The relationship between brokers' influence, strength of ties and NPD project outcomes in innovation-driven horizontal networks

This paper examines the impact of a broker's perceived use of power - position (i.e., coercive, reward and legitimate) and personal (i.e., expert, information and referent) - on strength of ties between network members and new product development (NPD) project outcomes. Our sample consists of 100 individuals drawn from 42 organizations that were involved in different innovation-driven horizontal networks. The results of structural equation modeling suggest that the perceived use of both personal power bases and position power bases by the broker are positively related to the strength of ties between members. Strength of ties, on the other hand, is positively related to NPD project outcomes of design performance and development time. Finally, results show that the relationships between a broker's use of different power bases and NPD project outcomes are fully mediated by the strength of ties between networks members. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed.