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Drawing on social network and information diffusion theories, the authors study the impact of the structural characteristics of a seller’s local social network on her promotion effectiveness in social commerce.

The authors define a local social network as one formed by a focal seller, her directly connected users and all links among these users. Using data from a large social commerce website in China, the authors build econometric models to investigate how the density, grouping and centralization of local social networks affect the number of likes received by products posted by sellers.

Local social networks with low density, grouping and centralization are associated with more likes on sellers’ posted products. The negative effects of grouping and centralization are reduced when density is high.

The paper deepens the understanding of the determinants of social commerce success from a network structure perspective. In particular, it draws attention to the role of sellers’ local social networks, forming a foundation for future research on social commerce.

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relationship between individuals' developmental mentoring networks and a subjective career outcome, clarity of professional identity. How developmental network characteristics are related to professional identity over time is explored. Design/methodology/approach – This is a three‐wave, longitudinal survey study, covering a five‐year span (1996‐2001). The participants (n=136), full‐time MBA students at the inception of the study, provided complete developmental network data on each survey. The relationships between clarity of professional identity and three different measures of developmental network density were explored: early‐career density; general density; and density dynamics (e.g. the change in density over time). Findings – Developmental network density, which reflects the professional identity exploration process, is negatively related to clarity of professional identity. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited by the use of graduating MBA students from a single, top‐20 business school as participants. Practical implications – The findings suggest that people might be able to improve their careers through changing their developmental networks, particularly during their early‐career years. Originality/value – This paper provides novel insights to the mentoring, identity, and careers literatures. Given the previously uncharted territory of understanding the dynamics of developmental networks and its relationship to career outcomes, this study opens avenues for future research, while also answering questions about developmental networks and the ways they function over time.

The purpose of this present study is to investigate how opinion leaders' responsiveness to social influence varies with network positions (i.e. degree centrality and brokerage) and network density in new product diffusion networks.

This study collected data based on a sociometric network survey. Hierarchical moderated regression and hierarchical linear modeling analyses were used to test the moderating effects of degree centrality, brokerage and density on the relationship between opinion leadership and susceptibility to social influence.

This study documents the significant moderating roles of network positions and network density in the relationship between individual influence (i.e. opinion leadership) and susceptibility to social influence. Interestingly, this study shows that the significant moderating effects of degree centrality and brokerage hold for opinion leaders' responsiveness to informational social influence, whereas that of network density holds for opinion leaders' responsiveness to normative social influence.

This research sheds light on the network structural characteristics under which opinion leaders would be differentially responsive to social influence (i.e. informational and normative influence) from others.

This research provides marketing managers with insights into leveraging social influence by activating opinion leaders through existing network ties in new product diffusion networks.

Although opinion leaders are generally less susceptible to social influence from others than nonleaders, this research finds that, under certain network conditions, opinion leaders would be equally responsive to social influence from their peers.

The purpose of this paper is to extend prior supply chain research by describing the process of innovation knowledge increase in supply chain network. More specifically, this study investigates the role of network density, and views the knowledge increase as the process of knowledge diffusion and knowledge innovation.

A multi-agent model, which demonstrates the process of knowledge increase in supply chain network, was established, and simulated by using NetLogo simulation platform.

The results indicate that the network density will promote the knowledge increase of the supply chain when it is high or low. In the meantime, these results show that the inhibition of knowledge diffusion and knowledge innovation will appear when network density is moderate.

Although previous research has identified the importance of knowledge increase in promoting sustainable development of supply chain, far less attention was given to the study of the effect of network structure on the knowledge increase in supply chain. This study thus fulfills the research gap by providing a description of the process of knowledge increase with the consideration of network density. The conclusion is of great significance for the choice of network density for sustainable development of supply chain.

This study aims to examine the underlying mechanism of buyer–seller ties and salespeople’s performance. Also examined was the moderating effects of the density of the customer network in which the salesperson is embedded.

The study developed a framework incorporating five key variables: strength of ties, network benefits, network density, sales effectiveness and sales revenue. The framework was tested using data from insurance companies in China.

Process regression and stepwise regression results indicated that information, influence and solidarity benefit will mediate the effects of strength of ties on sales effectiveness both when taken as a set and separately. Information, influence and solidarity benefit will mediate the effects of strength of ties on sales revenue when taken as a set, but only influence will mediate the effect separately. In addition, the positive relationship between strength of ties and solidarity benefit is weaker when network density is high.

Sales managers should initiate trainings and workshops about how to obtain high-quality information from customers, improving influencing power and establishing solidarity with customers. Moreover, salespeople should avoid conducting business with a group of customers if they are densely connected to one another.

On the one hand, this study contributes to the underlying mechanism research on buyer–seller ties and sales performance. On the other hand, it contributes to the contingency research on sales performance and the development of social network theory.

Innovativeness is a critical aspect for the survival and success of the company in the long term. The purpose of this paper is to study how the density of the network in which the company is immersed influences the relationship between environment, dynamism and innovativeness. More specifically, the authors analyse whether the network density acts in a heterogeneous way, worsening or improving the effects of technological and market dynamism on innovativeness, respectively.

The empirical study was conducted on a sample of 292 companies in the agri-food industry in Spain. In order to test the proposed model, the authors used partial least squares.

The results show that technological dynamism has a positive effect on the generation and development of a firm’s innovativeness. However, market dynamism does not influence innovativeness. The authors also observe that the interactive effects between network density and dynamism are significant, but in a divergent way. Whereas the interactive effect between density and technological dynamism is negative, the interaction between density and market dynamism is positive.

The main contribution of the study is to show how the level of network density alters the effect of technological and market dynamism on innovativeness. The authors highlight the relevance of network theory to explain the contextual background to innovativeness. The authors also stress the importance of differentiating between the market and technological components of dynamism to further elucidate their effects.

In today’s ever-increasing context of volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous market conditions, the shifts of countries’ protectionist policies toward inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and an increased gap between headquarters’ (HQ) and subsidiaries’ perspectives on what makes business sense, it has become apparent that challenges toward foreign expansion are becoming more severe and require a multidimensional dynamic approach. The authors draw from orchestration theory, dynamic capabilities literature and previous literature on dimensions of internationalization [specifically, density, geographic distance and degree of diversity of the multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiary network] to argue that firms must enhance their orchestration capability. In doing so, this study aims to highlight the nuances of orchestrating a three-dimensional (3D) conceptualization of MNCs’ international configurations.

The authors analyzed the patterns of configurations that are adopted by MNCs. This sample was made up of the international configuration of 78 Fortune 500 MNCs consisting of 3,318 foreign subsidiaries. Furthermore, the authors examined the impact of different configurations of the 3Ds on firm performance using ordinary least squares regression analysis.

While the research did indicate that the sample MNCs adopted the sample configurations of the three internationalization dimensions more frequently than others, the authors found that orchestrating MNCs with an international configuration characterized by high density, low geographic distance and low internetwork scope diversity had a positive impact on firm performance.

While international expansion is often motivated by financial performance or market/resource gains, it is also impacted by the firm’s dynamic capability profile. Thus, as MNCs seek to continue to expand globally, they must assess and, if needed, develop their management team’s orchestration capability, which includes effectively determining how the addition or removal of a subsidiary will impact the density, geographic distance and diversity dynamics of the MNC’s international configuration. Finally, the management team needs to be able to devise plans to respond to the potential challenges associated with each of these dimensions.

The contribution of this study includes bringing a dynamic capabilities lens to the extant international business literature examining the multinationality and performance relationship by highlighting the importance of an MNC’s process orchestrating capability that is needed for firms to effectively manage increasingly complex subsidiary networks. It also conceptually explains and empirically supports that some configurations are likely to yield higher returns than others, which can act as a guide for firms as they are seeking to expand in more geographically distant as well as diverse sectors. Furthermore, this study highlights the need for a multidimensional simultaneous approach to the examination of internationalization to performance relationship. Finally, it highlights the tradeoffs that MNCs must address across the orchestration of the three internationalization dimensions using a dynamic capabilities theoretical lens that acknowledges the differences in perspective that exist between HQs and subsidiaries.

Traffic density is one of the most important parameters to consider in the traffic operation field. Owing to limited data sources, traditional methods cannot extract traffic density directly. In the vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) environment, the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) interaction technologies create better conditions for collecting the whole time-space and refined traffic data, which provides a new approach to solving this problem.

On that basis, a real-time traffic density extraction method has been proposed, including lane density, segment density and network density. Meanwhile, using SUMO and OMNet++ as traffic simulator and network simulator, respectively, the Veins framework as middleware and the two-way coupling VANET simulation platform was constructed.

Based on the simulation platform, a simulated intersection in Shanghai was developed to investigate the adaptability of the model.

Most research studies use separate simulation methods, importing trace data obtained by using from the simulation software to the communication simulation software. In this paper, the tight coupling simulation method is applied. Using real-time data and history data, the research focuses on the establishment and validation of the traffic density extraction model.

Purpose – Structural embeddedness of social networks within and beyond work organizations has shown its association with the innovation at work for employees from literature. Structural embeddedness includes three dimensions: the diversity, density, and trust of accessed networks. This chapter attempts to compare how structural embeddedness mechanizes on innovation at work differently for employees in hi-tech and non-hi-tech sectors.Methodology/approach – We analyzed 1,817 cases of currently employed respondents from the 2005 Taiwan national survey on social capital. All the indicators on structural embeddedness are operationalized from position-generated networks, and we performed regression models for total, hi-tech, and non-hi-tech samples.Findings – Except the universal effects of diversity on innovation at work for employees in both hi-tech and non-hi-tech sectors, density and trust of accessed networks significantly affect innovation at work only for employees in non-hi-tech sectors. There is a slight interaction effect between trust and density on innovation at workplaces. Those individuals with high-degree trust in accessed networks tend to have a lower degree of innovation while their network density is high. It implies that complementary networks seem to be more useful for applying new ideas at the workplace for non-hi-tech workers.Originality/value of chapter – This chapter contributes to the literature by presenting the importance of structural embeddedness of accessed social networks for innovation at work.

The consulting team intervenes in the integrated construction consulting (ICC) network structure centered on “client-contractor-consultant.” Team boundary-spanning behavior (TBB) driven by the network structure is crucial to project performance. This article investigated how to stimulate the consulting project performance (CPP) improvement by considering the interactive effect of network structure and TBB. To be specific, this paper explored the configuration between structural characteristics of project networks, the dimension of TBB, and project performance in ICC projects.

Network density and centrality were used to reflect network structure. This study collected 216 valid responses from construction professionals (including project managers, department managers, and project engineers) via a questionnaire survey and analyzed the data using fsQCA.

Combining with the corresponding typical project case and analysis, the results concluded four types of configurations for achieving high performance in the ICC projects. Meanwhile, network centrality, density, ambassadorial behavior, coordination behavior, and detection behavior significantly impact high consulting project performance. Matching ICC network characteristics with the TBB is important. There are also three low performance configurations for the ICC projects. Low performance state also occurs when network centrality or density and coordination behavior is simultaneously low. Only the right match between the network characteristics and TBB can produce high consulting project performance.

The network centrality and density, the implementation of TBB vary, and the paths to achieve high consulting project performance are different. Clients, ICC projects, and consulting teams should choose the appropriate development paths according to the actual situation. (1) Clients should commit to applying the ICC project model with high network centrality, density, and coordination behavior of ICC enterprises to promote project performance. (2) Consulting enterprises should carry out ICC business based on detecting behavior and coordinating behavior. (3) The market should cultivate head consulting enterprises with independence and integration, and bring into play the effectiveness of consulting team ambassadorial behavior.

Comparing the results of the four high CPP configurations, the network structure characteristics are essential, which means that in the Chinese consulting practice between the owner and the consulting firm pay attention to the use of appropriate ICC organizational structure model and arrange the degree of centralization of authorized responsibilities. Coordination behavior is necessary to achieve high CPP. Therefore, Chinese consulting firms should pay attention to effective communication and exchange with project contractors in order to get high CPP in conducting business; meanwhile, enabling behavior can achieve high CPP both in the presence and absence of configuration H1 and H4, which indicates that enabling behavior has substitution effect. Comparing the three low CPP configurations also contrarily confirms the indispensability of coordinating behavior. Comparing the results of high and low CPP configurations, the TBB is seriously missing and not properly applied in CPP enhancement. In detail, Chinese consulting firms have been regarded as independent third parties providing services, and less attention has been paid to the TBB of Chinese consulting firms in past practice, thus leading to the dilemma of inadequate empowerment of consulting firms due to their unclear status. To solve this dilemma, the findings of this paper offer a solution at the micro level to change the previous perception of consulting and demonstrate that Chinese consulting practice needs to pay attention to TBB with owners and contractors, and apply it well to enhance the reputation, management consulting level and capability, and experience and expertise of consulting firms to achieve high CPP.

The research results changed from the previous bilateral project governance to a new perspective of network embedding. It provided a theoretical basis for the improvement path of high consulting project performance, as well as providing ideas for clients on the organizational design of ICC projects. On the other hand, it provided a practical reference for TBB positioning of ICC enterprises for transformation and upgrading development.