Organizations are increasingly recognizing the important role employee inclusion perceptions play in promoting positive employee attitudes and behaviors. Although social networks are frequently cited as being a driver of perceived inclusion, little empirical work has examined the social network conditions that give rise to it. We address this gap by examining how both network position (indegree centrality) and network structure (network closure) relate to perceived workplace inclusion. We test our hypotheses with a sample of 364 professionals in a multinational pharmaceutical firm. We find that both indegree centrality and network closure are positively related to perceived workplace inclusion. The relationship between network centrality and perceived workplace inclusion is strengthened by a high level of network closure. In addition, the relationship between network closure and perceived workplace inclusion is strengthened by a high level of need for affiliation. Our results, therefore, suggest that both network centrality and closure play an important role in employee perceptions of inclusion and demonstrate the importance of considering need for affiliation as a boundary condition. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for theory and practice.

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SummaryAlthough affect is a factor likely to impact the success of innovation, little research has been done on the relationship between affect and innovation implementation performance (i.e., an employee's ability to successfully implement innovative ideas and practices). We address this oversight by adopting a social network approach to examine relational energy (i.e., how energized one person is when interacting with another) as a form of high‐activation positive affect likely to influence innovation implementation. We test our hypotheses using a sample of employees in a pharmaceutical research firm (Study 1). Our results indicate that the number of people an employee goes to for political support who report being energized by that employee is positively related to innovation implementation performance. In contrast, the number of people an employee seeks out for political support who are not energized by that employee has negative implications for innovation implementation performance. The average network centrality of an individual's energized network contacts also relates to implementation performance, with this effect being stronger for employees not in a managerial position. A scenario‐based experiment (Study 2) provides support for the causal linkage between feeling energized by a co‐worker and one's willingness to provide instrumental help to the co‐worker.

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