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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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Continuous improvement and dynamic actor associations: A study of lean thinking implementation in the UK National Health Service

TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the link between continuous improvement and dynamic actor associations through a case of lean thinking implementation in healthcare, and suggest that the implementation of CI depends on the emergence of a "favouring" network from the dynamic associations between heterogeneous entities.
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Mixed Method Social Network Analysis: Combining Inductive Concept Development, Content Analysis, and Secondary Data for Quantitative Analysis

TL;DR: This approach provides researchers with a number of benefits over traditional sociometric or other interpersonal methodologies including the ability to investigate networks of greater scope, broader access to diverse social actors, reduced informant bias, and increased capability for longitudinal designs.
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Multiple networks of public school administrators: An analysis of network content and structure

TL;DR: The authors examined a public school administrator network from a qualitative paradigm using network theory and methods and identified four distinct networks emerging from administrators' relationships: the innovation network, the resource network, social/emotional support network, and the university-school partnership network.
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Managing inter-firm projects: A systematic review and directions for future research

TL;DR: In this article, a systematic literature review of 219 contributions from 26 years of academic research on managing inter-firm projects identifies 22 key management issues underlying its contributions, and a structured and integrative synthesis of relevant studies is outlined.
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Absorptive capacity and knowledge management in small and medium enterprises

TL;DR: In this article, a theoretical and empirical research effort to analyse the role of relationships in an SME's knowledge management processes is presented, focusing on the concept of absorptive capacity with a view to filling the theoretical gap.
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.