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Knowledge acquired by employees from co-workers through social networks may serve to reduce technostress during the use of a new and complex information system. The role of gender-based employee preferences in forming and acquiring system-related knowledge through friendship, advice, and expertise networks, and the impact of network-embedded expertise on performance outcomes are explored.

The research hypotheses were empirically tested through survey data collected from employees of a large organization that had implemented an enterprise system.

The advice networks of female employees were an extension of their friendship networks, whereas that of male employees were configured to include co-workers with system-related expertise. Exposure to high quality knowledge flows resulted in lowered technostress levels among male employees compared to their female counterparts. However, there was only a marginal difference in performance outcomes. The “expertise-deficit” in the advice network of female employees was apparently compensated through their dependence on the helpdesk.

Research on system-related knowledge support through social networks has focused on the structural features of interaction ties with little or no emphasis on networking employees and their individual preferences. Moving away from this structural orientation, this study validates the contention that gender-driven motivations impact employee networking preferences, determine network-embedded expertise levels, and influence employee technostress. This study can help configure implementation environments that maximize network acquisition of high-quality knowledge, reduce technostress, and enhance performance outcomes.

Supporting the learning and wellbeing of vulnerable students is an important yet challenging part of school educators’ work. The purpose of this paper is to investigate advice-seeking patterns around the issue of supporting the learning and wellbeing of vulnerable students, among professional staff in six English secondary schools. The paper focuses on investigating variation in advice-seeking patterns among schools, exploring the association between these patterns and staff perceptions of the school climate for collaboration, and examining how these informal advice-seeking patterns relate to formal support arrangements in the schools.

A mixed-methods approach that combined findings from social network analysis with in-depth interviews was used.

It was found that advice-seeking patterns among staff vary substantively, even among similar schools. Furthermore, schools with more cohesive and reciprocal advice networks also showed a stronger climate for collaboration (i.e. mutual respect and distributed leadership). Also, formal organizational structures and informal advice-seeking structures showed coherence in the sample, as formally designated leaders, such as the Headteacher and the Special Educational Needs Coordinators, were generally highly central to their schools’ advice network.

This study advances the field as there is little research that examines the social networks of educators in England, and no previous studies that explore teacher advice-seeking networks in relation to supporting vulnerable students, internationally.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of generation in teachers’ advice and information-seeking interactions in Flemish secondary school teams, and moreover how the content of advice shapes these interactions. Four content-related advice and information-seeking networks are investigated in this study: subject-matter knowledge, classroom management, innovative teaching methods and ICT.

Data were collected from 660 teachers in ten secondary education schools in Flanders (Belgium) by using an online socio-metric survey. Social network analysis was conducted, more specifically quadratic assignment procedure and multilevel P2 modeling.

The findings underline the importance of investigating content-related advice networks. Generation affects the formation of interactions. First, the results revealed that older teachers are less likely to ask advice on subject-matter knowledge, classroom management and innovative teaching methods. Second, the data showed that older teachers are more likely to be asked for advice on subject-matter knowledge. Third, young teachers are more likely to be asked for advice on innovative teaching methods and ICT. Fourth, homophily effects occurred for the youngest teachers when advice is about subject-matter knowledge, and for the oldest teachers for advice about classroom management.

This study is innovative due to its application of social network analysis to investigate intergenerational knowledge flows, and due to its clear focus on content-related advice-seeking interactions that go beyond the approach of general advice and information-seeking interactions.

The purpose of this paper is to understand better the gendered nature of role model status within organizations. The paper aims to argue that women require organizational legitimacy to be perceived as a role model, whereas men rely primarily on the strength of social ties within their friendship networks.

An empirical study of admissions department employees at a large eastern university within the USA was conducted. Using a social network approach, participants were asked to identify advice, friendship and role model relationships and provide information about awards and recognition received from the organization.

The results showed that, in order to be perceived as a role model, females needed to give (but not ask for) advice, earn organizational rewards, hold leadership positions in the organization, and maintain strong ties with other employees. Males only had to have a number of friendship or advice ties to be seen as a role model.

The findings are consistent with the idea that females need to establish formal organizational status or legitimacy (e.g. leadership roles, rewards) in order to be perceived as a role model. In addition, balancing advice‐giving versus advice‐seeking is more important for female compared with male role models.

This paper examines the concept of role modeling using a social network analysis, thus providing new insight about the impact of advice and friendship network centrality on role model status in organizations.

This study aims to investigate the dynamics of knowledge sharing in health care, exploring some of the factors that are more likely to influence the evolution of idea sharing and advice seeking in health care.

The authors engaged 50 pediatricians representing many subspecialties at a mid-size US children’s hospital using a social network survey to map and measure advice seeking and idea sharing networks. Through the application of Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models, the authors compared the structure of the two networks prior to a leadership program and eight weeks post conclusion.

The models indicate that health-care professionals carefully and intentionally choose with whom they share ideas and from whom to seek advice. The process is fluid, non-hierarchical and open to changing partners. Significant transitivity effects indicate that the processes of knowledge sharing can be supported by mediation and brokerage.

Hospital administrators can use this method to assess knowledge-sharing dynamics, design and evaluate professional development initiatives and promote new organizational structures that break down communication silos. This work contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in health care by adopting a social network approach, going beyond the dyadic level and assessing the indirect influence of peers’ relationships on individual networks.

Educational reform is a complex undertaking and the interactions between leaders as they go about a change are consequential for realizing desired outcomes. Advice relationships are one such interaction and can play a key role in driving knowledge transfer and development and as such are an important social capital asset supporting organizational change. Building on the growing scholarship around a social network approach to understanding educational leadership and systems change, the study draws from network concepts to examine advice relationships within a district-wide leadership team as the leaders engages a reform initiative, and what accounts for the development of these important relational ties.

Quantitative data were collected through an annual survey at six points over six years from the leadership team in one public school district in the Western United States, including perceptions of organizational learning, beliefs about reform, and reform-related advice relationships.

Using multilevel mixed modeling, findings reveal downward trends in leaders' advice-seeking and -receiving ties over time and that seeking and receiving advice is positively related to organizational learning, beliefs about reform impact, or beliefs about their efficacy in implementing the reform. However, views about reform-related resources are negatively associated with seeking and receiving advice ties over time.

This study contributes to the literature on the social side of change specifically related to leadership, reform, organizational learning, and leader beliefs about reform implementation. Further, the work offers practical implications for potential social infrastructure design for joint work.

The purpose of this article is to examine the nature and influence of entrepreneurs' advice networks on the innovative performance of their companies from both economic and social perspectives. Specifically, it aims to address three research questions: Does information typically flow both ways in advice dyads? How important is trust in these relationships? What is the ideal structure of an advice network?

As part of a larger study, executives at 20 entrepreneurial software companies in the Greater Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, region of the USA were interviewed in person to determine the nature and structure of their advice networks.

The executives reported sharing business and technical advice with their contacts, both within and outside of their own organizations. Entrepreneurs who maintained diverse, uncommonly connected advice networks led organizations that were perceived as more innovative than those with more densely connected networks.

Future studies should examine these research questions in economic and cultural settings outside the USA, and examine the influence of advice‐network size and different network environments on advice‐network value and productivity.

Entrepreneurs should be careful to not take trust in these networks lightly.

Entrepreneurs may be able to leverage their advice networks for maximum innovation by adding new advice contacts not connected to their current advice contacts. Entrepreneurs should be careful to not take trust in these networks lightly.

Business model innovation is a key element for firms' competitiveness. Its development can be supported by the establishment of an actor-oriented scheme to overcome hierarchical structures. The actor-oriented scheme is characterized by intra-organizational networks of relationships that can be established and dissolved between individuals. However, we lack an empirical perspective about its establishment; therefore, the purpose of this research is to advance our understanding of intra-organizational networks for supporting business model innovation.

Individuals create and manage knowledge aimed to innovate the business model through cognitive search and experiential learning mechanisms. Knowledge is spread within organizations by using intra-organizational advice networks, whose patterns reflect the presence of an actor-oriented scheme. This work applies social network analysis to network data from a multi-unit organization specializing in personal care services. We use a Logistic Regression-Quadratic Assignment Procedure to analyze intra-organizational network data on managers' advice exchange related to the learning modes of cognitive search and experiential learning.

Our research empirically identifies the main elements of an actor-oriented scheme in a business model innovation process. We find that managers are able to self-organize, because they are not influenced by their organizational roles, and that commons for sharing resources and protocols, processes and infrastructures enable advice exchange, thus showing the presence of an actor-oriented scheme in business model innovation process.

This research is based on a cross-sectional database. A longitudinal study would provide a better understanding of the network evolution characterizing the innovation process.

The results of our study support organizational decision-making for business model innovation.

This study provides empirical evidence of how an actor-oriented scheme emerges in a business model innovation process.

The purpose of this paper is to examine small business owners’ informal advice-seeking from peers, with a focus on the opportunities afforded by the internet for owners to acquire assistance from other owner-managers outside their local community.

Over 600 owner-managers in a rural US state were surveyed about their advice-seeking during the previous year from peers in the same community, from non-local peers they had met in person, and from peers known only online. Mixed effects logistic regression analysis was used to test both main effects of business and owner characteristics on advice-seeking and interactions with type/location of peer advisors.

Most owners had received advice from peers, and one-third had received advice online from a peer whom they had never met in person. Business performance was not associated with overall use of peer advice, but did interact significantly with source; the use of online-only advisors was associated with business growth, suggesting the possible benefit of weak ties. Over two-thirds of respondents reported having used social media and/or online forums to access advice or support from other owners (both those met in person and those not), with women and younger owners more likely to rely on such tools.

This study shows that entrepreneurial research needs to consider peer advisors beyond local networks as potential resources for small business owners. While previous research has examined entrepreneurs’ use of social media for marketing, this study shows its utility for accessing advice.

This paper provides an analytical theory of appropriateness judgments that introduces structural dimensions in the study of social rationality of organization members. This approach helps explore the coevolution of members’ relative position in structure and normative choices in their organization. Illustration of this approach is based on the study of controversial judicial decisions and dynamics of advice networks in a courthouse where lay judges have to choose between punitive and nonpunitive awards in cases of unfair competition in business. In this case, coevolution is facilitated by an endogenous process of centralization–decentralization–recentralization of advice networks over time, and by use of a procedural “weak legal culture” that helps align and homogenize conflicting normative choices among organization members. It is suggested that this approach to social rationality helps revisit our understanding of social processes, in this case collective learning and secondary socialization in organizations and flexible labor markets.