This is a project to study how emergent combinations of social networks, knowledge, and resources lead to innovation within and across organizations, with special attention to brokerage activities that facilitate these combinations. Recent work on global competition suggests that successful organizations foster collaboration across departmental, firm, and national boundaries. Research in organization theory, strategy, and sociology recognizes the importance of social combinations to innovation, entrepreneurship, and firm competitiveness, but we know little about the social processes and interpersonal skills underlying the creation of such combinations and how they are fostered on the ground.
Three key questions will be explored: 1) How do social networks, individual knowledge, and resources combine and lead to organizational innovation? 2) To what extent does participation in innovation also lead to promotion within a firm? 3) How do these relations vary within and across different firms? Ethnography, comparative case studies, and a two-stage social network study will be used in multiple organizations differing in size and product/service offering to answer these questions. Research findings will advance organization theory. They will also practices which managers can use to foster innovation and that professionals and scientists can apply to enhance their own performance.
