ABSTRACT
The study of the Polish Aviation Valley Association (AVA) aims at elucidating the roles played in the network and network-oriented processes carried out by leading organizations which together define network leadership. This chapter explores the network nodes play distinctive roles and take responsibility for the processes of network leadership. In the literature, the network leadership has been scrutinized under different labels: orchestrator; facilitator; flagship firm; focal firm; hub; or triggering entity. The chapter is organized in four sections. The first section reviews the literature on innovative network leadership, focusing on its scope and functions. The second section explains the empirical research design. The third section displays our empirical results, ordered along an event story and according to a qualitative comparative analysis framework. The fourth section discusses the empirical results and contains some propositions as to network leadership emerging theory. The chapter also unveils the dynamics of leadership, showing how the leader behaves over time.
