Innovational Effectiveness of Different Network Types: Theory Building and Testable Models

Abstract

This final Chapter utilizes the findings of the previous five Chapters to answer the Research Question of this book: how does business networking influence the organization’s innovation processes and performances? The theory-building outcomes of the previous Chapters are used to build six models linking the six main Motivations for Business Networking identified in Chapter 5 to the main innovation-related capabilities and performances identified in Chapters 2 and 4, through the important moderating role of network long-term fairness and cooperation, analysed in Chapter 3. These six testable Models, describing six different network types, are associated to a synthetic theoretical explanation of the hypothesized cause-effect relationships, and include all the 12 constructs developed and operationalized in this book.