Elsevier

Journal of Management

Volume 29, Issue 6, December 2003, Pages 991-1013
Journal of Management

The Network Paradigm in Organizational Research: A Review and Typology

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0149-2063(03)00087-4Get rights and content

Abstract

In this paper, we review and analyze the emerging network paradigm in organizational research. We begin with a conventional review of recent research organized around recognized research streams. Next, we analyze this research, developing a set of dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, levels of analysis, explanatory goals, and explanatory mechanisms. We use the latter two dimensions to construct a 2-by-2 table cross-classifying studies of network consequences into four canonical types: structural social capital, social access to resources, contagion, and environmental shaping. We note the rise in popularity of studies with a greater sense of agency than was traditional in network research.

Section snippets

Review of Current Research

In this section, we provide a brief review of some of the major research streams in organizational network scholarship. The review is organized by the following emic categories: social capital, embeddedness, network organizations, board interlocks, joint ventures and inter-firm alliances, knowledge management, social cognition, and a catch-all category we have labeled “group processes.” Embeddedness, network organization, board interlocks and joint ventures/alliances are becoming so closely

Dimensions of Network Research

In this section, we examine the dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, level of analysis, explanatory mechanisms, and explanatory goals. The first two dimensions, while important, are more methodological than the last two, and we do not use them to actually classify work. Rather, they are included here in order to point out some peculiarities of network research, such as the relative dearth of work on network antecedents. The last two dimensions are more

Conclusion

Salancik (1995, p. 348) argued that network research was not theoretical. If this was valid in 1995, it certainly is not today, as this review might indicate. The 1990s saw network theories emerge in virtually every traditional area of organizational scholarship, including leadership, power, turnover, job satisfaction, job performance, entrepreneurship, stakeholder relations, knowledge utilization, innovation, profit maximization, vertical integration, and so on. In this paper, we have reviewed

Acknowledgements

We thank Jean Bartunek, Dan Brass, Kathleen Carley, Tiziana Casciaro, Ron Dufresne, Fabio Fonti, David Krackhardt, Joe LaBianca, Marta Geletkanycz, Ron Rice, and Peter Rivard for critical comments, as well as Arar Han for her research assistance.

Stephen P. Borgatti is an Associate Professor of Organization Studies at Boston College. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Social Science from the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include social networks, shared cognition, and computational models.

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  • Cited by (0)

    Stephen P. Borgatti is an Associate Professor of Organization Studies at Boston College. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Social Science from the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include social networks, shared cognition, and computational models.

    Pacey C. Foster is currently a doctoral candidate in Organization Studies at Boston College. His doctoral research, supported by a Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowship, explores the impact of social networks on negotiations in cultural industries. His other research interests include the development of action learning theories that facilitate positive individual, group, and organizational change.

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