Emergenz und Persistenz staatlich geförderter mittelständischer Innovationsnetzwerke und ihrer Promotoren
Despite the high significance of leadership in networks, this topic has largely remained unexplored. To contribute to this field this thesis examines the network management of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) whose participants cooperate for the purpose of joint innovations. With a focus on the effective management functions, which were operationalized according to Witte’s promoter model, a qualitative preliminary study (n=23) was used to first discuss inductively which management functions network members assign to network managers. In order to expose the respective network management as a situational factor of influence on the innovation success of a network, the main quantitative study (n=893) investigated deductively, by means of a multi-level analysis, which management functions a) contribute to the quality or quantity of innovation, b) influence the emergence of network and management structures and c) affect the exchange quality (Leader-Member-Exchange, LMX) with the network members. In addition to this, the relevance of the context factor 'time' or network phase was examined in relation to individual management perceptions. The results show that network managers recognized as expert and relationship promoters have a positive effect on innovation quality, while managers recognized as power and relationship promoters rather facilitate innovation quantity. Innovation quality decreases in the course of the cooperation; the network manager in his function as a relationship promoter is able to counteract this trend in later phases of the network. Furthermore, a theory has been developed to gain insights into the emergence of leadership structures and persistence of government-funded SME networks. A distinction could be made between network managers (as network-external, explicit leaders) and network initiators (as network-internal, implicit leaders). The networks were typed according to the incentives (product orientation, user orientation, trend orientation) of the network initiators. Furthermore, the development of the networks in dependency on these incentive types were shown. Subsequently, the respective development stages were examined for their potential for management attribution. Main results are that the network processes as well as the characteristics of the networks (such as funding dependency, degree of innovation, communication centrality) as well as the conditions for their reproduction or persistence are determined by the incentives of the network initiators. Network initiators in product- and trend-oriented networks act as expert promoters status, while in trend-oriented networks the network members themselves have the attribute of expert status. In the product-oriented and user-oriented networks, the respective network managers assume more administrative and mediating roles as process and relationship promoters. In addition, the authoritarian leadership of power promotion is, above all, persistently critical in the user- and trend-oriented networks. In their influences of the situational promoter roles on the exchange quality with the network members, the network-internal coherence as the moderator of the requested leadership qualities were taken into account. Depending on whether it is a coherent or incoherent network, different tasks are addressed to the network management. The functions of the network manager as 'champion', which combines at least three of the four promoter roles, could be identified as significant positive predictor for LMX. In summary, it was shown that the degree of perceived effectiveness of a leader manifests itself in his behavior as champion – situationally adapted concerning the network initiator, omnipresent regarding the network manager.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations