A look at the learnings of the new business networking associations

the case of BNI Chile

Abstract

The network model developed in the field of new business management corresponds to those called fifth generation, which basically refer to the fact that learning takes place “within and between” companies and that innovation is fundamentally a distributed process in network. In this regard, BNI (Business Network International), is a worldwide organization that promotes networked business work and bases its work on values ​​such as reciprocity and trust among its members and fundamentally on the business reference, and which has had in Chile a significant development in recent times. The present research work, through a case study analysis in Chile, seeks to investigate the individual and group learning developed by companies, who decided to integrate cooperation networks, trying to increase information in an area of ​​business management, still unknown. The investigation assumes by way of hypothesis that Chilean entrepreneurs who enter BNI, obtain in these groups, higher learning and benefits, than they would receive individually under a traditional business scheme. This research was developed through the application of a closed Likert questionnaire, to 74 users of the model in Chile, to try to verify the hypothesis. As a result, it is noted that this type of network models, although they are developed from an Anglo-Saxon cultural context, where values ​​such as reciprocity and trust are widely rooted, are currently installed with increasing success among entrepreneurs in Chile, generating not only a cultural change in the way of doing business, but also, strengthening both the economic capital and its social capital.