The Social Capital Imperative: Revealing, Developing, and Leveraging Organizational Networks

Abstract

It is imperative that organizations understand, develop, and leverage networks within their organizations. As noted by the authors, this imperative is not new. In their introductory and concluding chapters to the book, the authors quote organizational network pioneer Dan Brass, who wrote that ignoring the social landscapes within organizations can create incomplete pictures and misdirected effort (Brass 2012). The swell of voices stating that social capital is a necessary part of the workplace equation has been amplified by special issues and reviews in recent years but reaches a crescendo in this book. Cullen-Lester and Pryor bring together a stellar collection of researchers and practitioners befitting the Professional Practice Series of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. The book is very well structured, coupling an academic review of a given area of organizational life, such as the review chapter on organizational change (James Vardaman and Feigu Zhou), followed by one (or two) case study chapters of how networks have been applied in the area (e.g., Hemerson Paes; Theresa Floyd, Guiseppe (Joe) Labianca, and Brad Patrick). The case study chapter by Floyd and colleagues, for example, reveals varying levels of success leveraging networks in two organizational changes: a revision to the new product development process and the need for collaboration and cultural integration following a merger. This case includes several features common in cases throughout the book, including multiple nuanced scenarios to explore, actual visualizations provided to stakeholders, and key decision points made by the researchers at various stages of a given case. The academic reviews tend to be accessible enough that I would be comfortable giving them as assigned readings to master's students and/or suggesting them to a practitioner looking for a deep dive into a given area. The case studies help bring networks to life and provide many examples of successes and failures in implementation. Having worked in this academic space for nearly 20 years as a (sometimes lonely) network scholar in human resource management, I am thrilled that this book exists. Having devoted a large portion of the last decade trying to help make networks mainstream through engagement with HR professionals and executives, I feel like this book will make the next decade much easier. That said, my experience as a networks author, reviewer, editor, teacher, and ambassador leads me to believe that this book will be more useful to some audiences than others. If you self-identify as a network scholar, you will likely find this book generative of many new ideas. In reading this book, I color-coded sticky tabs for insights I wanted to return to for my research in red. When the red tabs ran out, I switched to pink. When the pink tabs ran out, I switched to purple. Every review chapter yielded different angles on familiar topics to me, papers I missed that I ran to download, or statements that I was looking forward to citing as further evidence of the social capital imperative in organizations. As scholars (network or not), we risk becoming somewhat detached from practical relevance given the pedestal upon which prestigious journals place theoretical advancement. The case studies included in each area offer a refreshing and energizing reminder of why many of us entered this field and should not be skipped. In fact, many of my aforementioned research idea tabs came from case studies. If you are a network novice (scholar or practitioner) with an eye toward the future, this book will help you build upon your knowledge base and extend your thinking to new areas. The structure of the book and the purposeful inclusion of opportunities (review chapters) or lessons learned (case study chapters) within each area helps yield a more holistic view of a topic than a reader would typically get in an empirical research paper or a case study. If you are the kind of academic journal reader who enjoys ‘future directions’ or ‘practical implications’ sections but often feels they are far too short, this book will leave you much more fulfilled. Finally, if you are ‘network curious’, I would recommend this book as a ‘choose your own adventure’ style of read. At 120 pages, Chapters 1-4 are a small book unto itself, but provide an excellent primer for those wanting to know more about networks in organizations. After this, I would recommend jumping to whatever topic (or topics) stands out to you based on your interests. Be sure to sprinkle in some case studies, but do not necessarily feel constrained to the case study assigned to your area of interest. While all of the case studies fit within the assigned topic area, most (if not all) have spillover into other topics. If there is a setting that you find interesting, do not feel constrained or intimidated by the fact that it is or is not in the same area as a review that you just read. As much as I enjoyed this book, it is not designed to serve as a ‘networks for dummies’ foundational primer for academics or practitioners trying to become self-taught in organizational network analysis (ONA). While the first four chapters provide a nice overview of network analysis, and there are helpful design and analysis tips throughout the book, readers will need to look elsewhere for step-by-step guides on data collection (e.g., Agneessens and Labianca 2022) or analysis in the reader's preferred software (e.g., Borgatti et al. 2022; 2024). The inclusion of the former would have likely proven redundant with the aforementioned piece (and made an already weighty book even longer). The inclusion of any attempt at a walkthrough of a given network software would have had to be incredibly truncated, given there are entire books, week-long (or semester)-long courses, and YouTube playlists devoted to helping those who wish to learn a particular ONA tool. The book also takes an almost exclusive view of networks as the means for the exploration of social capital. Networks constitute the predominant view of social capital in the field (and are explicitly mentioned in the subtitle), but a reader looking for other ways of exploring social capital will need to look elsewhere. As I have previously advocated, there is much to be gained by moving outside of one's relational lens of choice (such as ONA) and integrating multiple relational lenses (Soltis et al. 2023). While the focus on networks in the book was understandable, to do so at the exclusion of other prominent perspectives such as relational coordination (four references, all in one chapter), LMX (two references, one chapter), job embeddedness (one reference), positive organizational scholarship (one reference), relational climates (zero references), and others felt like a missed opportunity to help make the entire relational picture come more clearly into focus. It is indeed imperative that scholars and practitioners take a joint human and social capital approach to increase understanding of organizational behavior and human resource management. The Social Capital Imperative thrives in its balance of timely and thorough literature reviews with case studies featuring a refreshing mixture of scholars and practitioners (in some cases, working together in a single chapter). The book will undoubtedly serve as a great resource and source of inspiration for those who consider themselves ONA experts, enthusiasts, or curious, but readers should not expect to find a step-by-step guide on how to conduct ONA, nor a broad-based discussion of the many alternative (or complementary) paths of exploring social capital. In short, this book accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do by helping the reader to better appreciate the need to reveal, develop, and leverage networks within organizations.