Seminar by Prof. Anne Ter Wal, Imperial College London
Event details
| Date | 28.02.2017 |
| Hour | 12:00 › 13:30 |
| Speaker | Prof. Anne Ter Wal, Imperial College London |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
"The division of networks and innovation"
Résumé: Developing innovations often requires close collaboration between technologists and managers, who each in addition may call on their network connections to access information or influence decision-making. Exploiting a unique setting of R&D technologists and managers in a large multinational who are “partnered-up” in their pursuit of innovation, this study assesses under what circumstances technologists (managers) benefit from duplicating ties to the same groups in the organization as their manager partner (technologist partner), or rather from dividing the network with their partner by each addressing different groups. Introducing the concept of network role equivalence – the extent to which two individuals are tied to the same role sets inside the organization – this paper aims to build and test a theory of the division versus duplication of networks that advances our understanding of second-order social capital and its role in the information and influencing aspects of the innovation process. Through a mixed-method study we test how network role equivalence affects technologists’ (managers’) innovation performance and how the merits of a division or duplication-of-networks approach are contingent on characteristics of the partnership and the nature of their work.
Résumé: Developing innovations often requires close collaboration between technologists and managers, who each in addition may call on their network connections to access information or influence decision-making. Exploiting a unique setting of R&D technologists and managers in a large multinational who are “partnered-up” in their pursuit of innovation, this study assesses under what circumstances technologists (managers) benefit from duplicating ties to the same groups in the organization as their manager partner (technologist partner), or rather from dividing the network with their partner by each addressing different groups. Introducing the concept of network role equivalence – the extent to which two individuals are tied to the same role sets inside the organization – this paper aims to build and test a theory of the division versus duplication of networks that advances our understanding of second-order social capital and its role in the information and influencing aspects of the innovation process. Through a mixed-method study we test how network role equivalence affects technologists’ (managers’) innovation performance and how the merits of a division or duplication-of-networks approach are contingent on characteristics of the partnership and the nature of their work.
Practical information
- General public
- Free