Understanding the Relationship between Network Picture Characteristics and Strategic Networking Activities in Business Markets

The study of managerial cognition, and especially the concept of network pictures, has been a focus of recent research activities in the area of business networks. Network pictures can be defined as the subjective mental representations of actors’ business environments. They are participants’ views of the network that represent the reality as interpreted by actors; in other words, sense-making tools to understand the context of managerial decision-making in networks. The proposed study takes its starting point from the assumption that cognition and strategic action (‘networking’) are strictly interrelated; given that cognitive representations provide the foundation for organizational activities. In recent years, substantive contributions using the network picture concept have emerged in the business-to-business marketing literature, and attention continues to remain high to this day, as evidenced by an Industrial Marketing Management special issue in 2009 on ‘Cognition and Sense-making in Business Networks’ as well as special tracks at the annual IMP conferences. However, notwithstanding the growing body of literature and the richness of perspectives on the phenomenon of network pictures, the relationship between network pictures and the outcome of actors’ behaviours in business networks is still unexplored. Research aimed at understanding how certain representations of business reality affect and frame strategic managerial action is only in its infancy.This research project aims at exploring how and why network picture characteristics may affect the behaviours of actors (i.e. managers) in business-to-business markets. To achieve this goal, a two-step experiment using an Agent Based Simulation system will be conducted with managers from different firms in the same industry. The first phase of research it is exploratory, aimed at assessing both the independent variables, i.e. network picture characteristics (the variable which will be manipulated), and the dependent variable, i.e. a set of potential behaviours by actors, which represent the solutions. The second phase will then use experiments and statistical analyses to understand the impact of certain network picture characteristics on networking, i.e. strategic action in business networks. The study will contribute to our understanding of the critical role of network pictures in shaping managerial decisions, actions, and evaluations, and as such it will provide concrete contributions to managerial practice.