Organizational Networks and Networking Competence

Contemporary Challenges in Management and Employment

Marzena Fryczyńska

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000345087
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Business
• Sous-sujet: Organisational Development

Networks and networking are essential concepts that transform organizational, economic, and social practices. Human capital is both a source of competitive advantage and a value that allows individual employees to develop their careers and find satisfaction in their employment. The book addresses the vital issue of changes occurring in management and employment, with the growing career individualization, focus on future professional challenges, importance of knowledge workers, and possibilities of functioning in social and organizational networks.

Workers' networking competence is the main theme of this book. Much attention is put on differentiating it from other types of competence and other network objects, and identifying its behavioral manifestations, as the frequency of such behaviors can be used as a measure of an individual's networking competence level. Employment-related variables and characteristics that affect networking competence are analyzed in depth, as is the impact of networking competence on career success and employability — thus laying a foundation for transformation in network organization management, employee relations, and individual career development.

It will be of interest to researchers and students alike, as it clearly demonstrates a way to solve research problems in management science and provides new instruments for further research on networks and networking; and to organization managers and employees, as it offers insights into management and employment-related trends as well as guidelines for managing network organizations and building one's career within social and organizational networks.

1 Networking in Organizational Management

Networking in management is the subject of growing interest among researchers, who debate the existence of a new paradigm (Borgatti, Foster 2003; Czakon 2011, 2012), or a new network logic (Castells 2007; Nogalski, Średnicka 2011) for describing contemporary organizations, which are part of relationship networks and operate in highly networked environments. Multiple problems in the fields of strategic management; knowledge, innovation, and intellectual capital management; marketing; or logistics may be resolved when networking is taken as the theoretical or investigational framework. Rooted not only in other concepts and theories of management, but also in other social sciences, this framework enables the exploration and testing of a turbulent socio-economic reality in a number of dimensions. Thus, the author set out to identify the sources and foundations of networking in management, and to describe network organizations as part of organization networks and a networked socio-economic environment.

First, the core concepts and reference theories from outside the field of management are presented, revealing four key areas essential for understanding networking in management. Then, concepts and theories of management are referenced: relationship-based, competence-based, system-based, and strategic management, all of which contribute to the emergence of the network paradigm. In order to explain the nature of managing the core entities in a network reality, namely an organization network and a network organization, the multiple levels of analysis are first discussed. This allowed for characterizing the relationships and the variety of partners and nodes that make up organization networks.

1.1Sources of Research on Networking in Management

Research on networks and networking in management has its sources in sociology, social psychology, and anthropology. Currently, a new form of a network society can be observed (Castells 2007), which affects the way organizations are perceived and managed, especially in knowledge-based economies (Stępka, Subda 2009). In a network society, individuals establish relationships and enter into associations voluntarily, thus ‘detaching’ themselves from the pre-existing social structure. As M. Castells (2007) writes, “networks constitute the new social morphology of our societies, and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power, and culture”. Among reasons for the emergence of the network society, factors such as post-industrialism, informationism, post-Fordism, postmodernism, and globalization are listed (Barney 2008). Services that are based on intangible goods and that produce such goods are increasingly prevalent. As a result, social and economic effectiveness is conditioned upon an ability to process information and knowledge, rather than raw materials or tangible goods. Increasingly often, the final marketable product is knowledge. Post-Fordism drives changes in organization and management that aim at responding to consumers’ individual needs. Globalization opens up a new, wide space for activity, including economic activity, not subject to formerly applicable regulations or sanctions. As to postmodernism, its role in the shaping of the network society consisted in solidifying the belief that individuals are subjective and heterogeneous entities that create themselves by performing specific actions. This is the society in which workers function, choosing the professional and private spaces in which they create their own image in relation to other network actors. Such a reality forces organizations and their managers to undertake appropriate steps in order to adapt to this new quality of their environment.

One theory originating in sociology that is significant for the development of network theory is that of ‘embeddedness’. In line with its precepts, all economic exchange is embedded in social networks, which themselves are included within the macro category of a network society. Access to information concerning the market and its particular participants is regu...