This book brings a social networks perspective to bear on topics of leadership, decision-making, turnover, organizational crises, organizational culture, and other major organizational behavior topics. It offers a new direction for organizational behavior theory and research by drawing from social network ideas. Across diverse research topics, the authors pursue an integrated focus on social ties both as they are represented in the cognitions of individuals and as they operate as constraints and opportunities in organizational settings. The authors bring their 20 years worth of research experience together to provide a programmatic social network approach to understanding the internal functioning of organizations. By focusing a distinctive research lens on interpersonal networks, they attempt to discover the keys to the whole realm of organizational behavior through the social network approach.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; Part I. Perceiving Networks: 2. A network approach to leadership; 3. An analysis of the internal market for reputation; 4. Systematic biases in network perception; 5. Effects of network accuracy on individuals' perceived power; Part II. The Psychology of Network Differences: 6. Social structure and decision-making in an MBA cohort; 7. The social networks of low and high self-monitors; 8. Centrality in the emotion helping network: an interactionist approach; Part III. Network Dynamics and Organizational Culture: 9. Network perceptions and turnover in three organizations; 10. Organizational crises; 11. The control of organizational diversity; 12. Future directions.

Author Biography

Martin Kilduff is the Diageo Professor of Management at the University of Cambridge. He is also editor of Academy of Management Review and co-author of Social Networks and Organizations (with Wenpin Tsai; 2003). He has served on the faculties of the University of Texas, Penn State, and INSEAD, and has been a visiting professor at London Business School, Keele University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. David Krackhardt is Professor of Organizations at the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management and at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior appointments include faculty positions at Cornell's Graduate School of Management, the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, INSEAD (France) and the Harvard Business School (Marvin Bower Fellow).