Events

Speaker:

Dr. Ning Li
Associate Professor
Department of Management and Organizations
The University of Iowa

Abstract:

Over the past decade, social network research has been a powerful tool to understand important organizational phenomena spanning different research areas, such as leadership (Carter, DeChurch, Braun, & Contractor, 2015), teamwork (Li, Zhao, Walter, Zhang, & Yu, 2015), creativity and innovation (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003), career (Seibert, Kraimer, & Liden, 2001), power and influence (Ibarra & Andrews, 1993). A social network approach allows organizational scholars to capture the complex and dynamic interactions among individuals in the workplace and gain a finer grained understanding of the phenomenon of interest. Moving forward, with the fast development of information technology, modern technologies have transformed the way employees work in contemporary organizations. As a result, organizations are increasingly using digital collaboration platforms to encourage more efficient collaborations among employees. Therefore, social network analysis is also a powerful tool in understanding employee behaviors in the digital era. In this presentation, we will synthesize various applications of social network analysis in organizational research in the past and discuss promising future directions of social network research such as digital collaboration, network change, and big data.