Where's the theory contribution? An answer in four parts

The requirement for a theory contribution in empirical papers causes consternation among some and confusion among many. We address this issue by articulating alternative approaches to theory that include formal modeling, paradigm elaboration, problem solving, and theory emergence from observations. Knowledge about these different approaches will, we believe, help ameliorate disagreement and incomprehension across the research tribes that dominate social science and business school research. Each approach requires different assumptions about truth and the representation of reality. We outline each approach, provide examples, and a short critique. We suggest that what may seem mundane to the critical realist may be eye-opening to the pragmatist who directs attention to practitioners. For the scholar immersed within the walls of a paradigm, a set of stylized facts may challenge and inspire. The secret to innovative theory contributions is to synthesize ideas from the different tribes to use within your own focused research program

A Connected World: Social Networks and Organizations

This Element synthesizes the current state of research on organizational social networks from its early foundations to contemporary debates. It highlights the characteristics that make the social network perspective distinctive in the organizational research landscape, including its emphasis on structure and outcomes. It covers the main theoretical developments and summarizes the research design questions that organizational researchers face when collecting and analyzing network data. Then, it discusses current debates ranging from agency and structure to network volatility and personality. Finally, the Element envisages future research directions on the role of brokerage for individuals and communities, network cognition, and the importance of past ties. Overall, the Element provides an innovative angle for understanding organizational social networks, engaging in empirical network research, and nurturing further theoretical development on the role of social interactions and connectedness in modern organizations

Social network analysis:Foundations and frontiers on advantage

We provide an overview of social network analysis focusing on network advantage as a lens that touches on much of the area. For reasons of good data and abundant research, we draw heavily on studies of people in organizations. Advantage is traced to network structure as a proxy for the distribution of variably sticky information in a population. The network around a person indicates the person's access and control in the distribution. Advantage is a function of information breadth, timing, and arbitrage. Advantage is manifest in higher odds of proposing good ideas, more positive evaluations and recognition, higher compensation, and faster promotions. We discuss frontiers of advantage contingent on personality, cognition, embeddedness, and dynamics.</p

Why José Mourinho’s protégés failed when they became managers

Martin Kilduff, Craig Crossland, Wenpin Tsai and Matthew T. Bowers discuss the acolyte effec

Brokering Trust to Enhance Leadership: A Self-Monitoring Approach to Leadership Emergence

What kind of person is likely to emerge as an informal leader in the workplace? Experimental research shows that high self-monitors—who tend to adjust their attitudes and behaviors to the demands of different situations—emerge as informal leaders in temporary groups. By contrast, low self-monitors—who tend to be true to themselves in terms of consistency in attitudes and behaviors across different situations—are less likely to emerge as leaders. But this prior research does not address the criticism that the emergence of high self-monitors as leaders represents ephemeral impression management in the context of laboratory experiments. To address this issue, we collected and analyzed data from a 116-member high-technology firm. Our results show that self-monitoring is related not only to leadership emergence, but also to the provision of advice to co-workers. Further, people who occupied brokerage positions (being trusted by those who did not trust each other) tended to be seen as leaders if they were high rather than low self-monitors. From these results, we build a picture of the high self-monitoring emergent leader as someone who notices problems and ameliorates them through the provision of advice and the brokerage of relationships across social divides. The occupation of a structurally advantageous position may well be more advantageous for some (i.e., high self-monitors) relative to others (i.e., low self-monitors)

Making connections: Social networks in international business

Insights from social network research have generated significant advancements in disciplines such as sociology, economics, and psychology. In comparison, the incorporation of social network ideas into international business (IB) research remains more limited. The purpose of this special issue is to foster further research on social networks in IB. In our introductory essay, we provide a brief overview of network research in the IB domain to give a sense of some of the major ongoing themes and to illustrate how the social network approach can provide fresh insights and add substantive value to the field. To emphasize the considerable potential of using social network theories and ideas to advance research and understanding in IB, we also indicate some future directions. We follow these with a summary of the five articles in the special issue

Why trust in the workplace matters and how to cultivate it

Advancing your career depends on gaining the trust of others, and while nothing creates trust better than friendships between colleagues, the workplace presents unique challenges for these relationships. A recent study, explored here, reveals which personality traits are the best fit for creating trust in different friendship network configurations

The Strain of Spanning Structural Holes: How Brokering Leads to Burnout and Abusive Behavior

Connecting otherwise disconnected individuals and groups—spanning structural holes—can earn social network brokers faster promotions, higher remuneration, and enhanced creativity. Organizations also benefit through improved communication and coordination from these connections between knowledge silos. Neglected in prior research, however, has been theory and evidence concerning the psychological costs to individuals of engaging in brokering activities. We build new theory concerning the extent to which keeping people separated (i.e., tertius separans brokering) relative to bringing people together (i.e., tertius iungens brokering) results in burnout and in abusive behavior toward coworkers. Engagement in tertius separans brokering, relative to tertius iungens brokering, we suggest, burdens people with onerous demands while limiting access to resources necessary to recover. Across three studies, we find that tertius separans leads to abusive behavior of others, mediated by an increased experience of burnout on the part of the broker. First, we conducted a five-month field study of burnout and abusive behavior, with brokering assessed via email exchanges among 1,536 university employees in South America. Second, we examined time-separated data on self-reported brokering behaviors, burnout, and coworker abuse among 242 employees of U.S. organizations. Third, we experimentally investigated the effects of the two types of brokering behaviors on burnout and abusive behavior for 273 employed adults. The results across three studies showed that tertius separans brokering puts the broker at an increased risk of burnout and subsequent abusive behavior toward others in the workplace

Concussion-associated gene variants and history of concussion in elite male rugby athletes

Occurrence of and outcomes following a concussion are probably affected by the interaction of multiple genes in a polygenic manner [1,2]. This study investigated whether suspected concussion-associated polygenic profiles of elite rugby athletes with a history of previous concussion (RAC) differed from rugby athletes with no history of previous concussion (RANC). We hypothesised that concussion-associated risk genotypes would be underrepresented in RANC compared to RAC. Participants were from the RugbyGene project, comprising elite male rugby athletes (RA) (185 white males; mean (standard deviation) height 1.86 (0.07) m, mass 102 (12.6) kg, age 26.4 (5.1) yr) competing at an elite level in rugby union (n = 165) and league (n = 20) in the UK, Ireland, Italy and South Africa. Concussion history was collected using a self-reported concussion history questionnaire. PCR of genomic DNA was used to determine genotypes using TaqMan probes, and total genotype scores (TGS) were calculated, then groups were compared using χ2 and odds ratio (OR) statistics. In addition, multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) was used to identify genetic interactions. Seventy-eight percent of RA reported a history of sustaining at least one concussion and 54% of RA reported sustaining multiple (≥2) concussions from rugby. For BDNF-AS rs6265, the GG genotype was more common in RAC compared to RANC (69.7% vs 61.0%, P = 0.006, OR = 9.90, 95% CI = 01.81-54.06) (Fig. 1). The GG genotype of BDNF-AS rs6265 was more common in RAC compared to RANC (70.7% vs. 61.0%, P = 0.041, OR 4.44, 95% CI = 1.04-120.97) (Fig. 1). However, TGS did not differ between RANC and RAC (Fig. 2A) recovery duration and family history of neurological conditions (P > 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and area under the curve (AUC) analysis confirmed the TGS algorithm could not identify concussion history (AUC = 0.436; 95% CI = 0.338-0.534; P = 0.218; Fig. 2B). MDR could not identify a model to predict concussion history, recovery duration and family history of neurological conditions with a sufficiently powerful cross-validation statistic (P ≤ 0.05). These findings support the growing evidence that incidence and recovery from concussion could be influenced by an athlete’s genetic predisposition. Such knowledge could be used in the future and when additional relevant variants have been identified, to inform individualised management strategies for athletes in possession of risk genotypes.Peer reviewe

Tendon and ligament-associated gene variants and history of soft tissue injury in elite male rugby athletes

There is a genetic component to tendon and ligament injuries which is highly likely to be polygenic in nature (1). Elite rugby has one of the highest reported injury incidences of any professional sport with some of the most severe injuries affecting tendons and ligaments (1). Thus, this study investigated if suspected tendon and ligament injury-associated polygenic profiles of elite rugby athletes (RA) with a history of prior tendon and ligament injury differed from RA with no history of injury. We hypothesised that tendon and ligament injury-associated genotypes and polygenic profiles would be overrepresented in RA with a history of soft tissue injury compared to RA with no history of injury. Participants were from the RugbyGene project, comprising elite male RA (185 white males; mean (standard deviation) height 1.86 (0.07) m, mass 102 (12.6) kg, age 26.4 (5.1) yr) competing at an elite level in rugby union (n = 165) and league (n = 20) in the UK, Ireland, Italy and South Africa. Soft-tissue injury history was collected using a self-reported injury history questionnaire. PCR of genomic DNA was used to determine genotypes using TaqMan probes, and total genotype scores (TGS) from 13 polymorphisms were calculated, then groups were compared using χ2 and odds ratio (OR) statistics. In addition, multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) and inferred haplotype analysis were used to identify genetic interactions. For MMP3 rs679620, the C allele was more common in the tendinopathy group (TD) compared to the non-injured tendon group (NIT) (63.5% vs 50.0%, P = 0.02, OR = 1.62, 95% CI = 01.00-2.60). However, the C allele was more common in the non-injured ligament group (NIL) compared to the ligament rupture (LR) group (63.7% v 47.9%, P = 0.02, OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.09-3.35). For COL5A1 rs12722 the TT genotype was more common in NIT compared to the tendon rupture group (TR) (25.0% vs. 3.8%, P = 0.006, OR 4.35, 95% CI = 0.49-37.01). TGS differed between NIL and the ligament sprain group (LS) (U=1868.50;P = 0.02). Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and area under the curve (AUC) analysis confirmed the TGS algorithm could identify LS (AUC = 0.61; 95% CI = 0.52-0.72; P = 0.02) . The T-C inferred haplotype frequency of COL5A1 rs12722 and COL5A1 rs3196378 respectively, was higher in TR, LS and the all-injured athlete groups compared to NIT, NIL and the all-non-injured group (P < 0.01) (Fig. 3). MDR could not identify a model to predict any of the injury groups with a sufficiently powerful cross-validation statistic. The current data suggests musculoskeletal soft-tissue injury could be influenced by an athlete’s genetic predisposition. This study provides further insight into the detailed aetiology of musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries within elite rugby and may, in future, be worthy of consideration for managing the interindividual variability of injury risk in rugbyPeer reviewe