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Based on two phases of in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs who own China's economy hotel chains, this research explored these entrepreneurs' strategies for acquiring intangible resources through network ties and summarized the mix of strong and weak network ties that they used to acquire those resources at different development stages of their new firms. In the early start-up stage, the interviewed entrepreneurs used a mixture of strong and weak ties; in the establishment stage, they relied on strong ties; and in the final growth stage, they did not value network ties and only used weak business ties. Moreover, the network mixes used by these entrepreneurs to acquire different types of intangible resources are not identical. Sourcing human capital was a particularly valuable use of the network ties, both strong and weak, and many of the respondents used their ties to gain essential information and skills for running their hotels. The two-stage data collection revealed the dynamics of entrepreneurs' network mixes as firms progressed to new development stages. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

PurposeThis study aims to discover how the patterns and effects of managerial ties differ among state‐owned, domestic private, and foreign firms.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through in‐depth interviews with 15 top executives of economy hotel chains headquartered in five cities in China. The typical qualitative data analysis procedures, such as voice‐recording, transcribing, coding, and pattern‐matching, were strictly followed.FindingsResults indicate that managers in firms of different ownership types use different network tie combinations and differ in the extent to which they can benefit from managerial ties. For example, entrepreneurs in state‐owned enterprises thought strong ties were more important than weak ties and political ties were more important than business ties, while those in domestic private firms and firms founded by Chinese using foreign funding benefited more from business ties.Originality/valueThe study contributes to both entrepreneurship and social network theories by summarizing different patterns of managerial ties and exploring the rationales for the variance. It also provides evidence for understanding the important roles played by executives' network ties in the entrepreneurial processes. Entrepreneurs in the Chinese hospitality industry may use the findings to direct organization resources to more productive managerial ties and manage their network ties efficiently in the dynamic environment of a transitional economy.