The meaning of success: network position and the social construction of project outcomes in an R&amp;D lab

Smith‐Doerr, Laurel; Manev, Ivan M.; Rizova, Polly S.

doi:10.1016/j.jengtecman.2003.12.004

Cited by 62 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…In the development of new technologies in R&D laboratories, for example, the social networks of project members affect the interpretation of success. Smith-Doerr, Manev and Rizova (2003) find that project managers who are more central in organizational advice networks have more flexible interpretations of the meaning of success than those less connected or central only in technical advice networks.…”

Section: Distributional Issuesmentioning

confidence: 80%

Networks and Economic life

Powell¹,

Smith-Dor²

2003

Journal of Economic Sociology

210

117

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interests include organization theory, economic sociology, gender and work, and science and technology studies. Smith-Doerr is combining these areas in a book manuscript, Life Chances/Life Sciences, that examines how organizational context shapes career opportunities for life scientists. Based on interviews and field work in universities, government labs and biotech firms, as well as analyses of career data, she illustrates the different sets of constraints faced by female scientists in these diverse settings, and the greater autonomy and flexibility that is afforded in commercial biotech. Walter W. Powell is Professor of Education and affiliated Professor of Sociology,Organizational Behavior, and Communication, and Director of the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research at Stanford University. He is also an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. Powell works in the areas of organization theory, economic sociology, and science and technology studies. He is currently engaged in research on the origins and development of the commercial field of the life sciences.With his collaborators Ken Koput and Doug White, he has authored a series of papers on the evolving network structure of the biotechnology industry. With Jason Owen-Smith, Powell is studying the role of universities in transferring basic science into commercial development by science-based companies, and the consequences for universities of their growing involvement in commercial activities. IntroductionSociologists and anthropologists have long been concerned with how individuals are linked to one another and how these bonds of affiliation serve as both a lubricant for getting things done and a glue that provides order and meaning to social life. The attention to networks of association, which began in earnest in the 1970s, provided welcome texture and dynamism to portraits of social life. This work stood in stark contrast to the reigning approaches in the social sciences. In contrast to deterministic cultural (oversocialized) accounts, network analysis afforded room for human agency, and in contrast to individualist, atomized (undersocialized) approaches, networks emphasized structure and constraint (Granovetter, 1985). Network studies offered a middle ground, a third way, even if no one was quite sure whether networks were a metaphor, a method, or a theory (Barnes 1979). But the sociologists and anthropologists who initially studied networks did not pay sustained attention to economic activity, although some industrial sociologists (Roy, 1954;Dalton, 1959) had long stressed the role of informal networks as an antidote to formal organization practices and structures.Over the past two decades, however, there has been an enormous upsurge of interest in the role of networks in the economy. This sea change has occurred in the worlds of both practice and theory. Across the social sciences, from anthropology to sociology to political science to economics, there is research on the role of networks in shaping such diverse phenomena as mig...

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Section: Distributional Issuesmentioning

confidence: 80%

Networks and Economic life

Powell¹,

Smith-Dor²

2003

Journal of Economic Sociology

210

117

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In contrast, those with low social status receive less number of positive cues, resulting in more negative workrelated perceptions (Smith-Doerr et al, 2004). Such cues can signal the vital role that a well-positioned employee plays in the organisation, his or her importance in getting things done, and the rewards the employee can anticipate as a result, which in turn shape the employee's beliefs that the organisation is more obligated to provide him or her with benefits and resources in return.…”

Section: Social Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological contract breach and turnover intention: the moderating effects of social status and local ties

Heffernan

Rochford

2017

The Irish Journal of Management

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The aim of this study is to examine whether social networks reduce the effects of psychological contract breach on an employee’s intention to leave the organisation. This paper focusses on two particular elements of the social network in an organisation: (1) social status and (2) local ties/connectedness. Using a sample of 242 responses from officers in the Irish Defence Forces, the results provide empirical evidence of the impact of psychological contract breach on officer turnover intentions. The results also demonstrate that perceptions of social networks moderate the relationship between psychological contract breach and turnover intentions through social status. Contrary to expectations, strong connectedness with senior officers was also found to be a moderator but not in the direction that was hypothesised. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

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“…Following Ibarra (1993) and Brass (1984) we measured the expressive-informal network by asking respondents with whom they discussed what is going on within the organization to get things done that are of personal relevance to them (Mehra, Kilduff and Brass, 2001;Smith-Doerr, Manev and Rizova, 2004;Aalbers et al, 2014). The focus on one's assessment of personal relevance emphasizes the exchange of identityrelated resources exemplary to the type of information exchanged through expressive networks (Oh et al, 2004).…”

Section: Hypothesis 1: Individuals Who In Their Instrumental-formal Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging firm-internal boundaries for innovation: Directed communication orientation and brokering roles

Aalbers

Dolfsma

2015

Journal of Engineering and Technology Management

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IntroductionInnovation results from the combination and recombination of existing and newly developed knowledge (Schumpeter, 1942;Fleming, 2001). Having the knowledge that is available within a firm accessible at a moment's notice to the right people thus ensures that a firm can be innovative, allowing it to respond quickly to the highly dynamic environments it operates in (Volberda, 1996).Even as firms are urged to more readily allow innovative knowledge to cross firm boundaries, 2 innovative knowledge may not easily move to where it can be used in the firm, however (Cross and Cummings, 2004; Aalbers et al., 2013). A firm that can improve the diffusion of knowledge internally will benefit from enhanced innovative activity (cf. Paruchuri, 2010; Whelan et al., 2011).However, at the same time, research has particularly pointed to knowledge as one of the most difficult resource to manage at an organizational level (Szulanski, 1996). Reflecting on the governance of knowledge sharing in organizations, Foss and colleagues (2010) suggest that knowledge may come to be sticky and difficult to transfer because of ingroup-outgroup dynamics.These ingroup-outgroup dynamics can create a reluctance to share knowledge with individuals from other units. While stickiness of knowledge is related to the social embeddedness of those who might partake in knowledge transfer, how knowledge exactly crosses firm-internal boundaries has not been the subject of much scholarly attention.Exploring knowledge transfer at a major subsidiary of an electrical engineering multinational argue that close attention must be paid to the exact direction knowledge flows into when understanding innovative activity within a firm (Shi et al., 2009;Boari and Riboldazzi, 2014). We 3 submit that not only if firm-internal unit boundaries are crossed, but particularly how this crossing takes place is of managerial and scholarly importance.Our findings show that individuals who have a more external orientation, in the sense of initiating communication across firm-internal boundaries with others in other business units, will also be more likely to contribute to innovative activity within the firm. By including the different contacts an individual maintains in both the instrumental-formal and the expressive-informal networks in our analysis we shed light on how these conceptually distinct networks congrue (Aalbers et al., 2014;McEvily et al., 2014;Henttonen, 2010). Our study thereby contributes to an integrated theoretical understanding of organizational functioning, conceiving an organization as a combination of both formal and informal social structures, instead of studying either structure in isolation.Our paper is organized in a classical manner. We first present and elaborate on relevant literature in Section 2. Section 3 details methodology, upon which Section 4 presents results, Section 5 discusses managerial implications and Section 6 concludes. TheoryTransfer of knowledge within the organization to stimulate innovation and gain competitive advantage has ...

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The meaning of success: network position and the social construction of project outcomes in an R&D lab

Cited by 62 publications

References 63 publications

Networks and Economic life

Networks and Economic life

Psychological contract breach and turnover intention: the moderating effects of social status and local ties

Bridging firm-internal boundaries for innovation: Directed communication orientation and brokering roles

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