Organizational Social Network Research: Core Ideas and Key Debates

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 connectivity and cleavage beyond the dyad; and the belief that social network connections 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 competition, and boundary specification. To complement the review, we provide a glossary of social network terms.

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.

Notes

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).