Giuseppe Labianca

Social Capital, Social Liabilities, and Social Resources Management

This chapter explores the role of social capital in human resources management. We suggest that the recent interest in social capital has neglected the possibility that social networks may contain negative ties, and that attention to these social liabilities may provide additional insights into relationships and social networks in organizations. Research focusing on the antecedents and consequences of social networks in organizations is reviewed. We consider the effects of social capital and social liabilities on’ social’ resources management outcomes such as recruitment, selection, socialization, training, performance, career development, turnover, job satisfaction, power, and conflict.

Striving toward the future: aspiration—performance discrepancies and planned organizational change

Interest has been growing in understanding how organizations’ aspiration levels affect their planning for future organizational change. Previous research has not specified whether organizations use direct competitors or other comparable organizations as referents for forming their aspirations. In this study, it is argued that organizations form their social aspirations based on two types of interorganizational comparisons: competitive and striving. In competitive comparisons, an organization compares its current performance against that of its current direct competitors. When relative performance is poor, these organizations plan more extensive and more radical change. However, the study shows that organizations that are performing well relative to competitors do not necessarily become inertial, as theory suggests. Rather, organizations engage in striving comparisons by comparing their current performance against the performance of organizations to which they strive to be like in the future. The analyses show that organizations with large striving discrepancies are driven to more extensive and more radical change, even if they are performing well compared to current competitors. The study examined this interplay between competitive and striving discrepancy in explaining organizational change on a sample of 131 AACSB accredited business schools.

Interorganizational Monitoring: Process, Choices, and Outcomes

Researchers have traditionally investigated aspects of the interorganizational monitoring process in piecemeal fashion. This conceptual piece argues that juxtaposing the categorization process with interorganizational emulation, imitation, and competition, brings focus to organizations’ attempts to acquire information from other organizations, signal internal and external constituencies, and ultimately change. We argue that the depth or intensity with which the monitoring process is pursued as well as the breadth or degree of overlap in the sets of organizations chosen to monitor, determines the volume and diversity of information acquired, the strength of the signal sent to constituent groups, and the amount and type of change likely to emerge from the process. All of these factors will ultimately affect the firms future performance.