Wenpin Tsai

Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks

Using data collected from multiple respondents in all the business units of a large multinational electronics company, we examined the relationships both among the structural, relational, and cogni...

Social capital, strategic relatedness and the formation of intraorganizational linkages

This paper investigates the evolutionary dynamics of network formation by analyzing how organizational units create new interunit linkages for resource exchange. Using sociometric techniques and event history analysis, this study predicts the rate at which new interunit linkages are created between a newly formed unit and all the existing units in a large multinational organization. Two important constructs: social capital, derived from the literature on social structure and network formation, and strategic relatedness, derived from research on diversification and the resource‐based view of the firm, are used to explain the rate of new linkage creation. Results show that the interaction between social capital and strategic relatedness significantly affects the formation of intraorganizational linkages. Copyright

Zooming In and Out: Connecting Individuals and Collectivities at the Frontiers of Organizational Network Research

The role of individual action in the enactment of structures of constraint and opportunity has proved to be particularly elusive for network researchers. We propose three frontiers for future network research that zoom back and forth between individual and collective levels of analysis. First, we consider how dilemmas concerning social capital can be reconciled. Actors striving to reap maximal network advantages may benefit or detract from the collective good; investigating these trade-offs, we argue, will advance our understanding of learning and knowledge processes in organizations. Second, we explore identity emergence and change from a social network perspective. Insights about how networks mold and signal identity are a critical foundation for future work on career dynamics and the workplace experiences of members of diverse groups. Third, we consider how individual cognitions about shifting network connections affect, and are affected by, larger social structures. As scholarly interest in status and reputational signaling grows, articulating more clearly the cognitive foundations of organizational networks becomes imperative.

Overcoming Relational Inertia: How Organizational Members Respond to Acquisition Events in a Law Firm

This paper examines how organizational members overcome relational inertia and contribute to integration and value creation following an acquisition, through an analysis of a large law firm’s acquisition of two smaller firms. When merging law firm partners share clients with one another, both within and across the boundaries of the formerly separate firms, they create new relationships that connect the organizational units together. We examine both the antecedents and consequences of post-acquisition integration through client sharing. Drawing on network theory, we consider how the configuration of prior referral relationships influences new sharing of clients undertaken by individual partners. We also use the prior referral-network structure to predict which partners will cut their former intraunit client-sharing ties. To ascertain how client sharing creates value for the combined organization, we analyze the effects of client sharing on revenue generation and human capital development. Our findings uncover a paradox in integration behavior: the same referral-network structures that contribute to integration by increasing interunit sharing also tend to detract from integration because they are associated with cutting existing intraunit ties. We also find that interunit client sharing is positively associated with revenue generation but negatively associated with human capital development. Overall, this research advances a relational perspective on post-acquisition integration and sheds new light on how networks are formed and become reconfigured inside organizations.

When Unconnected Others Connect: Does Degree of Brokerage Persist After the Formation of a Multipartner Alliance?

In contrast with previous research that emphasizes brokerage benefits by keeping other actors separated, this study investigates the conditions in which the degree of brokerage persists in subsequent network development when previously disconnected actors are no longer kept separate in a multipartner alliance setting. Analyses of longitudinal alliance data collected from 95 firms in the aircraft, airline, chemical, and energy industries suggest that after forming a multipartner alliance through an industry-sponsored e-marketplace, a firm with greater prior brokerage is more likely to remain influential and persist in its degree of brokerage in the subsequent alliance network when 1 the multipartner alliance has more partners and 2 size heterogeneity among partners is either low or high. The findings add to network research by offering a refined understanding of brokerage dynamics.

External Board Memberships of Surviving CEO Following Financial Restatements

Complementing earlier research that has examined the turnover of CEOs following financial restatements, this paper focuses on surviving CEOs--those CEOs that continue in their positions even after financial restatements. Because CEOs of restating firms are held personally responsible for financial restatements in the wake of Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, surviving CEOs face additional pressures from internal and external stakeholders as well as face legitimacy loss. We examine how the surviving CEOs change their external board memberships in reaction to these pressures and potential legitimacy loss. We hypothesized and empirically found that surviving CEOs dropped their membership in corporate boards in the wake of financial restatements at much higher rate than CEOs in non-restatement contexts but added memberships in philanthropic foundations at a significantly higher rate than CEOs in non-restatement contexts. We further explored the moderating effects of CEO incentive pay on these changes following rest...