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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

The Network Paradigm in Organizational Research: A Review and Typology

Stephen P. Borgatti, +1 more
- 01 Dec 2003 - 
- Vol. 29, Iss: 6, pp 991-1013
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TLDR
This paper reviewed and analyzed the emerging network paradigm in organizational research and developed a set of dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, levels of analysis, explanatory goals, and explanatory mechanisms.
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This article is published in Journal of Management.The article was published on 2003-12-01 and is currently open access. It has received 2845 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Organizational network analysis.

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Citations
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On Parachutes and Lion-Taming

Ann Mische
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Online communities: challenges and opportunities for social network research

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Revisiting the cooperation–competition paradox: A configurational approach to short- and long-term coopetition performance in business networks

TL;DR: In this paper, a three-dimensional model of relational space (fairness,opportunism, sharing, control, and engagement-rivalry) is developed to investigate the paradoxical interplay between cooperation and competition through eight operationalizable configurations.
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Entrepreneurial social capital and cognitive model of innovation

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the social origin of an entrepreneurial cognitive model of the innovation process and found that social capital diversity at the startup stage increases the complexity and centrality of an entrepreneur's cognitive model.
References
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Book

Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation

TL;DR: This work has shown that legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is not confined to midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, non-drinking alcoholics and the like.
Book

Diffusion of Innovations

TL;DR: A history of diffusion research can be found in this paper, where the authors present a glossary of developments in the field of Diffusion research and discuss the consequences of these developments.
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The Strength of Weak Ties

TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another, and the impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored.
Book ChapterDOI

The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Book

Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity

TL;DR: Identity in practice, modes of belonging, participation and non-participation, and learning communities: a guide to understanding identity in practice.
Frequently Asked Questions (8)
Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "The network paradigm in organizational research: a review and typology" ?

In this paper, the authors review and analyze the emerging network paradigm in organizational research. The authors begin with a conventional review of recent research organized around recognized research streams. Next, the authors 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. The authors 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. 

In addition, the authors have proposed a typology of network research, which cross-classifies network studies according to the classic dimensions of explanatory mechanisms and explanatory goals or styles. What is new here is that this seemingly arcane distinction may be traceable to different underlying conceptions of how ties work ( girders vs. flows ), and applies to all kinds of network research, including distinguishing between the two major variants of social capital theory. 

The dimension of explanatory goals/styles distinguishes between an orientation toward modeling variation in performance and other value-laden outcomes, and an orientation toward modeling homogeneity in actor attributes, such as attitudes or practices. 

Recent organizational research on homophily has focused on its effects on group and individual performance outcomes (e.g., Ibarra, 1992; Krackhardt & Stern, 1988; Reagans & Zuckerman, 2001). 

Since sociologists began to dominate network research in the 1970s, the proposition that an actor’s position in a network has consequences for the actor has occupied a central place in network thinking. 

Until networks had legitimacy, there was little point in trying to publish papers on how networks come to be or change over time. 

Social capital studies seek to explain variation in success (i.e., performance or reward) as a function of social ties, whereas diffusion and social influence studies seek to explain homogeneity in actor attitudes, beliefs and practices, also as a function of social ties. 

The authors also note that while the objective is to review current research (primarily the last five years), the authors include older references in order to anchor a stream of work in a research tradition.