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

Social capital--the resources and goodwill of network contacts--can be activated to enhance employees' performance, leadership effectiveness, careers, and overall organizational functioning. Despite years of research highlighting networks' role in addressing business challenges, organizational solutions still overwhelmingly focus on enhancing individual knowledge and skills or changing formal organizational structures and processes. Shifts in the business environment make adding a social capital lens to the historical human capital lens no longer just 'nice to do' but an imperative. Employees and organizations will benefit from carefully considering network connections and intentional efforts to foster their development and use. By prioritizing intentional connections, organizations can create a virtuous cycle of opportunities and prevent a vicious cycle of overwhelm. This book guides practitioners in revealing novel insights using network analysis and creating impact by developing and leveraging organizational networks. The opening section provides readers with a strong foundation in network science. The remainder of the book includes review chapters and case studies in strategic application areas. Review chapter authors provide readers with a strong scientific grounding explaining why networks are important for each application area and the likely implications of revealing, developing, and leveraging networks. Case authors provide inspiration and opportunities to learn from their real-life experiences, sharing challenges faced, actions taken, and lessons learned from applying network science within organizations. This book aims to provide clearer links between insights, actions, and outcomes practitioners can expect when revealing, developing, and leveraging organizational networks, demonstrating the powerful perspective that a social capital lens adds.

About the Author

Kristin Cullen-Lester is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Mississippi and co-founder of Network Leader. She earned her Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from Auburn University and previously worked as a senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership. Kristin's research examines the impact of professional networks on workplace effectiveness, career success, well-being, and large-scale strategic change. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in top academic journals. Kristin has won numerous awards, including the 2021 Award for Distinguished Early Career Contributions to Practice from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Greg Pryor is a talent management leader and co-founder of the Connected Commons, a social network science research community. Greg's HBR article, How to Succeed in a New Role, was selected as one of 2023 ten definitive management ideas. Greg served as Senior Vice President and People & Performance Evangelist at Workday, where the Great Place to Work Institute recognized him as Innovator of the Year. Greg served as Juniper Networks' Vice President of Talent, Head of Talent Management for Merrill Lynch's Global Technology and Operations function, and was a Partner in Accenture's Human Performance Practice.