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The Academy of Management Annals
Vol. 4, No. 1, 2010, 317–357
317
ISSN 1941-6520 print/ISSN 1941-6067 online
© 2010 Academy of Management
DOI: 10.1080/19416520.2010.494827
http://www.informaworld.com
Organizational Social Network Research:
Core Ideas and Key Debates
MARTIN KILDUFF
*
Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
DANIEL J. BRASS
Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky
Taylor and FrancisRAMA_A_494827.sgm10.1080/19416520.2010.494827Academy of Management Annals1941-6520 (print)/1941-6067(online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis0000000002010MartinKilduffm.kilduff@jbs.cam.ac.uk
Abstract
Given the growing popularity of the social network perspective across diverse
organizational subject areas, this review examines the coherence of the
research tradition (in terms of leading ideas from which the diversity of new
research derives) and appraises current directions and controversies. The
leading ideas at the heart of the organizational social network research
program include: an emphasis on relations between actors; the embeddedness
of exchange in social relations; the assumption that dyadic relationships do
not occur in isolation, but rather form a complex structural pattern of connec-
tivity and cleavage beyond the dyad; and the belief that social network connec-
tions matter in terms of outcomes to both actors and groups of actors across a
range of indicators. These leading ideas are articulated in current debates that
center on issues of actor characteristics, agency, cognition, cooperation versus
*
Corresponding author. Email: m.kilduff@jbs.cam.ac.uk
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• The Academy of Management Annals
competition, and boundary specification. To complement the review, we
provide a glossary of social network terms.
Introduction
Organizational social network research has achieved a prominent position in
our field, as evidenced by the many social network conferences, special issues
appearing in our major journals, and the sheer volume of work that uses
network ideas (Borgatti, Mehra, Brass, & Labianca, 2009). It is perhaps time to
take stock of where organizational network research is going. Will this
burgeoning popularity be accompanied by a loss of identity or by other related
problems of success? The network approach traditionally defined itself as an
alternative to rival approaches such as economics (e.g., Granovetter, 1985),
but now some prominent commentators seek to merge the social network
tradition with such perspectives (e.g., Grabher & Powell, 2004). The network
perspective has been extended (and perhaps changed) in both micro direc-
tions, emphasizing cognitive and personality perspectives (e.g., Kilduff & Tsai,
2003), and macro directions, emphasizing very large network configuration
and evolution (e.g., Powell, White, Koput, & Owen-Smith, 2005). These new
developments alert researchers to new phenomena but also challenge the
coherence of the overall research tradition.
One of the major appeals of the network approach is the distinctive lens it
brings to the examination of a range of organizational phenomena at different
levels. For example, at the macro level, topics include interfirm relations
(Beckman, Haunschild, & Phillips, 2004; Westphal, Boivie, & Chng, 2006), alli-
ances (Gulati, 2007; Shipilov, 2006), interlocking directorates (Mizruchi,
1996), price-fixing conspiracies (Baker & Faulkner, 1993), organizational
reputation (Rhee & Haunschild, 2006), initial network positions (Hallen,
2008), and network governance (Provan & Kenis, 2007). At the micro level,
topics include leadership (Pastor, Meindl, & Mayo, 2002), teams (Reagans,
Zuckerman, & McEvily, 2004), social influence (Sparrowe & Liden, 2005),
interpersonal trust within organizational contexts (Ferrin, Dirk, & Shah,
2006), employee performance (Mehra, Kilduff, & Brass, 2001), power (Brass,
1984), turnover (Krackhardt & Porter, 1985), attitude similarity (Rice & Aydin,
1991), promotions (Burt, 1992), diversity (Ibarra, 1992), creativity (Burt, 2004;
Perry-Smith, 2006), innovation (Obstfeld, 2005), conflict (Labianca, Brass, &
Gray, 1998), and organizational citizenship behavior (Bowler & Brass, 2006).
Further, we note the tendency for traditional management subfields (e.g.,
strategy, organizational behavior, organizational theory) to offer their own
focused summaries of network research (e.g., see the different chapters in
Baum, 2002). As organizational social network research evolves into a hetero-
geneous field of subtopics, collaborative dialogue across these different subject
areas becomes difficult. The growing popularity of the network approach,
therefore, may have come at the cost of programmatic coherence. What had
Organizational Social Network Research •
319
been hailed as a distinctive paradigm in the social sciences that could revolu-
tionize research and thinking (Hummon & Carley, 1993) may be in danger of
attaining the status of an umbrella term (Hirsch & Levin, 1999) that stretches
across a great many disparate endeavors that have little in common. Or will
the divergence foster competitive debate that propels further progress?
Certainly, in looking at the current state of the research program, we rec-
ognize that it encompasses a great number of topics at different levels of anal-
ysis, making it difficult to see the coherence within the diversity. One of the
aims of this article is to identify core ideas that represent the basis from which
such diverse research proceeds in the articulation of new theory and the iden-
tification of new phenomena; another is to review currently lively controver-
sies with respect to actor characteristics, agency, cognition, cooperation versus
competition, and boundary specification.
We do not attempt another conventional survey of organizational network
research given the prevalence of both specialist reviews—covering such topics
as social capital (Bartkus & Davis, 2009; Lee, 2009; Lin, Cook, & Burt, 2001),
inter-organizational links within whole networks (Provan, Fish, & Sydow,
2007), cross-level research (Ibarra, Kilduff, & Tsai, 2005), leadership
(Balkundi & Kilduff, 2005), job design (Kilduff & Brass, 2010), and terrorist
networks (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, & Jones, 2008); and general reviews (e.g.,
Borgatti & Foster, 2003; Brass, forthcoming; Brass, Galaskiewicz, Greve, &
Tsai, 2004; Monge & Contractor, 2003; Porter & Powell, 2006). Rather, we
ground our discussion in the social network core ideas from which new theory
and new research derive. It is these ideas (summarized in Table 1) that provide
the coherence and theoretical direction for organizational social network
research.
Table 1
Organizational Social Network Core Ideas.
Key citations
Social relations
: social network research involves the study
of sets of actors and the relations that connect and divide
them
Freeman, 2004;
Tichy et al., 1979
Embeddedness
: Actors are embedded within a network to
the extent that they show a preference for transacting with
network members or to the extent that social ties are
forged, renewed, and extended through the community
rather than through actors outside the community.
Granovetter, 1985;
Uzzi, 1996
Structural patterning:
Beneath the complexity of social
relations, there are enduring patterns of clustering,
connectivity, and centralization.
Wellman &
Berkowitz, 1988;
White et al., 1976
Utility of network connections
: social network connections
constrain and facilitate outcomes of importance to
individuals and groups.
Burt, 1992; Nahapiet
& Ghoshal, 1998
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Leading Ideas
Not all research areas in the social sciences develop the coherence and
dynamic capability characteristic of progressive research programs. A
progressive research program is characterized by the combination of a core set
of leading ideas and the competitive articulation of these ideas in terms of new
theories that signal new phenomena that demand new measures and analyti-
cal techniques (Lakatos, 1970; cf. Laudan, 1977). These leading ideas at the
heart of a research program are protected from refutation by auxiliary
assumptions and by “protective belt” theories that can themselves be chal-
lenged and changed in an ongoing process of progressive new theory develop-
ment (Lakatos, 1970). Interpreting the leading ideas to produce new theory
and articulating associated new research directions constitutes a major part of
the research within the social network community.
Leading ideas that drive scientific research programs tend to emerge over
time as research programs define themselves against competing programs. The
core ideas themselves are subject to creative interpretations and definitions.
Debates concerning the meanings of core ideas propel the research program
forward in terms of new theory. Of course, as part of any ongoing research pro-
gram there is a parallel process devoted to the development of measures, algo-
rithms, definitions, and procedures by which leading ideas can be tested,
discussed, and displayed. But our emphasis is on leading ideas rather than the
mathematical or graphical innovations inspired by leading ideas.
What are the leading ideas that distinguish organizational social network
research from other types of research? There are at least four interrelated lead-
ing ideas that have generated influential debates and empirical work: an
emphasis on
relations between actors
, a recognition of the
embeddedness
of
exchange in social relations, a belief in the
structural patterning
of social life,
and an emphasis on the
social utility
of network connections. These four lead-
ing ideas are at the core of the social network research program and have
evolved over time from intellectual traditions in psychology, anthropology,
and sociology. Note that these four ideas overlap and interweave with each
other but each idea represents a basis for social network research and theory-
driven problem solving (cf. Laudan, 1977).
Relations Between Actors
The most commonly invoked core idea that distinguishes organizational
social network research from its theoretical competitors is an emphasis on
relations between actors. From the early beginnings of organizational network
theorizing (e.g., Tichy, Tushman, & Fombrun, 1979) to more recent surveys
(e.g., Brass et al., 2004), researchers emphasize that social network analysis
involves the study of a set of actors and the relations (such as friendship,
communication, advice) that connect or separate them (Kilduff & Tsai, 2003,
p. 135). In Figure 1, we depict friendship relations among a set of minority
Organizational Social Network Research •
321
students in an MBA program. The figure is useful in illustrating the impor-
tance of the presence and absence of social relations among actors. For exam-
ple, we can see that the relations among African-American students are
particularly numerous and that these relations are clustered around Bill,
whereas the relations of other students, such as Jen, serve to bridge across the
gaps between different groups of students, promoting the overall connectivity
of the network. The continuing emphasis in social network research on how
relations link some but not all actors in a network derives much of its intellec-
tual capital from prior social psychology, including the sociometric tradition
(e.g., Moreno, 1934) and the Gestalt tradition of experimental studies of actors
in their social context (e.g., Heider, 1946; Lewin, 1936).
Figure 1 Social Relations among Actors (from Mehra, Kilduff, & Brass, 1998).
Thus a recent review (Borgatti et al., 2009) reminded us that early work on
social networks (Moreno, 1934) illustrated the importance of social relations
through an analysis of runaways from a custodial school in upstate New York.
All the runaways were connected to each other through affective bonds both
within and across dwelling units. This theme of people leaving organizations
Figure 1 Social Relations among Actors (from Mehra, Kilduff, & Brass, 1998).
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and influencing the departure of others to whom they are connected was
revived in the 1980s in an examination of how people were induced to leave by
the departure of others who occupied similar positions in organizational
advice networks (Krackhardt & Porter, 1986). Another example of research
focused on relations between individuals examined whether people at an orga-
nizational “mixer” follow through with their intentions to meet new people
(Ingram & Morris, 2007). At the inter-organizational level, a study of 230 pri-
vate colleges in the U.S. between 1971 and 1986 showed that strong ties
between organizations promote adaptation and learning while mitigating
uncertainty (Kraatz, 1998).
Prior researchers in the field of sociology (e.g., Erickson, 1988) tended to
follow Durkheim (1951) in defining the network approach almost exclusively
in contrast to approaches that invoked actor attributes (e.g., gender). The pri-
macy of relationships over attributes helped distinguish and progress social
network research in supposed competition with traditional sociological or
psychological approaches. But for organizational network researchers, for
whom the attributes of actors are often of great interest, this polarization
seems strained.
From early on in organizational network research there has been a focus on
attributes such as gender (e.g., Brass, 1985; Ibarra, 1992). Although centrality
measures capture the relational aspects of actors’ positions within the entire
network, they function identically alongside attribute measures in regression
analyses (e.g., Mehra, Kilduff, & Brass, 1998; Obstfeld, 2005). Such network
measures resemble other individual attributes such as transient emotions and
moods in being contingent on social context (e.g., Barsade, 2002). Further,
social networks surrounding individuals have been characterized in attribute
terms as “entrepreneurial” versus “clique” in order to explain individual out-
comes such as early promotions (Burt, 1992, p. 158). Thus to define organiza-
tional network research mainly or exclusively in terms of opposition to
attribute-based approaches (e.g., Mayhew, 1980) restricts the scope of the
research program in its specifically organizational instantiation. Attributes of
organizations (e.g., size) and of individuals (e.g., personality) are increasingly
studied within network-based approaches in a challenge to the more doctri-
naire versions of network research. (We review these debates below.) It is the
complete set of core ideas at the heart of the organizational network research
program that generates the program’s distinctiveness rather than its adher-
ence to Durkheimian or anti-attribute ideology. The organizational network
research program progresses as attributes are combined with relationships to
understand organizations.
Embeddedness
The second core idea that gives organizational network research distinctive-
ness as a research program is the embeddedness principle, understood within
Organizational Social Network Research •
323
social network research as the extent to which economic transactions occur
within the context of social relationships. Although this principle was
neglected by transaction cost economics (as pointed out by Granovetter,
1985), the effects of social relationships on economic outcomes are well
understood by people working for tips (e.g., hairdressers and waiters) and
parents of Girl Scouts trying to sell cookies. One clear articulation of the idea
of embeddedness as it has emerged in organizational research was provided by
Karl Polanyi (1944, p. 46): “…man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his
social relationships.” Following from the discussion of embeddedness by
Granovetter (1985), organizational network researchers generally assume that
behavior, even buying and selling behavior, is embedded in networks of inter-
personal relationships. Embeddedness is more important to the extent that
markets are inefficient or when “economic exchange would be otherwise diffi-
cult” (Burt, 1992, p. 268), but even in relatively perfect markets people rely on
social connections to make important decisions across a range of options (cf.
Kilduff, 1990).
The idea of embeddedness has evolved to encompass the inertial tendency
to repeat transactions over time. Actors are embedded within a network to the
extent that they show a preference for repeat transactions with network mem-
bers (Uzzi, 1996) and to the extent that social ties are forged, renewed, and even
extended (cf. Gulati & Gargiulo, 1999) through the community rather than
through actors outside the community. Embeddedness has “captured and fired
the imagination of interorganizational researchers” in particular (Baker &
Faulkner, 2002, p. 527). Thus embeddedness involves the overlap between
social ties and economic ties both within and between organizations (cf. Gra-
novetter, 1985), an interpretation that has led to fundamental understandings
concerning the governance of economic action in terms of trust and cohesion.
Embeddedness can be seen as an organizing logic different from organizational
hierarchy and market relations (Powell, 1990). The embeddedness principle is
relevant to the formation of industrial districts such as Silicon Valley (e.g.,
Saxenian, 1996) and to the structuring of strategic alliances (e.g., Gulati, 1998).
An early discussion of the embeddedness idea (Bott, 1957) showed that roles
within marriage tended to be gender segregated when the wife was embedded
in a close-knit network of female neighbors and the husband was embedded
in a close-knit network of male friends. Related research at the interpersonal
level within organizations has drawn on the notion of Simmelian dyads (i.e.,
dyads that are embedded in triads), showing that such dyads are more stable
over time (Krackhardt, 1998), exert more pressure on people to conform to
norms (Krackhardt, 1999), and produce higher agreement concerning the cul-
ture of entrepreneurial firms (Krackhardt & Kilduff, 2002). Further, the concept
of Bott-role segregation can be generalized from the context of husband/wife
relations to analyze the effects of embeddedness on relationships and actor dis-
tinctiveness for organizations and individual persons (Burt, 1992, pp. 255–260).
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And embeddedness can cross levels. For example, when the leader of Alpha
organization becomes Beta organization’s leader and transacts business with
the Gamma organization, these transactions with Gamma are embedded within
prior exchanges between the leader (who has now changed organizational
affiliations) and Gamma (Barden & Mitchell, 2007).
A quite different approach to embeddedness (Provan & Sebastian, 1998)
focused on clique overlap in examining whether the effectiveness of city men-
tal-health systems (in terms of client outcomes) depended on the extent of
integration among small cliques of relevant agencies. Thus the emphasis was
not on the extent of exchange relations among all the housing, rehabilitation,
criminal justice, and other agencies involved in mental-health care in a partic-
ular city. Instead, the results showed that adults with severe mental illness
tended to benefit to the extent that they dealt with a small set of agencies that
referred patients to each other and that also coordinated the care that patients
received. An effective network was one that exhibited embeddedness in the
sense that case coordination cliques overlapped referral cliques.
Another innovative embeddedness analysis found that high-growth entre-
preneurial firms tended to form interfirm alliances through a process of inter-
personal relationship development. As one vice president commented about
his industry: “It is a very small community in which certain people have estab-
lished credibility and reputation. The key is who you know” (Larson, 1992,
p. 84). In the process of alliance formation, individuals who worked for differ-
ent organizations became close to each other through day-to-day business
interactions that involved risk-taking and trust. Written contracts, where they
existed, were discounted in terms of their importance for alliance governance.
Instead, economic exchange relations between firms were embedded in social
relations of friendship and trust between people.
Of course, the embeddedness logic works only up to a point. A study of
firms in the New York apparel industry showed that network structures that
integrated arm’s-length and embedded ties tended to optimize an organiza-
tion’s performance (Uzzi, 1996). “Embedded” ties were characterized by
higher levels of trust, richer transfers of information and greater problem-
solving capabilities when compared to “arm’s-length” ties. A contractor’s
probability of failure decreased with first-order embeddedness (i.e., the extent
to which the contractor concentrated its exchanges with a few trading
partners rather than spreading out exchanges in small parcels among many
partners). But the contractor’s probability of failure also decreased to the
extent that it maintained a moderate degree of second-order embeddedness
(i.e., the extent to which the contractor firm’s network partners maintained
arm’s-length or embedded ties with their network partners). Thus the para-
dox of embeddedness (Uzzi, 1997) implies that firms not only have to manage
their relationships with their direct contacts, but they also have to accurately
perceive and attempt to manage relationships among contacts of contacts.
Organizational Social Network Research •
325
As with all progressive research programs, leading ideas are generative of
creative interpretations and definitions. Embeddedness has thus been extended
to include the nesting of social ties within other social ties (multiplexity; Kilduff
& Tsai, 2003, p. 134) and to the appropriability of one type of tie by another
(Coleman, 1990)—for example, friendship ties being used to further business
transactions (cf. Larson, 1992). The effects of both multiplexity and appropri-
ability represent further frontiers for organizational social network research.
Structural Patterning
A third leading idea (related to but different from embeddedness) germane to
the distinctiveness of the organizational social network research program is
structural patterning. The network approach assumes that beneath the
complexity of social relations there are enduring patterns of “connectivity and
cleavage” (Wellman, 1988, p. 26) that, once revealed, can help explain
outcomes at different levels. Important here is the focus not just on social ties
between certain actors, but also the focus on the absence of ties between other
actors. Structure is often defined in terms of groups of non-interacting actors.
At the level of the whole social system, structural analysis can reveal such
patterns of presence and absence. Overall system indicators of structure such
as clustering, connectivity, and centralization can be precisely identified
through such approaches as block model analysis (e.g., DiMaggio, 1986), core-
periphery analysis (Van Rossem, 1996), and small-world analysis (e.g., Kogut
& Walker, 2001). These configurational approaches (analyzing patterns at the
social network level rather than at the level of each individual’s network of
relationships) have been neglected in organizational research, although new
interest in very large data sets (e.g., Uzzi & Spiro, 2005) may signal a surge of
interest in new configurational ideas and techniques borrowed from the
physics of social networks (cf. Dorogovtsev & Mendes, 2003).
By addressing patterns of network structure, social network analysis per-
mits the study of the whole and the parts of social networks simultaneously
(Wellman, 1988). The parts of the network include dyads (two actors con-
nected by a tie), triads (three actors and their ties), cliques (three or more
actors, all of whom are connected to each other), and larger structures such as
components (in which all the actors can reach each other through social net-
work ties—cf. Powell, Koput, & Smith-Doerr, 1996). Researchers can, in prin-
ciple, simultaneously address actor, group, and network characteristics. For
example, a researcher might ask to what extent does an actor’s centrality
within a highly central group in a decentralized network affect that actor’s
power? Although possible, such analyses have rarely been undertaken.
What has been studied in organizational research is the duality of social
structure (Breiger, 1974), a concept that joins both micro and macro levels of
analysis. Two people can be connected to each other through joint organiza-
tional affiliation (both people are on the board of Wal-Mart, for example);
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and two organizations can be connected to each other through people (both
organizations have the same board member, for example). For a specific
example of how the duality of social structure can be investigated, let us look
at the data set collected by Galaskiewicz (1985) that details the links of 26
Minneapolis area chief executive officers to 15 clubs and corporate boards.
Figure 2 uses a technique called correspondence analysis (Wasserman &
Faust, 1994, pp. 334–342) to model both the CEOs (indicated by “Rs”) and
the clubs and boards to which they belong (indicated by “Cs”) in the same
social space. In this instance, the analysis shows that a core set of CEOs tend
to meet each other at a core set of clubs and boards. The heart-shaped line in
Figure 2 circles what appears to be the elite structure of business relationships
in Minneapolis.
Figure 2 The Social Structure of Business Leaders in Minneapolis.
Figure 2 The Social Structure of Business Leaders in Minneapolis.
Organizational Social Network Research •
327
Thus, when two people interact, they may represent not only themselves,
but also any formal or informal groups or organizations of which they are
members (e.g., Galaskiewicz & Burt, 1991; Zaheer & Soda, 2009). Each person
potentially represents a whole set of overlapping groups to which he or she
belongs (Blau & Schwartz, 1984), with these groups including not just formal
affiliations to institutions such as sports clubs, but also ascribed affiliations to
demographic categories such as gender and race. Organizations tend to be
structured according to salient demographic fault lines that affect people’s
perceptions of outcomes, such as team learning, psychological safety, and
expected performance (Lau & Murnighan, 2005).
Fault lines separate demographic groups in organizations, with friendship
networks tending to be denser among groups consisting of ethnic and gender
minorities relative to groups consisting of ethnic and gender majorities
(Mehra et al., 1998). Density has a precise meaning in social network research,
referring to the actual number of ties in the network divided by the maximum
number of ties that are possible. Density represents one indicator of cohesion
that can be compared across networks of the same or similar size. The denser
the network, the more redundancy there is in terms of paths along which
information and influence can flow between any two actors. Networks with
high density tend to be ones in which norms concerning the proper way to
behave are “clearer, more firmly held and easier to enforce” (Granovetter,
2005, p. 34). To the extent that density characterizes the “buy-in” network sur-
rounding an individual who aspires to high office in a corporation, the indi-
vidual is likely to have a clear understanding of what is expected from those
who control the individual’s fate (Podolny & Baron, 1997).
Although the structural perspective (with its focus on patterns of relation-
ships) gives social network research part of its distinctive appeal, it is this
aspect of network research that also tends to attract criticism (e.g., Kilduff &
Tsai, 2003). Pure structural research tends to treat different kinds of relation-
ships as more or less equivalent because the focus is on structure rather than
the content of ties. In searching for structure, different kinds of ties are often
aggregated together (e.g., Burt, 1992), with the assumption being that the dif-
ferent structural patterns exhibited across the same set of actors are variations
on the true underlying structure, or that one type of relationship can serve
several different purposes. However, in the competitive evolution of the struc-
tural perspective, researchers have noted that different kinds of relationships
can have different effects (e.g., Coleman, Katz, & Menzel, 1966; Podolny &
Baron, 1997), especially if one considers negative ties (Labianca & Brass,
2006). Similar structural patterns may result in different outcomes when the
content of the relationships is considered.
For example, if strong ties such as friendship are studied, then networks are
likely to appear more dense than if weak ties such as acquaintanceship are
studied (Granovetter, 1973, 1983). Tie strength is a function of time, intimacy,
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emotional intensity, and reciprocity. Strong-tie networks (at the interpersonal
level) are likely to be dense networks because people who have friends in com-
mon tend to become friends themselves (Heider, 1958).
Of course, social networks can include several different types of ties, both
strong and weak, and the particular combination of ties can result in a differ-
ent depiction of the network. Novel information (such as the availability of
jobs) tends to flow to people whose personal networks are structured to
include weak ties that connect them to social circles within which neither they
themselves nor their friends tend to move. Thus “social structure can domi-
nate motivation” (Granovetter, 2005, p. 34) in the sense that although close
friends may be more interested than acquaintances in helping us and strong
ties may be necessary for the effective transfer of knowledge (Hansen, 1999), it
is likely to be acquaintances who have more useful information concerning
new jobs or scarce services (Granovetter, 1982).
When examining networks of both strong and weak ties, one is likely to see
clusters of strong-tie actors, with the clusters connected to each other mainly
by means of weak ties, a community structure of clustering and connectivity
that is likely to be better able to organize itself against attack than a commu-
nity structure that consists of isolated cliques (Granovetter, 1973). Thus one of
the paradoxes of the structural patterning of social life that follows from the
strength-of-weak-ties argument (Granovetter, 1973) is that individuals may be
densely connected to others within clusters despite little connection across
clusters. A particular social world may be fragmented into groups consisting
of people similar on some attribute (such as ethnicity), with little or no contact
across groups. Such a social world, which exhibits a lack of organization across
clusters, may be quite fragile despite each person within the social world expe-
riencing tight, within-cluster cohesion (Granovetter, 1973).
Fault lines between different clusters tend to emerge over time, either
through default processes such as a preference for interaction with similar
others (i.e., homophily: Mehra et al., 1998), through processes of active
recruitment of friends and kin that can occur beneath the radar of manage-
ment attention (e.g., Burt & Ronchi, 1990), or with the active encouragement
of management (e.g., Seidel, Polzer, & Stewart, 2000). The theme of networks
resilient against or subject to breakdown and attack has emerged as a major
research area for those studying small-world networks (e.g., Dorogovtsev &
Mendes, 2003).
Utility of Social Network Connections
The fourth leading idea from which social network research draws its distinc-
tive program is the belief that social networks provide the opportunities and
constraints that affect outcomes of importance to individuals and groups.
1
Researchers are not content with merely describing social relations, embed-
dedness, and social structure, but increasingly focus on whether differences in
Organizational Social Network Research •
329
patterns of social interaction matter for individual actors and communities.
The answer is yes—social interaction does matter. Researchers have found
that the types of networks we form around us affect a range of outcomes
including life expectancy (Berkman & Syme, 1979) and susceptibility to infec-
tion (Cohen, Doyle, Skoner, Rabin, & Gwaltney, 1997), as well as organiza-
tional outcomes such as performance (Mehra et al., 2001), promotions (Brass,
1984; Burt, 1992), and firm innovation (Ahuja, 2000).
A major theoretical impetus has come from the structural-hole perspective
(Burt, 1992). We choose to focus on this perspective’s relevance for the utility
of network connections rather than on its undoubted importance for under-
standing structural patterning because of the strong emphasis within struc-
tural-hole theory on outcomes. Structural-hole theory compares two different
types of networks surrounding the focal actor—one involving holes (and
casting the central actor as a broker between contacts who are themselves not
connected, hence the “holes”); and one involving closure (and casting the
central actor as an integral member of a densely connected team, hence the
“closure”). For example, in Figure 1, Jen’s connections span across structural
holes (e.g., between people who themselves are not connected and who are
from different ethnic groups such as Alan and Mark, and Pam and Fay),
whereas Bill’s connections constrain him within a densely connected team of
people from the same ethnic group. The theory posits that actors with closed
networks (in which ego’s trusted contacts are said to be “redundant” with each
other) are disadvantaged in terms of information and control benefits relative
to actors whose networks are “rich in structural holes” (Burt, 1992, p. 47).
A contrasting perspective focuses not on the individual actor but on the
collectivity, and assesses how groups of actors collectively build relationships
that provide benefits to the group (e.g., Coleman, 1990). From this perspec-
tive, the emphasis is on norms, trust, and reciprocity that result from network
closure within communities. In the U.S., statistics show a steady decline in
membership in bowling leagues, bridge clubs, and community and church
groups since the 1950s, all symptomatic of a more individualistic and less
communal society (Putnam, 1995). This decline in membership in crosscut-
ting social groups affects not only the collectivity, but also individuals who
may find themselves trapped in their own nets (Gargiulo & Benassi, 2000)
with no weak links or other connections to outside groups (Granovetter,
1973) but with many “redundant” ties to people who are connected to each
other.
The redundancy idea is important for understanding the structural-hole
approach to network connection utility. Initially, redundancy was defined as
the extent to which two contacts “provide the same information benefits to the
player” (Burt, 1992, p. 47)—this is less a network explanation than a contex-
tual one, surely requiring more information about the contacts. It is conceiv-
able that ego might have two trusted contacts who, despite being connected to
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each other, nevertheless provide quite disparate information to ego. However,
there are network indicators of redundancy. Burt (1992) pointed out in his
original formulation that “contacts who, regardless of their relationship with
one another, link the player to the same third parties have the same sources of
information, and so provide redundant benefit to the player” (p. 47).
From this explanation, the argument seems to point to brokerage oppor-
tunities that are at some distance from the broker—to the importance of
what Burt (1992, pp. 39–40) has called “secondary structural holes.” A pri-
mary structural-hole opportunity is offered to you when two of your
acquaintances are themselves not acquainted (e.g., in Figure 1, Jen spans the
structural hole between Alan and Mark). A secondary structural-hole oppor-
tunity is offered to you when, in considering your relationship with A, you
notice that B offers similar access to the network of ties you are interested
in, and that, therefore, you could substitute B for A. Thus, in Figure 1, Jen
has a reciprocated tie to Fay, but Jen could, according to this secondary-hole
logic, cut her tie to Fay given that Sue offers much the same access to others
that Fay does, and given that Fay does not reciprocate the friendship tie
from Sue. According to structural-hole logic, you can play A off against B to
achieve a better return from your investment of time and resources in the
relationship.
If ego has access to secondary structural holes, this means that the direct
contacts of ego face competition within their own networks for ego’s favors.
There is evidence that dyadic relationships that reach into secondary struc-
tural holes experience ease of knowledge transfer, but, interestingly, the
same evidence shows that dyadic relationships that reach into cohesive net-
work structures also experience ease of knowledge transfer (Reagans &
McEvily, 2003). The importance of secondary structural holes has been
questioned in recent arguments and empirical research (Burt, 2007), an issue
we take up later when we discuss boundary specification and direct versus
indirect ties.
The other part of the structural-hole argument relates not to whether bro-
kerage opportunities should be assessed proximately or distantly but to the
comparison with “closed” (i.e., cohesive) networks. The case for network
closure at the individual, ego-network level builds from the idea that location
within a connected group (e.g., the group of people around Bill in Figure 1)
helps forge a sense of personal belonging and also creates a normative frame-
work within which the individual’s social identity emerges and is reinforced
(Coleman, 1990). With respect to getting ahead in organizations, the argu-
ment goes as follows: “A cohesive network conveys a clear normative order
within which the individual can optimize performance, whereas a diverse,
disconnected network exposes the individual to conflicting preferences and
allegiances within which it is much harder to optimize” (Podolny & Baron,
1997, p. 676).
Organizational Social Network Research •
331
A question for future research concerns the conditions under which either
cohesive networks or structural-hole networks are likely to provide the focal
actor with advantages. Some evidence suggests that the benefits of cohesion
flow mainly to people occupying lower hierarchical levels in organizations
(Podolny & Baron, 1997), whereas the benefits of structural holes flow mainly
to members of senior management (Burt, 1997), for whom “issues of
organizational identity and belonging may no longer be salient for career
advancement” (Podolny & Baron, 1997, p. 689). Other research showed that
non-supervisory employees who spanned across structural holes in workflow
and communication networks were indeed influential and likely to be pro-
moted (Brass, 1984), regardless of gender (Brass, 1985). Career benefits have
been shown to be associated with structural-hole spanning across a wide range
of hierarchical levels (Seibert, Kramer, & Liden, 2001). Recent work that
included a sample of executives showed that the purported information
advantages of spanning structural holes came at the cost of overestimating the
extent to which others in the workplace agreed with ego concerning ethical
issues (Flynn & Wiltermuth, 2010).
Another question for future research concerns the specific resources that
are assumed to flow through social networks to the benefit of brokers or oth-
ers. The advantages to an actor of occupying a structural hole may come from
the flow of power (playing one actor off against another), from the flow of
information (acquiring non-redundant information from alters), or from the
flow of referrals from grateful alters (subsequent to the closing of the hole).
Closed networks are assumed to engender shared norms and trust, but sel-
dom are these flows of communal feeling measured or tested. As the social
network research program moves forward, we are likely to see more attention
to the resources moving through the pipes and prisms (cf. Podolny, 2001) of
the network.
Disconnected networks help brokers realize value by offering these brokers
the opportunity to transfer ideas from one isolated group to another, a process
that involves recognizing when solutions current in one part of the network
are likely to have applications elsewhere in the network (Hargadon & Sutton,
1997). But organizations in rapidly developing fields are likely to benefit from
the transfer of emergent complex knowledge to the extent that (rather than
depending on brokers) they themselves are part of the alliance network of
industry collaborations (Powell et al., 1996). In cases where frontline employ-
ees must be mobilized or coordinated around complex or innovative projects,
a cohesive network in which people are brought together to implement ideas
may be more functional than a dispersed network in which disconnected peo-
ple provide ideas through brokers (Obstfeld, 2005).
A recent comprehensive meta-analysis at both the individual person level
and at the firm level showed that whether the dependent variable was perfor-
mance or innovation, spanning structural holes was advantageous for the
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central actor (Balkundi, Wang, & Harrison, 2009). Similarly, a review of
the literature concerning individual performance, promotions, and career
advancement concluded that there was overwhelming support for the benefits
of structural holes (Brass, forthcoming), despite isolated studies showing con-
tingency effects for gender (Burt, 1992), hierarchy (Burt, 1997), and coopera-
tive culture (Lazega, 2001; Xiao & Tsui, 2007). Overall, then, evidence suggests
that networks featuring structural holes offer opportunities for non-redundant
information and competitive brokerage, whereas cohesive networks offer
opportunities for collaboration, innovation implementation, and the learning
of complex knowledge.
The structural hole versus closure debate has generated considerable
research and further refinement, and it is easy to overlook a basic theoretical
agreement of both approaches. Both suggest that densely connected networks
are constraining. In the case of closure, constraint is a good thing: it facilitates
the monitoring and enforcement of norms that generate identity and trust.
From a structural-hole perspective, constraint is a bad thing: it limits the input
of novel information and the ability to broker relationships. Future debate and
research might fruitfully focus on identifying both the positive and negative
utilities of particular network connections, as well as contingent utilities.
Relationships, embeddedness, structure, and social utility are core ideas
that have vaulted organizational social network research to its current popu-
larity. The ideas overlap: relationships are embedded in structures that obtain
utility. And, separately, each has overlaps with other traditional approaches.
But, taken together they provide a distinctive niche for organizational social
network research. These leading social network ideas have evolved through
challenges to and competition with the leading ideas of other established
approaches in social science and management (cf. Lakatos, 1970). Network
leading ideas will continue to be challenged, shaped, and developed by criti-
cisms and controversies. Having set the groundwork, we now turn our atten-
tion to competitive debates that propel the research program forward.
Criticisms and Controversies
Actor Characteristics
Network research, especially research from a sociological perspective, has
tended to pursue a Durkheimian agenda (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994)
focused on emergent social structure irreducible to any individual attribute
(e.g., Mark, 1998; Mayhew, 1980). The characteristics of individual actors, to
the extent that they are discussed at all, have tended to be treated as residues
of social structure. From this perspective, for example, people who are
constrained within relatively closed networks develop different personalities
from those who experience relatively open networks (Burt, 1992). Challenges
to this structuralist perspective have come from personality psychology (with
Organizational Social Network Research •
333
respect to the networks developed by people) and from strategic choice
researchers (with respect to the networks developed by organizations).
Of particular interest for interpersonal networks is the self-monitoring per-
sonality variable that has provided suggestive evidence that people with differ-
ent self-monitoring orientations tend to occupy different structural positions
(Kilduff, 1992; Kilduff & Krackhardt, 2008; Mehra et al., 2001). Self-monitoring
theory focuses on the monitoring and control of expressive behavior (Snyder,
1974). High self-monitors strive to orient their attitudes and behaviors to
the expectations of specific audiences in social situations, whereas low self-
monitors strive to orient their attitudes and behaviors to inner affective states
(Day & Kilduff, 2003; Snyder, 1979).
Thus self-monitoring helps explain why some individuals tend to occupy
structural holes. Because of their self-monitoring orientation, some people
inhabit partitioned social worlds (in which ego’s contacts are themselves dis-
connected from each other), whereas other people inhabit closed social worlds
(in which ego’s contacts are connected to each other). This partitioning versus
closed social worlds hypothesis was tested on a sample of Korean expatriate
small business owners in North America (Oh & Kilduff, 2008). The results
suggested a ripple effect of personality on social structure whereby high self-
monitors, relative to low self-monitors, ingratiated themselves into distinctly
different social circles of acquaintances with few links between these clusters,
such that the acquaintances of their acquaintances tended to be unacquainted
with each other.
Given this burgeoning work on self-monitoring and networks, some peo-
ple fear the opening of a Pandora’s Box of individual differences, a cascade of
hundreds of personality variables clamoring for attention as explanations of
why some people occupy certain network positions. The evidence from self-
monitoring research, however, suggests that strong guiding theory is needed if
even a single personality variable is to have any chance of predicting signifi-
cant variance in network outcomes. For example, one rigorous and ambitious
attempt examined whether the five-factor model of personality (typically con-
sidered to comprise a comprehensive set of standard personality variables)
related to network centrality, and found that all the variables together within
this model explained only 2% of the variance in advice and friendship central-
ity (Klein, Lim, Saltz, & Mayer, 2004).
In earlier work concerning job attainment and promotions, there was an
interest in demographic and status-based individual differences. Research
investigated these differences for both the focal individual and his or her con-
tacts. Thus we know that weak ties enable people to reach higher status alters,
and that alters’ occupational prestige is one key to ego obtaining a high status
job (Lin, 1999; Lin, Ensel, & Vaughn, 1981). Future research on personality
and social networks might consider following this example—by, for example,
including alters’ personalities in the research design.
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Also, at the organizational level, a debate has emerged concerning the
importance of actor characteristics in social networks.
2
Strategy research tradi-
tionally has focused on identifying firm-specific characteristics that contribute
to organizational competitive advantage (cf. Rumelt, Schendel, & Teece,
1994). Indeed, the antecedents and consequences of organizational differences
contribute to the foundations of the resource-based view of the firm (Barney,
1991). Thus the structuralist focus on relations to the exclusion of actor char-
acteristics strikes network-trained strategy researchers as unsatisfactory, par-
alleling the dissatisfaction with the structuralist approach experienced by
many people working at the level of interpersonal networks. Standard social
network views and resource-based views of the firm have been reconciled in
one recent model that integrates these contrasting perspectives within a rela-
tional view of competitive advantage (Lavie, 2006). The message from this
model is that properties of actors matter for the ability of firms to extract value
from their network relationships.
Recent empirical work builds on these ideas to understand the role that
firm characteristics play in how firms extract performance benefits from
their structural positions. Important properties of the firm to consider
include absorptive capacity, bargaining power, and ability to check partners’
non-cooperativeness (Shipilov, 2006, 2009). Extending beyond the firm level,
other work examines the alliance portfolio, which can be defined as the col-
lection of direct ties between a firm and its partners (Hoffmann, 2007; Lavie,
2007; Lavie & Miller, 2008). In this perspective, it is not only the size of a
firm’s network of direct ties that is important (i.e., the ego network), but
also the properties of all firms in the network. This portfolio approach mir-
rors the prior focus on the status of alters at the interpersonal level (Lin,
1999). To understand how a firm can benefit from its network relationships,
it is necessary to take into account such characteristics of partner firms as
their performance, their relative power over the focal firm, and the extent of
their internationalization. The argument here is that higher complementari-
ties between the focal firm and its alliance portfolio partners lead to
increases in the value generated across the portfolio of firms, whereas higher
competition within the portfolio of firms (indicated, for example, by the
prevalence of substitute partners) enables the focal firm to extract value
from its portfolio.
At an even higher level of aggregation, the emerging literature on small
worlds (e.g., Watts, 1999) has tended to identify similarities in the behaviors of
complex systems, irrespective of the membership of those systems and irre-
spective of nodal properties. Thus the mechanisms explaining the phenomena
of complex systems have tended to be similar whether the systems are based
on the collaboration of individuals (e.g., Uzzi & Spiro, 2005) or organizations
(e.g., Baum, Shipilov, & Rowley, 2003; Kogut & Walker, 2001). The attributes
and behaviors of actors tend to be discounted in favor of an emphasis on how
Organizational Social Network Research •
335
system structure changes and self-perpetuates. There has been a recent trend,
however, toward the recognition of individual action in shaping higher-level
outcomes. Thus recent research examines how the behavior of individuals in
terms of their preferences for partnering with actors at the core of their net-
works and their preferences for forming repeated relationships shape macro
network characteristics such as small worldedness (Uzzi, Guimera, Spiro, &
Amaral, 2009).
The focus on structural patterns to the exclusion of actor attributes helped
social network research establish a distinctive niche for itself. But recent work
has challenged this ideological refusal to consider ways in which individual
actors differ in their attributes. Theory that links individual attributes to struc-
tural outcomes is likely to be generative of compelling research. Such research
might fruitfully include the characteristics of all members of the network in
order to explore the possibility of complementary synergies between actors
and network structure.
Agency
Perhaps the most frequent criticism of social network research is that it fails to
take into account human agency (e.g., Salancik, 1995). As one critique noted,
network research fails to show how “intentional, creative human action serves
in part to constitute those very social networks that so powerfully constrain
actors in turn” (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994, p. 1413). Actors (individual
people or organizational entities) are assumed to have the abilities, skills, and
motivation to take advantage of advantageous network positions. Disadvanta-
geously placed actors are similarly assumed to lack the skills, abilities, and
motivation to overcome the constraints upon them. Clearly, this perspective
represents a type of structural determinism. The network surrounding the
individual is taken to indicate simultaneously “entrepreneurial opportunity
and motivation” (Burt, 1992, p. 35). The overly formalist nature of much
network research has been criticized as failing to “offer a plausible model of
individual action” (Friedman & McAdam, 1992, p. 160).
As social network research has moved forward, it has typically adopted this
sociological perspective whether focusing on macro or micro level determi-
nants and outcomes. Indeed, organizational network research was for decades
focused on interlocking directorates (e.g., Burt, 1980, 1983; Mizruchi, 1996;
Palmer, 1983; Palmer, Friedland, & Singh, 1986) with a later focus on strategic
alliance networks (e.g., Gulati, 1998; Gulati, Nohria, & Zaheer, 2000). Even
early micro studies focused on “being in the right place” (Brass, 1984) with few
attempts to account for behavioral strategies (see Brass & Burkhardt, 1993, for
an exception) or psychological processes (see Krackhardt & Porter, 1986, for
an exception). The emphasis has been on how macro social conditions affect
macro-level outcomes or on how micro factors affect micro-level outcomes
(Coleman, 1990, p. 8). The macro–micro links between organizations and the
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individual people in those organizations have been neglected. The assumption
has been that we can say little or nothing to elucidate the different psycholog-
ical preferences or orientations of actors (as we have discussed in the prior sec-
tion concerning actor characteristics). This sentiment was summed up in the
title of a famous article in economics—“De gustibus non est disputandum”—
which can be translated as “there is no accounting for taste” (Stigler & Becker,
1977).
Although this determinist emphasis continues in organizational network
research, there is evidence of an agentic turn (e.g., Stevenson & Greenberg,
2000) even among the more sociologically inclined network scholars (e.g.,
Burt, 2007; DiMaggio, 1997; Podolny, 1998; Zuckerman, 1999). Social net-
work research in organizational contexts has acknowledged that individual
action shapes and reproduces social structures of constraint (e.g., Barley,
1990), and that, in principle, some philanthropic individuals can choose not to
reap the profits derived from their network (Burt, 1992, pp. 34–35). However,
despite the agentic turn, there has been a relative lack of research concerning
how individuals make choices concerning the social networks that facilitate
and constrain their actions. Critics have called for richer psychological theory
to supplement the overreliance on rational choice models of individual
behavior in social network research (Kanazawa, 2001).
We should recognize here, following on the discussion from the prior
section, that as individual actors pursue advantages through their portfolios
of social network connections, the networks of ties within which they are
embedded are themselves evolving as the result of multi-actor behaviors.
Thus, if a particular actor tries to maintain disconnections among other actors
in order to gain structural-hole advantages, these other actors may themselves
form an alliance in order to resist the manipulations of the focal actor. There
has been little research on these evolving scenarios, but we do know that, in
competitive arenas, structural-hole opportunities tend to disappear relatively
fast (Burt, 2002).
Compared to the structural hole versus closure debate or the structure ver-
sus actor characteristics debate, the agency versus structure debate has yet to
demonstrate a driving force in developing social network research. The focus
on actor characteristics provides some overlap given that personality and firm
characteristics relate to behavior and strategy. In addition, the recent debate
over indirect ties (see boundary specification below) may focus attention on
agency. Future research might consider more closely the question of how much
control actors have over the networks that constrain and enable their behaviors.
Cognition
One area that has drawn from the core concepts of social network research
to bridge the micro–macro gap has been cognitive social network research.
Sociological research has tended to neglect the subjective meanings inherent
Organizational Social Network Research •
337
in networks in favor of an emphasis on supposedly “concrete” relations such
as exchanges between actors (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994, p. 1427).
Management research from the micro perspective has tended to be less ideo-
logically constrained in its consideration of a range of perceived and actual
network relations.
Indeed, some early work suggesting that an organization could be consid-
ered a network of cognitions (Bougon, Weick, & Binkhorst, 1977) looks pre-
scient in anticipating the growing attention to how perceptions of networks
are themselves constitutive of action (e.g., Burt, 1982). But a focus on cogni-
tion and networks has been present in micro social network research for a
long time. Field theory, as developed by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s, featured an
emphasis on the network of cognitions by which individuals negotiated social
spaces (Lewin, 1951). And the work of Fritz Heider (1958) on balance theory
established the importance of understanding how expectations affect network
perceptions.
From a balance-theory perspective, people expect their own friendship
relations to exhibit reciprocity (the people they like will reciprocate liking)
and transitivity (if they like two people, then those two people will like each
other). Paralleling the work of Heider (1958), De Soto (1960) found that net-
work structures representing balance and transitivity were easier for subjects
to learn. A more recent study (Krackhardt & Kilduff, 1999) showed that
individuals tend to perceive friendship relations in organizations as balanced
both close to the individual and far away. Individuals suffer emotional ten-
sion if they perceive that the people they extend the hand of friendship to
fail to reciprocate their liking or fail to like each other (cf. Heider, 1958). As
the individual looks across the organization at the friendship relations
among people who are relative strangers to the individual, then the individ-
ual is likely to compensate for lack of knowledge concerning the relation-
ships among the strangers by filling in the blanks according to a balance
schema so that the stranger friendship relations are perceived to be recipro-
cated and transitive (cf. Freeman, 1992).
In addition, we know that people in organizations tend to perceive them-
selves as more central in their friendship networks at work than they really are
(Kumbasar, Romney, & Batchelder, 1994); that they tend to misremember
who attended any particular meeting, recalling the meeting as attended by the
regular members of their social group and forgetting the casual attendees
(Freeman, Romney, & Freeman, 1987); and that default cognitive expectations
about networks (such as the expectation that relations will be transitive) can
be challenged and updated by experience with contrasting social network
structures (such as the absence of transitivity and the presence of structural
holes) (Janicik & Larrick, 2005).
But does any of this matter? Evidence suggests that it does. Accurate
perceptions themselves turn out to be important: those who more accurately
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perceive who is connected to whom in the advice network are rated as more
powerful by others in the organization (Krackhardt, 1990). In addition, people
evaluate others based on their perceptions of connections in the network. An
individual’s reputation as a high performer in an organization is significantly
affected by whether others in the organization perceive the individual to have
a high-status friend, irrespective of whether the individual actually has such a
friend (Kilduff & Krackhardt, 1994). You are known by the company you are
perceived to keep. But cognitive interpretations are not only made by third-
party observers; relationships also hinge on the cognitive interpretations of
actions by the parties involved. For example, we are not likely to form rela-
tionships with people whom we perceive as trying to use us. Calculated self-
interest in building relationships, if perceived, is self-defeating. Overall, the
cognitive social network research has led to the view of networks as “prisms”
through which others’ reputations and potentials are viewed, as well as “pipes”
through which resources flow (Podolny, 2001).
Recent cognitive research shows that individuals tended to bias percep-
tions to accentuate small-world features of clustering and connectivity
(Kilduff, Crossland, Tsai, & Krackhardt, 2008): across four different organiza-
tional friendship networks, people perceived more small worldedness than
was actually the case, including the perception of more network clustering
than actually existed, and the attribution of more popularity and brokerage to
the perceived-popular than to the actually-popular. Although small-world
research has offered the hope of a connected world (Watts, 2003) and coun-
tered the fear that each of us lives in increasing isolation from others (cf.
Putnam, 2000), this cognitive perspective on small worlds suggests that clus-
tering and connectivity may be more prevalent in people’s cognitions than in
reality. Linking with others distant from ourselves may require far more effort
than we have believed.
In this connection, emergent research at the macro level of organizational
networks (Shipilov, Li, & Greve, 2009) links the structural positions of firms to
how these firms conceptualize their environments and set cognitive reference
groups. Organizations that act as brokers tend to compare themselves to other
broker-type organizations, whereas non-broker organizations tend to com-
pare themselves to their fellow clique members. Non-broker firms (in contrast
to broker firms) tend to depart from the comfort of attaching themselves to
similar others in response to discrepancies between actual and historic perfor-
mance aspirations. Thus the cognitive turn in social network research has
implications at the level of strategic social network interaction (see also Baum,
Rowley, Shipilov, & Chuang, 2005).
Just as actor characteristics may reflect capability, and agency may reflect
motivation, cognition may assess awareness of network opportunities and
constraints. All three (actor characteristics, agency, and cognition) may be
necessary components of the utility of social connections. Inclusion of all
Organizational Social Network Research •
339
three components may provide additional insights concerning the leading
ideas of social network research.
Cooperation vs. Competition
Social network research has been criticized not only for neglecting agency and
individual psychology, but also for neglecting the context within which
networks emerge and constrain action (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994).
Although seldom acknowledged (see Xiao & Tsui, 2007, for an exception), the
issue of cooperative versus competitive culture permeates social network anal-
ysis, and has surfaced in one of its most vigorous debates.
The controversy concerning structural equivalence versus cohesion pro-
vides an illustration of the importance of cultural context concerning one of
the key developments in the modern history of social network analysis
(White, Boorman, & Breiger, 1976). According to structural equivalence logic,
the influence process from one actor to another involves competition between
rivals for the same network position. Structurally equivalent actors connect to
the same set of other actors, and are, in this sense, jockeying for the same
social role, much like siblings in a family, or rival organizations vying for the
same market. Unlike siblings, however, two actors can be structurally equiva-
lent (i.e., have the same or nearly the same connections to the other actors in
the network) even though there is no direct connection between the two
actors themselves. From a structural-equivalence perspective, communication
between the two can be entirely cognitive and symbolic: structurally equiva-
lent actors are hypothesized to “put themselves in one another’s roles as they
form an opinion” (Burt, 1983, p. 272). To understand whether and how much
two actors are likely to exert influence on each other, therefore, the researcher
must understand the extent to which the pair shares the same ties with others
in the social network.
In contrast to structural equivalence, the
cohesion
perspective emphasizes
that individuals trying to decide among important and risky alternatives are
likely to consult with each other, relying on friends and colleagues for advice
(Coleman et al., 1966). Thus influence from the cohesion perspective flows
across direct ties among actors within a network of cooperation. Much like a
contagious virus, the diffusion of information or influence occurs through
direct contact. Structural equivalence, on the other hand, presents a diffusion
option that requires only a cognitive awareness of others.
The debate between the structural equivalence and cohesion views was
catapulted into prominence by the claim that cohesion as an explanation for
social influence was an “obvious failure” (Burt, 1987, p. 1328). The reanalysis
of an influential cohesion study (Coleman et al., 1966) showed “strong, sta-
ble predictions” from a structural equivalence perspective, whereas cohesion
yielded “predictions that are near random in the aggregate and systemati-
cally biased in certain social structural conditions” (Burt, 1987, p. 1328).
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Instead of a cohesion story of how physicians (in deciding whether to pre-
scribe a new antibiotic to patients) tended to be influenced by colleagues,
friends, and discussion partners, the structural equivalence model high-
lighted “competition between ego and alter” (Burt, 1987, p. 1291). If two
actors had “identical relations with all other individuals in the study popula-
tion,” they could be assumed to be “fighting one another for survival” or at
least competing with one another to “evaluate their relative adequacy” (Burt,
1987, p. 1291).
Three major reanalyses of Burt’s (1987) reanalysis of the original data fol-
lowed (see Kilduff & Oh, 2006, for a critical review). The reanalyses focused
on data and statistics (Marsden & Podolny, 1990; Strang & Tuma, 1993) and
pharmaceutical marketing (Van den Bulte & Lilien, 2001). More recently, a
fourth study (Van den Bulte & Joshi, 2007) has found support for the original
(Coleman et al., 1966). After 40 years of conflicting findings, the question
remains as to whether the physicians were experiencing a competitive or a
cooperative culture. Likewise, the benefits of both structural holes and closure
may depend on the degree of cultural cooperation versus competition.
We can perhaps conclude that data abstracted from context are variously
interpretable (Galaskiewicz, 2007). Thus social network analysis should be
rooted in the specifics of time and place (Kilduff & Oh, 2006) to avoid
abstracted empiricism in which methods determine problems (Mills, 1959,
p. 57). In terms of the debate between structural equivalence and cohesion, the
argument is no longer over which perspective is right or wrong, but which
measure
is most appropriate given the particular context being studied, partic-
ularly because other viewpoints have articulated distinctly different ideas con-
cerning social influence (e.g., Sparrowe & Liden, 2005, p. 518).
The controversy over a competition-based view of social interaction and a
cooperative-based view reoccurs throughout the social network literature on
organizations. As one commentator pointed out: “the language of structural
holes theory is often the language of competition, control, relative advantage,
and manipulation” (Obstfeld, 2005, p. 120). Similarly, social capital has been
understood, for individual actors, as the economic returns resulting from stra-
tegic exploitation of network positions (Burt, 2000). In contrast, the language
of closure has been one of trust, norms, and reciprocity, and the civic spirit
that promotes the economic well-being of the community (Coleman, 1990;
Portes, 2000; Putnam, 1995). One approach to the controversy brings together
both closure and structural holes in one analysis, and demonstrates that their
effects can be complementary (Oh, Chung, & Labianca, 2004; Reagans et al.,
2004). Similarly, a meta-analysis at the team level showed that density within
teams and team centrality in intergroup networks related to performance
(Balkundi & Harrison, 2006). Cooperation and competition are likely to con-
tinue as resilient themes in network research concerning individuals, teams,
and organizations. But explicit consideration of competitive and cooperative
Organizational Social Network Research •
341
culture may be necessary to understand fully the relative advantages of various
network structures.
Boundary Specification
Given the importance of embeddedness as a leading idea in network theory
and research, the question arises whether we are to take into account only
ego’s embeddedness within the network of those to whom ego is tied directly,
or whether we should also include the contacts of ego’s contacts—an issue that
was raised by Granovetter (1973, p. 1370) in his foundational article. Since
Granovetter drew attention to this issue, the emphasis has been on ways in
which social resources are affected by the number of direct and indirect ties
(Lin, 1999, p. 470). In terms of job search, for example, some evidence
suggests that “job seekers tend to find better jobs if they use an indirect tie [i.e.,
make use of a go-between] than if they use a direct tie” (Bian, 1997, p. 372).
Further, analyses show that, in the case of venture capitalists considering
investing in new ventures, it is indirect rather than direct ties that are signifi-
cant: referrals through indirect ties rather than information directly from
applicants influenced investment decisions (in cases where public information
was not freely available) (Shane & Cable, 2002). Other research has demon-
strated the effects of such two-step ties on managing resource dependence
(Gargiulo, 1993), perceiving conflict (Labianca et al., 1998), influence
(Sparrowe & Liden, 2005), and exhibiting organizational citizenship behavior
(Bowler & Brass, 2006).
In a very different set of contexts, longitudinal research demonstrated sig-
nificant effects of direct and indirect ties on obesity (Christakis & Fowler,
2007), smoking cessation (Christakis & Fowler, 2008), and happiness (Fowler
& Christakis, 2008). For example, the happiness study showed that a person’s
happiness was associated with the happiness of people (friends or family
members) up to three degrees removed from them in the network (Fowler &
Christakis, 2008). The effect of indirect ties showed up also in centrality anal-
yses that took into account the centrality of the actors to whom the focal actor
was connected. Controlling for age, education, and the total number of family
and non-family, the results showed that the better-connected ego’s friends
and family, the more likely ego was to attain happiness in the future. But hap-
piness itself did not increase ego’s future centrality (Fowler & Christakis,
2008).
The precise ways in which emotions traverse through indirect ties to affect
the emotional state of an individual far removed in a social network remain to
be discovered. Indeed, the debate over the relative importance of direct and
indirect channels of influence and support is just getting underway, as wit-
nessed by recent work compatible with the view that returns to brokerage
derive overwhelmingly not from indirect ties but from ego’s direct contacts
(Burt, 2007). This debate concerning direct and indirect ties is important
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• The Academy of Management Annals
because whereas individuals have some control over who to involve in their
circles of friendship and acquaintanceship, they have less control over the net-
work associations formed by these friends and acquaintances. And, even in
relatively small organizational contexts, there are difficulties in accurately per-
ceiving the pathways of ties that connect us to distant alters (Krackhardt &
Kilduff, 1999). If indirect ties have significant consequences for individuals,
this lends support to a deterministic view of how networks affect individuals’
outcomes.
The question is one of boundary specification—deciding on how many
links to include in extending the network beyond ego’s direct ties. Typically,
all actors in a particular formal group (such as a work group, department, or
industry) are included without thinking through the implications of this
default boundary. But research shows that ego’s centrality within a depart-
ment can be positively related to power and promotions, whereas ego’s cen-
trality within the entire organization can be negatively related to power and
promotions (Brass, 1984). In addition, experimental studies of exchange net-
works have shown that an actor’s structural-hole power to negotiate (play one
alter off against the other) is significantly weakened if the two alters each have
an additional link to an alternative negotiating partner (Cook, Emerson,
Gilmore, & Yamagishi, 1983). In sum, there is considerable evidence for both
the local and the more extended network approach. Including the appropriate
number of links is likely to be a function of the research question and the
mechanism involved in the flow. Yet, explicit consideration and justification
of the boundary specification is currently missing in most organizational net-
work research.
Equally debatable is the boundary specification problem of determining
the appropriate number of different types of networks (network content) to
include. From a purely structural perspective, a link is a link is a link. As we
mentioned in our discussion of the core idea of structural patterning, there
has been criticism of the structural approach for focusing on form over con-
tent (Stokman, 2004). On the one hand, interpersonal ties often tend to over-
lap, and it is difficult to separate ties on the basis of content. In addition, one
type of tie may be appropriated for a different type of use—a friendship tie
might be used to secure a financial loan, or sell Girl Scout cookies. The obvi-
ous exception to appropriability is negative ties—when one person dislikes
another (Labianca & Brass, 2006). Centrality in a conflict network will cer-
tainly have different antecedents and outcomes than centrality in a friendship
network (cf. Klein et al., 2004).
The emerging debate concerning the importance of indirect ties and differ-
ent kinds of ties offers the prospect of a significant extension of the network
research program. Does the importance of relations imply that different types
of relations are of differential importance, or do they need to be aggregated to
provide a complete picture of the appropriability of relations? Does
Organizational Social Network Research •
343
embeddedness extend beyond the immediate local contacts in the network? If
indirect ties are important, does this importance provide a structural justifica-
tion for ignoring agency and actor characteristics? Is the utility of social con-
nections dependent on indirect ties and the content of ties? Research
addressing these questions is likely to drive the program forward.
Discussion
A progressive research program draws new theory and innovative hypotheses
from its core ideas, alerting researchers to new types of phenomena, and push-
ing the boundary of exploration and discovery (Lakatos, 1970). However, the
progress to a fully fledged independent research program is a long one.
Within the field of organizational social networks, theory has long been
borrowed and adapted from other disciplines including mathematics (e.g.,
graph theory) and social psychology (e.g., balance theory, social comparison
theory). Homegrown theories, developed within the social network research
tradition, have included the strength of weak ties (Granovetter, 1973) and
structural holes (Burt, 1992). There have also been innovative syntheses
between the organizational social network research program and organization
theories including contingency theory (e.g., Barley, 1990; Hansen, 1999),
resource-dependence ideas concerning organizational reliance on a pattern of
interconnectedness among organizations (e.g., Powell et al., 1996), and popu-
lation ecology ideas concerning interactions within and among organizational
populations (e.g., Baum & Singh, 1994). At the micro level, we have seen the
social network approach combined with social information processing (Rice
& Aydin, 1991), social exchange (Cook, 1982), and cognitive dissonance
(Krackhardt & Porter, 1986). More recently, we have seen a revival of innova-
tive social network theory concerning small worlds applied to systems of orga-
nizations (e.g., Kogut & Walker, 2001) and systems of organizational
cognition (Kilduff et al., 2008).
This wealth of theoretical activity shows the social network research pro-
gram continuing to draw inspiration from the core ideas of social relations,
embeddedness, structural patterning, and social utility. However, there is also
evidence of a renewed emphasis on description and analysis of social networks
in the absence of theory. In part, this is fueled by interest in huge network data
sets concerning, for example, mobile-phone traffic (Eagle & Pentland, 2006)
and electronic commerce (e.g., Wasko, Teigland, & Faraj, 2009). And in part,
it is fueled by a more general impatience with the ever-increasing demand for
new theory characteristic of our top journals (see, in particular, the polemic by
Hambrick, 2007, against theory).
A retreat into description and analysis in the absence of new theory
would signal a setback for the organizational social network research pro-
gram, a setback that this article has striven to prevent. (See the critique of
atheoretical social network research by Galaskiewicz, 2007 and Granovetter,
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• The Academy of Management Annals
1979.) Certainly, in looking at the current state of the research program, we
recognize that it encompasses a great number of topics at different levels of
analysis, making it difficult to see the coherence within the diversity. One of
the aims of this article has been to identify core ideas that represent the
basis from which such diverse research proceeds, and to review currently
lively controversies with respect to actor characteristics, human agency, cog-
nition, cooperation versus competition, and boundary specification. Such
debates will contribute to the further articulation of social network leading
ideas.
We have said little about some of the critiques that have afflicted social
network research in the past. For example, one of the previous standard
criticisms of the social network research program was its neglect of network
change (e.g., Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994, p. 1413). One of the signs that
the social network research program is in a progressive phase in which it
tackles new phenomena using new tools is the burgeoning of work concern-
ing network change, particularly at the interorganizational level using archi-
val alliance network data (e.g., Gulati, 2007; Gulati & Garguilo, 1999; Soda,
Usai, & Zaheer, 2004; Zaheer & Soda, 2009). At the micro level, there has
always been an interest in network change (e.g., Burt, 2002; Newcomb,
1961), and new analytical developments (Snijders, van de Bunt, & Steglich,
2010) that deal with some of the tricky issues concerning statistical depen-
dence promise to usher in a golden age of research on interpersonal network
change. Some of the antecedents of change that might be relevant at the
micro level include (as discussed in Brass, forthcoming): spatial, temporal,
and social proximity (Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950); homophily (e.g.,
McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001); balance (e.g., Heider, 1958);
human and social capital (e.g., Lin, 1999); personality (e.g., Mehra et al.,
2001); social foci (e.g., Feld, 1981); and culture (e.g., Lincoln, Hanada, &
Olson, 1981).
In terms of generating new theory over its relatively short history and
alerting researchers to structural holes, Simmelian ties, ripple effects of per-
sonality on structure, and many other otherwise neglected or unseen phe-
nomena, the organizational social network research program is certainly in
a progressive phase (Galaskiewicz, 2007). As our focus on current debates
illustrates, however, we want to dispel any sense of complacency. The social
network research program as we have described it in this article has become
so attractive that it has pulled in researchers from around the social sci-
ences including, most recently, economics. Specifically, the discipline of
economics has noticed the emerging focus within organizational social net-
work research on the attainment of economic outcomes, with a recent
influential volume (Jackson, 2008) promising to provide an overarching
“framework for an analysis of social networks” (p. 3) that synthesizes
research across the areas of “sociology, economics, physics, mathematics,
Organizational Social Network Research •
345
and computer science” (p. xii). (See also the economic approach to social
networks in Goyal, 2007.) To the extent that the social network research
program continues to emphasize “competition between ego and alter”
(Burt, 1987) and focuses on the ways in which “investment in social rela-
tions” leads to “expected returns in the marketplace” (Lin, 1999), then net-
work research would appear to be attractive to those trained in economics.
The future development of organizational social network research is likely
to benefit from continuing debate between approaches rooted in disciplines
such as economics and psychology. Such debates serve to articulate the core
ideas that direct research.
Acknowledgments
We thank the following for helpful reviews of prior drafts: Steve Borgatti,
Giuseppe Labianca, Ajay Mehra, Zuzana Sasovova, Andrew Shipilov,
Giuseppe Soda, and Wenpin Tsai.
Endnotes
1. Social utility has been understood, for individual actors, as the economic returns
resulting from strategic exploitation of network positions. In this sense, the social
utility idea is often referred to as social capital. However, social capital has become
an umbrella term that can refer to such disparate ideas as “civic spirit grounded
on impartial application of the laws” (Portes, 2000, p. 4) and “investment in social
relations with the expected returns in the marketplace” (Lin, 2001, p. 19). Thus,
we avoid use of the term social capital here to avoid the confusion the term has
generated and to focus on social network theory and research. (See Adler &
Kwon, 2002, for a cogent discussion of the history and usage of the term social
capital).
2. We are indebted to Andrew Shipilov for this section on node characteristics at the
firm level.
3. These definitions derive in part from Brass (forthcoming) and Kilduff and Tsai
(2003).
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Appendix: Glossary of Social Network Technical Terms3
Actors—individuals or organizational units between which social relations
form.
Alter—an actor in a network to whom the focal actor (designated as ego) is
connected.
Appropriability—one type of tie (e.g., friendship) is appropriated for a differ-
ent purpose (e.g., economic transaction).
Centrality—the extent to which an actor occupies a central position in a
network by having many ties to other actors (i.e., degree centrality), by being
able to reach many other actors (i.e., closeness centrality), by connecting other
356 • The Academy of Management Annals
actors who have no direct connections (i.e., betweenness centrality), or having
connections to centrally located actors (i.e., eigenvector centrality).
Blockmodeling—a technique for partitioning actors into subsets and identi-
fying relationships or a lack of relationships among the subsets.
Centralization—the extent to which a network is centralized around one or a
few actors.
Clique—a group of actors in which everyone has a direct tie to everyone else,
and there is no external actor to whom all group members have a tie.
Closure—when all members of the network have easy access to monitoring
and information leading to norms of reciprocity and trust. Often measured by
density.
Connectivity—minimum number of actors or ties that must be removed to
disconnect the network.
Core-periphery—extent to which the network is structured such that core
members connect to everyone and periphery members connect only to core
members and not to other members of the periphery.
Correspondence analysis—an analytical procedure available in social
network software packages such as Ucinet that provides a visual depiction of
how two types of entities are similar. Thus, in the example given in this paper
(Figure 2), we show for each Minneapolis-area CEO the relative closeness of
the CEO to other CEOs with respect to membership of clubs and corporate
boards.
Cutpoint—an actor whose removal from the network results in subsets of
actors between whom there is no connection.
Density—the number of ties in a network divided by the maximum number
of ties that are possible. The more actors there are in a network, the greater the
likelihood that density will be low.
Dyad—two actors connected by a tie.
Ego—the focal actor in a social network as distinct from alters to whom ego is
connected.
Egocentric network—the social network surrounding ego, including the ties
among ego’s direct ties. Thus Alan’s egocentric friendship network includes
information concerning whether Alan’s friends are friends with each other
or not.
Homophily—the tendency for actors to form connections with and share the
opinions and behaviors of others who are similar in terms of demography
(e.g., gender, ethnicity, educational attainment) or any other attribute (e.g.,
personality, values).
Multiplexity—the extent to which two actors are connected by more than one
type of relationship (such as being friends, as well as being workmates).
Reciprocity—a friendship relationship is said to be reciprocated if actor A is
friends with actor B and actor B is friends with actor A; otherwise, the rela-
tionship is considered unreciprocated or asymmetric.
Organizational Social Network Research • 357
Small-worldedness—extent to which network is structured such that actors
are clustered into small clumps with a few connections among clumps that
result in a short average distance among actors.
Social capital—at the individual level, social capital consists of benefits or
potential benefits that accrue to an actor as a result of social network connec-
tions. At the communal level, social capital consists of civic spirit, community
trust, and adherence to beneficial norms.
Social structure—the configuration of interactions among actors in a social
network.
Sociogram—a diagram in which actors are depicted as points, and ties among
actors are represented as lines.
Strength of tie—a “combination of the amount of time, the emotional
intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which
characterize the tie” (Granovetter, 1973, p. 1361). Strong ties are frequent,
long-lasting, and affect-laden (Krackhardt, 1992, pp. 218–219), whereas weak
ties are “infrequent and distant” (Hansen, 1999, p. 84).
Structural hole—a gap in the social network between two actors that can be
spanned or is spanned by another actor (Burt, 1992).
Transitivity—if an actor has two friends, then the triad consisting of the actor
and the two friends is transitive if the friends are friends with each other.
Similarly, in considering influence relationships, a social network consisting
of four actors is transitive if the following is true: actor A influences only B, C,
and D; actor B influences only C and D; actor C influences only actor D; and
actor D influences no other actor.
Whole network—a network that incorporates a complete set of actors and all
the ties among the actors (as distinct from an egocentric network).
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