Improving the value–of-input for ideation by management intervention: an intra-organizational network study

A discretionary social network in a firm is where individual employees voluntarily share new, innovative knowledge – activities in this network are essential to firm innovation. Drawing on a unique field study we quantitatively compare the situation before and after a ‘simple’ management intervention aimed at increasing discretionary social network activity. We submit that both the network position as well as the formal role of an individual both need to be taken into account to understand the antecedents to the voluntary exchange of valuable inputs within an organization. We find empirical evidence that someone’s structural position in the network prior to intervention positively contributes to the value-of-input exchanged. Contrary to expectation, however, those employees whose task it is to professionally share valuable, new knowledge attributed the input for future innovation – ideators – fall short in leveraging a favorable position in a firm’s discretionary social network

Board diversity and R&D investment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of board diversity on the extent to which firms invest in R&D. Design/methodology/approach – empirical analysis of 175 firm-year observations for Fortune 500 firms in high tech industries and the four different indications of diversity of their boards. Findings – Boards that can tap into a diversity of sources for information can be expected to make better decisions. Diversity in a team and a board can, however, also impede team performance. Measuring the diversity of boards in four different ways, two of which are person-related (age and gender) and two information-based (education and tenure), we analyze which kind of diversity ensures that the firm governed by a board will invest more R&D. We find, unexpectedly, that tenure diversity leads to firms being less innovative, while education diversity and gender diversity make firms more innovative. Gender diversity positively moderates education diversity as well, strengthening the effect found. We discuss the implications of our findings for management and society. Originality/value – This study conceptually differentiates between 2 information-based and 2 person-related indications of board (team) diversity, theoretically elaborate on the effects they have, and provide empirical evidence for their effects