Consistent with Scott and Bruce (1994), and Janssen (2000, 2001), we define innovative behaviour as a process that consists of generation, promotion and implementation of novel ideas that are meaningful and useful within the context where innovative process takes place. Presuming that innovative behaviour is a desired organizational outcome and a critical constituent of organizational innovativeness (Woodman et al., 1993), researchers have made notable efforts to understand the contextual factors that enable or impede individuals to generate, promote, and implement novel and useful ideas (Amabile, 1983; Wang et al., 2015a). Indeed, there is a widespread scholarly consensus that the substantial part of the variance in innovative behaviour is
123 explained by features of social networks in which individuals are embedded (Baer et al., 2015; Perry-Smith and Mannucci, 2015).
The social capital theory posits that individuals engage into social relationships in order to gain access to valuable resources (Adler and Kwon, 2002). The type of resources that individuals may obtain by interacting with their colleagues at the workplace will depend on their position in a network of interpersonal relationships (Burt, 2000). We may think of all the positions in a social structure as a continuum, where on the left-hand side we may place the individuals whose direct contacts are all interconnected among each other. On the right-hand side of the continuum, we may place the individuals whose direct contacts are all disconnected from each other. The former structural position implies complete network closure, whereas the latter implies complete network brokerage. Indeed, closure and brokerage are the key perspectives underling social capital theory, as they predict different type of resources on which an actor can potentially take advantage (cf. Burt, 1992; Coleman, 1988; Granovetter, 1973). For the purposes of the present study, we conceptualize the position of an actor on the abovementioned continuum as a level of brokerage. Brokerage thus, denotes the degree to which an individual connects otherwise disconnected parts of a network (Baer et al., 2015). The definition implies that when brokerage is low, an actor is embedded in a closed network, while in situations where brokerage is high, an actor is embedded in brokering networks. The embeddedness in closed or brokering network position thus, suggests “that resources and information do not flow equally among all actors” (McEvily et al., 2014: 311). The distribution of resources, and their type, which are available to actors embedded in those diametrically opposing network positions are discussed in the following paragraphs.
The individuals embedded in brokering network positions, by spanning the structural holes that exist between the disconnected parts of a network, will benefit from having timely access to
124 non-redundant information and knowledge that circulates within the different social clusters (Burt et al., 2013). The non-redundancy of information and knowledge that is available to actors that connect otherwise disconnected parts of the network can be explained by the similarity fit that is in line with the homophily theory. According to this theoretical perspective, people tend to form ties with those who are similar to them with respect to certain demographic (e.g. gender, age, ethnicity) as well as informational/functional characteristics such as functional and professional backgrounds (e.g. Blau, 1977; Burt, 2007; McPherson et al., 2001;). Since brokerage position implies connecting otherwise disconnected parts of a network (Baer et al., 2015), homophily theory suggests that these disconnected parts are dissimilar among each other because, if they were similar, they would have been tied to each other. Therefore, it is assumed that brokers are posited in a network position that allows them to connect parts of a network that are dissimilar among each other (Fang et al., 2015). The premises of homophily theory are important for conceptualizing the brokering network positions because it implies that brokers are involved into combination of diversified information and knowledge. The ability to approach the work-related problems from unusual perspectives is indeed, an essential characteristic of people who behave in an innovative way (Singer, 1990). The exposure to different perspectives can thus, enhance brokers’ ability to learn about the solutions to certain problems implemented elsewhere, and to apply the new knowledge into their own work domain (Hargadon, 1999). As the theory of social psychology suggests, the combination and recombination of different perspectives in one’s own work increases the cognitive flexibility, that is, the ability of an individual to shift the thinking from one to another concept (Taylor and Greve, 2006). Indeed, cognitive flexibility has been recognized as a key psychological mechanism that allows an individual to generate novel and useful ideas (Amabile, 1983).
125 Furthermore, positioned as the lone connectors between separate groups in a network, brokers have opportunities for arbitrage over the flows of information and knowledge (Burt, 2005). They have the possibility to autonomously deploy important organizational resources in a way that their own ideas are successfully promoted and implemented (Burt, 1992). To sum up, the early access to non-redundant information and knowledge as well as the arbitrage position over the flow of these resources are identified as two key mechanisms that explain the relationship between brokerage and innovative behaviour (Baer et al., 2015).
Oppose to complete brokering network positions, the access to non-redundant information and knowledge will be hardly accessible to the individuals that are embedded in closed networks of relationships (Granovetter, 1973). Because of such a redundancy of the available information and knowledge to which they are exposed, the closely tied individuals may face considerable difficulties to come up with novel and useful ideas (Burt, 2004). The complete network closure may instead, provide actors with access to alternative but still useful resources such as trust, support and cooperation (Coleman, 1988), which may be essential for the later phases of innovative behaviour where an individual is expected to mobilize support and build a consensus for successfully promoting and implementing novel ideas (Perry-Smith and Mannucci, 2015). However, the prevailing scholarly standpoint is that brokerage rather than network closure has greater predictive power on the overall process of innovative behaviour (Burt, 2005). Following this line of reasoning, the past research has accumulated a substantial empirical evidence indicating that social network brokerage is positively related to innovative behaviour (e.g. Burt, 2004; Carnabuci and Diószegi, 2015). Correspondingly, we formally state our baseline hypothesis as:
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