Rob Cross

• University of Virginia

In this paper, we establish the relationship between de-energizing relationships and individual performance in organizations. To date, the emphasis in social network research has largely been on positive dimensions of relationships despite literature from social psychology revealing the prevalence and detrimental impact of de-energizing relationshi...

As a result of the spread of social media and collaboration technologies in the workplace, the adoption of matrix-based structures, and the proliferation of initiatives to create a “one firm” culture, many organizations are experiencing collaboration overload. Too often, excessive collaboration harms organizational performance, overworking employee...

Leaders and human resources professionals are searching for ways to generate more value from their employees. Recent studies show that companies perform at a higher level when they have integrated talent management programs that are aligned with business strategy and operations. Organizations can get more from their investments in talent management...

BUILDING ENGAGEMENT FROM THE GROUND UP By all accounts, the frenzy and stress associated with many jobs today have had crippling effects on people's willingness to bring their best to work — a situation described by an industry commentator as ''a perfect storm for disengagement.'' Although many organizations have implemented programs to keep employ...

Increased workforce mobility imposes a significant cost on many organizations because of the negative impact departing employees have on informal networks. The turnover of well-connected employees disrupts networks important to innovation, best practice transfer, and project execution. Yet while network losses can be quite costly, they are typicall...

The adage "It's not what you know, it's who you know" is true. The right social network can have a huge impact on your success. But many people have misguided ideas about what makes a network strong: They believe the key is having a large circle filled with high-powered contacts. That's not the right approach, say Cross, of UVA's McIntire School of...

IT executives in most large enterprises must build organizations that can adapt and thrive in a global economy while operating with fewer resources. Yet despite implementing sophisticated organizational redesigns and collaboration technologies, improvements in performance are frequently disappointing. All too often, the problem can be traced to pat...

The traditional methods for driving operational excellence in global organizations are not enough. The most effective organizations make smart use of employee networks to reduce costs, improve efficiency and spur innovation.

Whether selling products or services, making strategic decisions, delivering solutions, or driving innovation, most work of any substance today is accomplished by teams. However, since the early 1990s, teams have evolved from more stable groups-where members were co-located, dedicated to a common mission, and directed by a single leader-to more mat...

The article focuses on the most effective means of managing change within an organization. The literature on this subject has expanded dramatically, but little improvement in the process has taken place. One study found that while 90 percent of companies had undergone significant organizational change in a two-year period, only five percent had don...

Abstract With efforts to de-layer organizations and reduce functional boundaries, coordination and work of importance increasingly occur through networks of informal relations rather than channels tightly prescribed by formal ,reporting structures or detailed ,work ,processes. However, while organizations are moving to network forms through joint v...

Although many organizations initiate communities of practice to drive performance and innovation, managers typically have little insight into their internal effectiveness and business impact. This article offers network analytics, interventions, and metrics (both in terms of network connectivity and business outcomes) to improve and track the succe...

Prior meta-analytic evidence has indicated no association between relationship length and perceived trustworthiness. Viewing trustors as information processors, the authors propose a model in which relationship length, although having no direct effect on perceived trustworthiness, moderates the association between perceived trustworthiness and the...

No abstract available.

Over the past decade, knowledge and learning have emerged as the keys to economic success and as a focus for thinking about organizational effectiveness and innovation. An overwhelming majority of large organizations now engage in a wide range of knowledge and learning activities and nearly all have programs and personnel explicitly dedicated to th...

Departing employees leave with more than what they know; they also take with them critical knowledge about who they know. That information needs to be a part of any knowledge-retention strategy

Please note that gray areas reflect artwork that has been intentionally removed. The substantive content of the article appears as originally published. WINTER 2005 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 35 ow do managers and organizations quickly transform new hires into productive employees, a process called "rapid on-boarding"? This question is hardly triv...

Saying that networks are important is stating the obvious. But harnessing the power of these seemingly invisible groups to achieve organizational goals is an elusive undertaking. Most efforts to promote collaboration are haphazard and built on the implicit philosophy that more connectivity is better. In truth, networks create relational demands tha...

With efforts to de-layer organizations and reduce functional boundaries, coordination and work of importance increasingly occur through networks of informal relations rather than channels tightly prescribed by formal reporting structures or detailed work processes. However, while organizations are moving to network forms through joint ventures, all...

We argue that individual performance in knowledge-intensive work is associated with properties of both networks and ties. Relationships crossing organizational boundaries, physical barriers, or hierarchical levels can, like networks, provide unique information and diverse perspectives to individuals completing tasks at work. Egocentric and bounded...

Research has demonstrated that relationships are critical to knowledge creation and transfer, yet findings have been mixed regarding the importance of relational and structural characteristics of social capital for the receipt of tacit and explicit knowledge. We propose and test a model of two-party (dyadic) knowledge exchange, with strong support...

The ability of an individual to energize others is a determinant of individual and group success. People who are “energizers” are more effective at motivating others, eliciting productive solutions, getting work done, and advancing their careers. Drawing on their research into social networks, the authors examine five dimensions of energizing relat...

Research on information processing, managerial cognition, and social networks demonstrates that people rely on other people for information. However, this work has not specified how seeking information from others results in actionable knowledge--knowledge directed at making progress on relatively short-term projects. This research employs both qua...

This chapter focuses on the importance of trust in supporting effective knowledge sharing, highlighting the importance of both competence and benevolence in developing trustworthy relationships with others. It discusses a survey of 138 employees from three companies: a division from a US pharmaceutical company, a division of a British bank, and a l...

Executive Overview In many organizations, informal networks are the primary means by which employees find information, solve complex problems, and learn how to do their work. Two forms of interpersonal trust—trust in a person's competence and in a person's benevolence— enable effective knowledge creation and sharing in these networks. Yet, though c...

We’re all familiar with the truism “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Managers invariably use their personal contacts when they need to, say, meet an impossible deadline, get advice on a strategic decision, or learn the truth about a new boss. Increasingly, it’s through these informal networks—not just through traditional organizational h...

In today’s de-layered, knowledge-intensive organizations, most work of importance is heavily reliant on informal networks of employees within organizations. However, most organizations do not know how to effectively analyze this informal structure in ways that can have a positive impact on organizational performance. Networks in the Knowledge Econo...

Over the past several decades, social network research has favored either ego-centric (e.g. employee) or bounded networks (e.g. organization) as the primary unit of analysis. This paper revitalizes a focus on the work group, which includes structural properties of both its individual members and the collection as a whole. In a study of 182 work gro...

People commonly talk about the energy associated with certain individuals or company initiatives. Managers can translate such talk into action that creates more energy, improves performance and fosters learning.

esearch in organizational learning has demonstrated processes and occasionally performance implications of acquisition of declarative (know-what) and procedural (know-how) knowledge. However, considerably less attention has been paid to learned char- acteristics of relationships that affect the decision to seek information from other people. Based...

Managers invariably use their personal contacts when they need to, say, meet an impossible deadline or learn the truth about a new boss. Increasingly, it's through these informal networks--not just through traditional organizational hierarchies--that information is found and work gets done. But to many senior executives, informal networks are unobs...

The mid-1990s saw the rise of an important movement: a recognition that organizational knowledge, in its various forms and attributes, could be an important source of competitive advantage in the marketplace. Knowledge management has become one of the core competencies in today's competitive environment, where so much value in companies resides in...

El verdadero trabajo en la mayoría de las empresas de gestion a través de los contactos personales. Cada vez es más frecuente que la información se localice y que el trabajo se realice a través de redes informales, no a través de la jerarquía organizativa tradicional. El artículo analiza la estructura de estas redes

Research in the information processing, situated learning and social network traditions has consistently demonstrated the importance of social networks for acquiring information. However, we know little about how organizational relationships established by a relative position in a formal structure or social relationships established by interpersona...

In this paper, we report the result of a research project investigating social aspects of knowledge sharing and development. Prior research in a consulting firm revealed that respondents recognized five kinds of informational benefits when consulting others: solutions, meta-knowledge, problem reformulation, validation and legitimation. We employed...

This chapter focuses on how four important drivers-awareness, access, engagement, and safety -influence how knowledge travels across informal networks. It describes a research program to determine the means for improving employees' ability to create and share knowledge in important social networks. In the first phase of the research, characteristic...

Knowledge management has recently emerged as a means of improving business performance. However, many early initiatives have focused almost exclusively on information technology applications and so missed the myriad ways in which knowledge can become embedded in an organization. The pay off for knowledge management lies with getting newly created k...

Keeping up with internal and external change is a challenge that all organizations face. The only way to succeed in an ever-evolving environment is to ensure that workers at all levels of the organization have mastered the skills they need to best do their jobs and service the needs of their customers. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

In an increasingly global, interconnected, and dynamic business environment, an organization's ability to learn and improve is critical to success. Although the appeal of such metaphors as organic structures and synergistic thought common in the learning organization literature is undeniable, these descriptions do little to help managers understand...

Crisis response situations require collaboration across many different organizations with different backgrounds, training, procedures, and goals. The Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in 2005 emphasized the importance of effective communication and collaboration. In the former, the Multinational Planning Augmenta...

Abstract Innovation remains central to an organization’s ability to adapt to changing markets and

En las empresas, gran parte del trabajo se lleva a cabo en grupos informales; para que estas redes puedan desarrollar todo su potencial los directivos deben entender como funcionan. Los altos directivos que pueden distiguir los mitos sobre las redes informales de trabajo y la realidad, y actuar en consecuencia tienen muchas más oportunidades de fom...