Digital Relationships: Network Agency Theory and Big Tech

Why do so many organizations fail to mobilize the social networks of employees to respond to disruptions, innovate, and change? In Digital Relationships, the author argues that individual and organizational interests about networking can come out of alignment such that the network ties that individuals form are organizationally sub-optimal for achieving their most ambitious goals. Developing a new perspective about networks and organizations, the author explains through network agency theory how network problems emerge, the role of digital technology adoption by organizations in amplifying misalignment, and the capacity of managers and function of the executive to resolve agency problems and mitigate their impact. Drawing on over a decade of qualitative research in US, Asian, and European "big tech" companies and new analytical and computational modeling, this book offers new interpretations and solutions to the pathologies that emerge from organizationally detrimental networking behaviors and in the face of managerial interventions.