External Ties Research Articles

The Network of Ties in a Practice Firm for the Education to Entrepreneurship-the Case of Perting Ltd

The paper considers the case of the practice firm (PF), Perting Ltd., and analyses the entrepreneurial networks and internal and external ties that develop between participants and other firms. Perting Ltd. is a practice firm that operates in the Simulimpresa laboratory of Bologna University. The results show the internal networking connections fit with the “classical” approach where the critical mass of ties are set for the long term while the external networks adhere to the “innovative” approach, characterised by initial exploration that determines further development.

The Effects of Political Instability and Institutional Support on the Selection of Social Ties

Extant research on social capital has well documented the effects and consequences of using internal (bonding) versus external (bridging) ties. However, research on the antecedents of internal versus external ties, especially at the national level, is sparse. We investigated the degree to which political instability, institutional support for entrepreneurship, culture, and average income influence the selection of internal versus external ties. We tested our hypotheses in a sample of entrepreneurs from eleven countries from different parts of the world. The results showed that political instability, institutional support for entrepreneurship, and culture significantly influence the types of relationships that are used by entrepreneurs.

Creative benefits from well-connected leaders: leader social network ties as facilitators of employee radical creativity.

Employee radical creativity critically depends on substantive informational resources from others across the wider organization. We propose that the social network ties of employees' immediate leaders assume a central role in garnering these resources, thereby fostering their employees' radical creativity both independent of and interactively with employees' own network ties. Drawing on data from 214 employees working in 30 teams of a public technology and environmental services organization, we find that team leaders' betweenness centrality in the idea network within their teams as well as among their peer leaders provides creative benefits beyond employees' own internal and external ties. Further, employees' and leaders' ties within and external to the team interactively predict employee radical creativity. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Sociology of School Boards: A Social Capital Perspective

School boards have received little attention in sociology of education. Drawing on organizational sociology, a model of school board social capital is proposed that treats brokerage (external ties) and closure (internal ties) as the key dimensions of board functioning. The model brings together insights from limited research on school boards concerning members' internal and external ties and recasts them as the building blocks of a unifying theoretical framework. It also proposes specific performance outcomes at the district level. The model is tested using the data from a representative sample of Pennsylvania districts. The analysis not only explores brokerage and closure patterns among school boards, but also examines their implications for academic outcomes. Findings suggest that eighth grade reading and mathematics performance are highest in districts, where boards exhibit high levels of both brokerage and closure, and lowest in districts, where brokerage and closure are both low.

English

Following on the resource-advantage theory, this study advances existing research by examining what configuration of a new venture’s boundary-spanning search can obtain successful venture performance and how a founding team’s external relationship and the internal firm competences shapes the relationship between the distant search and new venture performance. The paper is based on a questionnaire survey/analysis of a sample of 178 new ventures from China. This paper offers insight to entrepreneurs with regard to the importance of building external managerial ties and developing idiosyncratic internal competences on boundary-spanning search. In addition, our study also reveals that the effectiveness of supply-, demand- and spatial-side boundary-spanning search on venture performance depends upon investing resource at a rational level. Key words: Boundary-spanning search strategy, new venture, managerial tie, firm competence.

The Effects of Top Management Team External Ties and Board Composition on the Strategic Choice of Late Movers

Within the context of the monitoring and control function of the board, we extend previous work on the agency view of governance. We examine how the top managers' external ties and board composition directly and interactively influence the strategic choices of firms. Our results indicate that top managers with intra-industry knowledge and experience tend to adopt a resource-imitation strategy whereas those with knowledge and experience from other industries tend to adopt a resource-substitution strategy. The separation of CEO and board chairperson duties also affects strategy selection. In terms of interaction effects, we find that boards with a high ratio of outsiders reduce the tendencies of managers to opt for the safe strategy solutions with which they are familiar.

Normative perspectives on journalism studies: Stock-taking and future directions

Journalism has advanced greatly as a field in its own right in recent decades. As well as a cause for celebration, however, this may give rise to concerns – in particular that scholars may pay increasing attention to the inner workings of journalistic institutions at the expense of their external ties, impact and significance, including their normative ones. It is true that important normative analyses have appeared in the literature, six of which the article defines and exemplifies. So far, however, these ideas have had relatively little influence on the thought or practice of journalists. The article concludes by suggesting a way in which a closer and more constructive dialogue could be achieved between journalism scholars and practitioners, centring on the normative challenges faced by both sides.

Dependence on the External Network Ties of the Outside Directors: Evidence from Groups of Large-Scale Enterprises in Korea

Using a sample of chaebol groups in Korea, we investigate the impact of outside directors who had been public officials on the firm’s performance. We find that chaebol-affiliated firms prefer to co-opt the outside directors who had positions of higher public rank than the other outside directors who were public officials. By Bonacich power centrality, we find that the network ties among ex-public officials has a positive relation with the firm’s performance, such as asset and sales growth rates. This paper’s contribution to the corporate governance literature is that we extend the role of the outside directors on the firm’s performance by focusing on their advisory function, which is little studied. This paper also is the first that measures the political network ties of these directors by using the Bonacich power centrality.

Reverse knowledge diffusion: Competitive dynamics and the knowledge seeking behavior of Korean high-tech firms

This paper endeavors to enrich the existing knowledge acquisition literatures by specifically highlighting downsides of external ties of individuals. We introduce the concept of reverse knowledge diffusion (RKD) through external ties of individuals, and develop theoretical propositions to explain how the risks of RKD vary based on competitive dynamics and status of firms as innovation market leaders or market followers. We develop the construct of RKD to help explain why rivals may pursue contrasting knowledge seeking strategies with regards to leverage external ties of individuals, the timing of establishing these ties, and ex ante control mechanisms designed to regulate these relationships. We also discuss how our propositions advance the theory of knowledge seeking behaviors and generate future research opportunities.

Open Innovation: A Case‐study of the Hungarian Wine Sector

summaryOpen Innovation: A Case‐study of the Hungarian Wine SectorAn effective innovation system is crucial for food companies to counteract international competitive pressure. An important issue is whether it is more effective to innovate by sharing ideas and resources with other companies, or to innovate in‐house. The question is how to arrange external ties without compromising unique knowledge and assets. This is particularly controversial in the wine sector, where innovative marketing strategies have to be combined with ‘exclusive’ and ‘secret’ recipes. We use primary data on the Hungarian wine industry. We find that Hungarian wine companies are actively using ‘open sources’ in their innovation processes, even more than commonly acknowledged in the literature and the policy debate. Furthermore, we find that both regional and company‐specific factors affect the openness of innovation processes. Our findings point to the importance of the flow of new ideas that comes from global trends and from dealing with foreign companies and stakeholders. This result is supportive of internationalisation strategies at both company and sector level. Furthermore, our findings are supportive of policies oriented towards the creation of business parks and rural clusters, where farmers, processors and tech‐companies can establish networks to create new products and/or processing technologies.

External Cultural Ties and the Politics of Language in China

This paper utilizes the China Language Usage Survey to examine the political and social economic conditions under which language maintenance and shift occur. The empirical analysis of 54 ethnic minority groups in China shows that forces of modernization such as urbanization are positively correlated with the level of linguistic assimilation. Institutional support for ethnic minority language education is also a significant indicator for minority language retention. External forces are, however, even more significant in explaining linguistic assimilation and ethnic language retention. Minority groups that have relationships with external kin in neighboring countries should find it much easier to resist assimilative pressures from the domestic majority and the state than would other groups that do not possess such relationships with external kin groups.

Transferring Social Capital from Individual to Group in the Context of Team Innovative Performance

In this paper, I explore the relationships between individual social capital, group social capital, and team innovative performance. The association between individual and group social capital is underexplored (Burt, 2000; Kilduff & Krackhardt, 2008), and is important to investigate so that we may improve our knowledge of how and when social capital transfers from individuals to their teams and why this transfer might facilitate team innovation. I hope to add to the literature on social capital in teams through three important contributions. First, I argue that the external ties of team members are an important predictor of the team’s set of external ties. However, this association is not automatic and is influenced by an individual’s willingness to share his ties. Thus, secondly, I propose that individuals with greater levels of team-related relational and cognitive social capital, those who are oriented toward connecting others and those who work interdependently with their team members are more likely to share their ties with their team. Finally, I examine the interactive role of external and internal team ties in promoting team innovative performance. I conclude by discussing the potential methodological and managerial implications of this model.

How Competitive Dynamics Affect Knowledge Seeking Behavior of Market Leaders and Followers

This paper endeavors to enrich the existing knowledge acquisition literature by specifically highlighting downsides of external ties. We introduce the concept of Reverse Knowledge Diffusion (RKD) t...

The nature of SME co-operation and innovation: A multi-scalar and multi-dimensional analysis

Abstract Recent work on SMEs and networks has emphasised the importance of external co-operative ties in enhancing firms’ innovative performance. These external ties provide resource constrained SMEs with access to a wider set of technological opportunities through information sharing and resource pooling. Previous studies of the SME innovation–cooperation relationship have used categorical measures to capture tie existence which, while providing some useful insights, largely fail to capture the strength of co-operative relationships and/or the variety of relational directions in which co-operation occurs. This study aims to address this measurement deficiency and explore the SME innovation–cooperation relationship by designing and utilising measures that capture both the multi-scalar (strength) and multi-dimensional (variety) nature of co-operation and innovation. We then apply these measures to a survey of UK manufacturing SMEs. Data is obtained for 371 SMEs, and we then assess the innovation–co-operation relationship within a multivariate regression framework. We find that the strength of cooperative ties across a range of productive activities within the value chain are important facilitators for SME innovative capability; this is true for both product and process innovation. However, we find that SME co-operation with rivals (co-opetition) has no significant impact upon innovation. Our results have significant implications for both supply chain managers and policy-makers interested in enhancing innovation among SMEs. In particular, we argue that SME innovative activity benefits from good, close dyadic relations within the supply chain, while more generally policy should be geared towards nurturing and sustaining SME innovation networks.

Board competence and the top management team's external ties for performance

AbstractThis study explains the inconsistent findings of previous research on board management by examining the direct and interaction effects of board independence and the top management team's external ties on firm performance. The results obtained using a multiyear sample of firms indicate that outsider-rich boards improved firm performance when they worked with top managers imported from outside the focal industry. On the other hand, a high proportion of outsiders on the board and top managers imported from the focal industry were not a desirable combination for firm performance. The findings imply that researchers and practitioners should pay more attention to identifying the conditions under which board competence aligns with top management.

Board competence and the top management team's external ties for performance

AbstractThis study explains the inconsistent findings of previous research on board management by examining the direct and interaction effects of board independence and the top management team's external ties on firm performance. The results obtained using a multiyear sample of firms indicate that outsider-rich boards improved firm performance when they worked with top managers imported from outside the focal industry. On the other hand, a high proportion of outsiders on the board and top managers imported from the focal industry were not a desirable combination for firm performance. The findings imply that researchers and practitioners should pay more attention to identifying the conditions under which board competence aligns with top management.

Board Competence and the Top-Management-Team's External Ties for Performance

Board Competence and the Top-Management-Team's External Ties for Performance

Risk-taking and relational perspective on turnover intentions

This study investigated risking-taking and network ties and their impact on an individual's intention to quit from a relational perspective. Using the social identity and social capital as the theoretical foundation, hypotheses were developed to examine how internal instrumental and external ties as well as ties with higher ranked individuals and their association with turnover intention. These hypotheses were empirically tested using data collected from 126 full-time employees in a Chinese setting. The results showed that high risk propensity was positively associated with turnover intention. Not only internal ties that binds, but external networking also matter in turnover decisions.

Wanted Women: An American Obsession in the Reign of J. Edgar Hoover by Mary Elizabeth Strunk, and: The FBI and the Catholic Church by Steve Rosswurm (review)

WANTED WOMEN: An American Obsession in the Reign of J. Edgar Hoover. By Mary Elizabeth Strunk. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 2010.THE FBI AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Steve Rosswurm. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 2009.Steve Rosswurm and Mary Elizabeth Strunk share a common scholarly agenda. Until recent decades, historians and journalists largely depicted former FBI director J. Edgar as a scourge of American democracy, relying on once-secret Bureau files to reveal the depths of his subterfuge. Rosswurm and Strunk, by contrast, seek to understand Hoover's public influence as a religious moralizer and cultural mythmaker. Following the lead of historians such as Richard Gid Powers and Claire Potter, these two scholars aim less to expose Hoover's FBI than to explore the contradictions of its cultural legacy, especially on the subject of gender.As journalist Tom Wicker famously noted in the 1970s, wielded more power, longer, than any man in American history-48 years as FBI director. Part of that bureaucratic success, Rosswurm and Strunk suggest, lay in Hoover's ability to crafta widely recognized public image as a masculine, conservative, law-and-order crusader. Strunk explores this development through the popular media, dissecting film and pulp magazine depictions of female outlaws in the 1930s and 1970s. Rosswurm adopts a more institutional approach, delving into the FBI's internal culture of Catholic conservatism and its external ties to the anticommunist wings of the Catholic church. Both conclude that the homosocial and aggressively gendered culture of Hoover's FBI had a significant influence on how Americans thought about crime, family, and politics in the middle decades of the 20th century. If an institution is the lengthened shadow of a man, they suggest, then American culture is in part the shadow of an institution.Despite Strunk's subtitle-An American Obsession in the Reign of J. Edgar Hoover-the FBI plays a significant role only in the first half of her book. The opening three chapters focus on the 1930s, emphasizing Hoover's distaste for female criminals as dirty, filthy, diseased women (31). As Strunk points out, exhibited an almost pathological interest in female deviance during these years, blaming seductive and venal gun molls for luring otherwise innocent men into crime. He found a receptive audience in the decade's emerging Hollywood culture, which established both the upright G-Man and the beautiful but dangerous female gangster as cinematic types.In the book's second half, Strunk leaves behind the reign of J. Edgar Hoover to examine female outlaws whose notoriety post-dated the director's 1972 death. By contrast with the earlier chapters, the subjects here are political radicals: kidnapped-heiress-turned-revolutionary Patty Hearst; her onetime compatriot Kathleen Soliah, unearthed by the FBI in 1999 as Minnesota housewife Sara Jane Olsen; and Black Panther activist Assata Shakur, who escaped from prison in 1979 and was last seen living in Cuba. Wanted Women provides an engaging account of the 1970s' strange cultural brew, with its simultaneous romanticization and condemnation of revolutionary politics. …

Board Competence and Top-Management Team External Ties for Performance

This study explains the inconsistent findings of previous research on board management by examining the direct and interaction effects of board independence and the top management team’s external ties on firm performance. Using a multiyear sample of firms, we found that outsider-rich boards improved firm performance when they worked with top managers imported from outside the focal industry. On the other hand, a high proportion of outsiders on the board and top managers imported from the focal industry were not a desirable combination for firm performance. The findings imply that researchers and practitioners should pay more attention to identifying the conditions under which board competence aligns with top management.