This article is about the network theory of advantage applied to entrepreneurship and an area-probability sample of 700 Chinese entrepreneurs, using 2,193 American and European managers as a baseline ...comparison group. The article deals with how certain entrepreneurs are disadvantaged by their networks, the contrasting forms that disadvantage takes in China and the West, the role of family in the Chinese networks, and ultimately the robustness of network theory to the cultural, structural, and content variations discussed.
We provide an overview of social network analysis focusing on network advantage as a lens that touches on much of the area. For reasons of good data and abundant research, we draw heavily on studies ...of people in organizations. Advantage is traced to network structure as a proxy for the distribution of variably sticky information in a population. The network around a person indicates the person's access and control in the distribution. Advantage is a function of information breadth, timing, and arbitrage. Advantage is manifest in higher odds of proposing good ideas, more positive evaluations and recognition, higher compensation, and faster promotions. We discuss frontiers of advantage contingent on personality, cognition, embeddedness, and dynamics.
In this paper, we adopt a dynamic perspective on networks and creativity to propose that the oft-theorized creative benefits of open networks and heterogeneous content are less likely to be accrued ...over time if the network is stable. Specifically, we hypothesize that open networks and content heterogeneity will have a more positive effect on creativity when network stability is low. We base our prediction on the fact that, over time, network stability begets cognitive rigidity and social rigidity, thus limiting individuals' ability to make use of the creative advantages provided by open networks and heterogeneous content. On the contrary, new ties bring a positive "shock" that pushes individuals in the network to change the way they organize and process knowledge, as well as the way they interact and collaborate-a shock that enables creators to accrue the creative advantages provided by open network structures and heterogeneous content. We test and find support for our theory in a study on the core artists who worked on the TV series Doctor Who between 1963 and 2014.
We accomplish three tasks here: (a) We highlight the lack of cross-fertilization between research on network theory and the resource-based view of the firm (RBV). (b) We sketch by analogy what we ...believe should be a productive bridge between network brokerage as a core concept in network theory and integrating resources as a core concept in RBV. (c) Network brokerage quickly introduced, we distinguish and illustrate three levels to the proposed network-RBV analogy: tight integration of resources (closed networks for learning-curve efficiency), loose integration of resources (brokered clusters for resilience to market vicissitudes), and recombinatory integration of resources (broker leadership for innovation and robust response to market shock).
The more consistent a person's network across roles and the more relevant that consistency is for achievement, the more important agency is for understanding network effects on achievement. With ...network, experience, and achievement data on persons playing multiple characters in a virtual world, evidence is presented to support two conclusions: (1) About a third of network structure is consistent within persons across roles: that is, those who in one role build networks rich in access to structural holes will build similar networks in other roles; builders of closed networks also tend to build that network across roles. (2) Network consistency across roles contributes almost nothing to predicting achievement, which is instead determined by experience and the network specific to the role. The two conclusions are robust across substantively significant differences in the mix of roles combined in a multirole network (too many roles, difficult combination of roles, or roles played to overlapping audiences). Adapted from the source document.
Analyzing network associations with performance in three study populations, I find that secondhand brokerage--moving information between people to whom one is only connected indirectly--often has ...little or no value. Brokerage benefits are dramatically concentrated in the immediate network around a person. Why that is so, and conditions under which it is more or less so, are examined. The research implication is that brokerage can be measured with designs in which data are limited to an immediate network. The theory implication is that the social capital of brokerage is a local phenomenon mirrored in the Austrian market metaphor's emphasis on tacit, local knowledge.
Social Network and Temporal Myopia Opper, Sonja; Burt, Ronald S.
Academy of Management journal,
06/2021, Letnik:
64, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper examines the link between the social networks surrounding business leaders and temporal myopia in strategic planning. Specifically, we hypothesize that processes characteristic of being ...embedded in a closed network are associated with a lack of foresight and a tendency to neglect long-run strategic planning. Using a probability sample of 700 CEOs in China, we show that network closure is associated with temporal myopia, which is evidenced in various measures of business planning. We show that managers embedded in closed networks are less experienced in long-run planning and are also less successful in implementing long-run business plans. Our contribution to the literature is twofold: we add a network perspective to the literature on temporal myopia in strategic management and, more significantly, by grounding temporal myopia in the network surrounding a person, we separate temporal myopia from the person. Myopia emerges from the social situations we create or in which we find ourselves.
The strong ties known in China as guanxi can be distinguished by a high level of trust relatively independent of the surrounding social structure. Using network data from a stratified probability ...sample of 700 entrepreneurs citing 4664 contacts, we study guanxi relative to other relations to learn how much individual differences such as well-being, business differences, political participation and demographic factors matter for the guanxi distinction. Two findings stand out: First, the connection between trust and social network is robust to most differences between individuals, especially business and political differences. Trust variance is 60% network context, and 10% individual differences. Trust increases within a relationship as network closure increases around the relationship, but some relationships mature into guanxi ties within which trust is high and relatively independent of the surrounding social structure. Second, when individual differences matter, they concern social isolation. Guanxi ties are more distinct in the networks around entrepreneurs with small, marginal families, and around those with small, closed networks. Both categories of entrepreneurs are likely to experience difficulties with respect to resource access and doing business with people beyond their network, which may explain why longstanding guanxi ties linked to important events are particularly distinct for these entrepreneurs.
•Gender homophily - Women are more likely than men in a network containing multiple female contacts.•Otherwise - Male and female entrepreneurs in China enjoy similar levels of success and build ...networks similar in form and content.•Gender pattern in contacts - Women are cited for technical matters out of the public eye, and men are the preferred contact for representation.•Primary conclusion – Network theory predicts business success of the Chinese entrepreneurs despite controls for all gender pattern.
Despite population opinion in China favoring men over women, data on a large probability sample of Chinese entrepreneurs show that men and women — on average — build similar network structures, experience similar distributions of network advantage, achieve similar levels of business success, and experience similar performance returns to their network advantage. Digging into network content, male and female entrepreneurs have similarly close and trusting relations with similar kinds of contacts, with one exception, gender homophily: men are more likely than women to operate in a network composed entirely of men, while women operate more often than men in a network containing multiple female contacts. There is also gender pattern in the use of contacts, reflecting conservative attitudes in the broader society: Women are the object of more interaction on technical matters out of the public eye, while men are the preferred contact for representation (men and women more often cite male contacts for help in founding the business, dealing with suppliers, and dealing with customers). The gender pattern is more obvious in the business contacts of men than in the business contacts of women, and more linked with business success for men. In sum, there is gender pattern to the networks around male and female entrepreneurs, but the network theory of advantage from access to structural holes similarly predicts the success of male and female entrepreneurs regardless of gender.
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