Cognition and Beyond: Reviving Individual Persons in Network Reality

Abstract

Network cognition research is gaining increasing prominence in the field of social network. It yields interesting and impactful findings on how network cognition shapes network features, and how they jointly influence key organizational outcomes. In our symposium, we shift the focus from network cognition per se to individual persons in network, reviving the role of the individual person as active perceiverS, interpreters, and actors in shaping network reality. Our four presentations collectively show cognition as one of the mental activities that set the base for individuals’ subjective experience and interpretation of social reality and their further social action of forming or controlling social relations with or among others. We restore both the rational side of individual persons’ seeking influence and mutual understanding, and their seemingly spontaneous side of expressing inner experience and inclination. We also show how micro-level individual mental processes come to serve or constrain relational action and its impact and change macro-level network pattern and eventually the network reality. For Whom is Brokerage a Liability Rather than Advantage? The Cost of Living a Rich Inner Life Presenter: Qi Zhang; Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus U. Presenter: Stefano Tasselli; Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus U. Dampening the Echo: Bridge Ideological Network Divides Through Mutual Receptiveness to Opposing View Presenter: Brian Philip Reschke; Brigham Young U. Presenter: Julia Alexandra Minson; Harvard Kennedy School Presenter: Hannah Riley Bowles; Harvard U. Presenter: Mathijs De Vaan; U. of California, Berkeley Presenter: Sameer B. Srivastava; U. of California, Berkeley To Bridge or Not to Bridge? How Power and Status Affect Brokerage Processes Presenter: Alessandro Iorio; Carnegie Mellon U. - Tepper School of Business Presenter: Catherine Shea; Carnegie Mellon U. - Tepper School of Business A Complementary-Supplementary Fit Theory of Network Brokerage Presenter: Gianluca Carnabuci; ESMT Berlin