizing network resources more effectively for greater ability to adapt and thrive.

Managerial networking: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Scholars and practitioners agree that networking is a necessity in managers’ daily work, particularly in the domain of public and nonprofit management, in which service provision through networks has become the rule rather than the exception. However, the plethora of studies published on this topic has resulted in a highly fragmented body of literature. Such fragmentation calls for a systematic review that consolidates extant insights. This review structures findings from 63 studies on managerial networking published in leading public and nonprofit management journals and thereby provides an overview of constructs and measures used in networking research, as well as an integrated framework of the antecedents and consequences of managerial networking. A proposed research agenda calls, among other things, for the use of more sophisticated networking measures, a focus on the psychological antecedents of networking, as well as examinations of the dark side of networking and replication studies.

Individual Outcomes of Managerial Networking: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective

Previous research has shown that public and nonprofit managers enhance their organization’s performance through external networking. However, compared to the extensive literature dedicated to the positive effects of managerial networking on organizational outcomes, little is known about whether and how networking affects the managers themselves. Against this background, our study investigates individual-level consequences of managerial networking. Drawing from the job demands-resources model, conservation of resources theory, and social capital theory, we propose that external networking may be a double-edged sword for managers. Results from a survey among 129 managing directors of the German Red Cross suggest that managers with the ability to develop external networks are motivated by the support they perceive from external actors and therefore show higher levels of job performance. Simultaneously, our findings indicate that building extensive external networks may be a costly activity. More precisely, we found that external interactions deplete managers’ energetic resources, which leads to higher levels of emotional exhaustion. Aside from these psychological processes, we identified a purely instrumental process that operates in parallel. Accordingly, managers with networking ability gain access to resources, which pays dividends for their job performance. Based on these findings, we derive implications for both networking theory and management practice.

Managerial Networking and Frugal Innovation: Situational Leadership Perspective.

This study aimed to examine the integrated relationships of business ties, political ties, sustainable leadership, and frugal innovation. The correlation was assessed with the consideration of social network and situational leadership theories. Data was collected from 363 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) employees in Pakistan with a response rate of 72.60%. Accordingly, the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to examine the validity of the proposed hypotheses. Empirical findings confirmed the significant impact of managerial and business ties on frugal innovation, strengthened by sustainable leadership. However, data analysis negated the positive impact of political ties on frugal innovation, which remains non-significant with the introduction of sustainable leadership among Pakistani SMEs. Hence, future studies are recommended to explore other conditional factors and mediating mechanisms in the relationship between managerial ties and frugal innovation. This idea can bring a deeper insight into the vital role of networking. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no prior study is available about the integrated relationships of managerial ties, frugal innovation, and sustainable leadership. This study enriches the literature in innovation management, especially concerning the social network and situational leadership model.

The Effect of Board Diversity and Corporate Performance in Malaysia: Pre- and During COVID-19 Pandemic

The objective of this study, which is based on the upper echelon theory, managerial networking theory and agency theory, is to investigate the influence of board diversity on the performance of Malaysian Pharmaceutical Listed Companies. The information was gathered from pharmaceutical businesses listed on the Bursa Malaysia Berhad from 2015 to 2020. Because the data comprises observations on distinct company parts throughout time, the fixed effects model is used to address the endogeneity problem. We discovered that gender diversity, board size, and foreign directors as evaluated by Bhattacharya's index have a favorable and significant effect on Pharmaceutical-listed firm performance for both accounting and market measures after controlling for many firms and board characteristics. In Pharmaceutical-listed firms, independence, diversity, meeting, and expertise do not appear to be important determinants of corporate performance. The findings confirmed the efficient monitoring hypothesis and management networking theory, which propose that director variety minimizes managerial entrenchment on the one hand, while networking boosts firm resources on the other.

Achieving high international market performance via simple vs complex configuration of international managerial network ties: A set theoretic approach across two countries

ABSTRACT This study investigates the configuration of entrepreneurial capabilities, international managerial network ties and its performance effect among international ventures located in institutionally different contexts (Austria and Hungary). The study introduces and defines the concept of simple vs complex configuration of international managerial network ties and uses a set theoretic approach to assess the configuration of the above factors. The results of the fuzzy set analysis demonstrate that international ventures can fully capitalize on their entrepreneurial capabilities when they rely on a complex configuration of international managerial network ties. The findings also show that international ventures seek a balance between institutionally different contexts which may result in behaviors that are normally unacceptable by home country-related cultural and institutional norms. Finally, the results reveal that integrating exploration and exploitation strategies requires a complex configuration of international managerial network ties, which in turn leads to high IMP.

Corporate failure in the UK: An examination of corporate governance reforms

In the context of major corporate collapses, executive compensation, board network, gender diversity and oversight committees have all received attention in a package of corporate governance (CG) reforms that were recently issued in the UK. This paper examines whether these reforms of CG can influence the likelihood of corporate failure (CF). It also investigates how efficient they are when CF approaches. After controlling for variables that prior research shows to be related to CF, we find that CF is less likely when a firm is characterized by a lower executive compensation, larger size of the board's social network, and smaller degree of the board's managerial network. However, board gender diversity and independence of oversight committees do not reduce the likelihood of CF. We further observe that the explanatory power of these CG variables is significant but relatively decreased as the time to CF closes. This implies that despite the capability of these variables to render early warning alerts of CF, they are less helpful (efficient) as failure becomes closer. Our results remain robust after a battery of sensitivity tests and addressing potential endogeneity problems. Collectively, the evidence provided by our paper should be of interest to the UK's regulatory bodies (Financial Reporting Council) and legislators (the UK's Parliament), since it shows the practical implications of the UK's CG Code and other governance regulations on reducing future corporate collapses. This paper provides timely evidence-based insights to major recent structural reforms aiming at proposing remedies to CG problems in the UK.

Corporate Resilience to Covid-19 Crisis: The Role of Managerial Bank-Connected Network

Corporate Resilience to Covid-19 Crisis: The Role of Managerial Bank-Connected Network

Knowledge Networks and the Role of Family Firms: The Case of an Italian Regional Cluster

Studies on open innovation (OI) have highlighted the importance of inter-organizational knowledge networks. However, little is known about OI networks established by family firms, and their roles in such knowledge networks. By focusing on one of the most important Italian footwear clusters, this paper applies Social Network Analysis to investigate the role of family firms in exchanging knowledge according to their intra-cluster position and extra-cluster openness. Our results provide novel evidence on the role of family firms in OI networks, as they suggest that family firms mainly operate as gatekeepers in the technological and managerial networks, while they act as external stars in the market and managerial networks.

Psychological Antecedents of Managerial Networking: On the Role of Personality Traits and PSM

Although scholars and practitioners increasingly recognize the importance of networks in public service delivery, little is known about why some public managers engage more in networking than others. Particularly the psychological antecedents of managerial networking represent scientifically uncharted territory. Addressing this research gap, our study examines whether Big Five personality traits and public service motivation (PSM) affect managerial networking. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, we analyzed data from 207 senior public managers in German youth welfare organizations. Our results suggest that agreeableness and conscientiousness exert a positive effect on managerial networking, which is mediated by PSM.