Tie Diversity, Network Position, Electronic Resources and Knowledge Exchange

A key question for managers in knowledge-intensive firms is how to encourage knowledge flows and new knowledge creation between individuals. We take a social networks perspective to answer this question by examining the extent to which an individual’s network diversity and network position influence performance. However, with advances in information and communications technologies, individuals can just as easily access knowledge through documents or electronic communities. Knowledge workers no longer have to rely on their personal social network connections for knowledge resources. Therefore, in our quest to better understand how social networks affect individual performance, we examine the extent to which an individual accesses electronic knowledge resources and whether this influences individual performance above and beyond personal social network factors. Data will be analyzed in network form, and we propose to use QAP (quadratic assignment procedure) hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses.