Special Issue on Social Networks and Organization Studies: Where to head for?

The importance of the expression “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know that counts!” is now becoming more evident than ever in the organizational settings. The globalization and the transformations of markets in general have been showing that interpersonal and social relations are fundamental to gain a competitive advantage more than other organizational or business asset. In addition, traditional approaches have been insufficient to understand and predict human behaviour both at individual, team and organizational level, due to the complex interpersonal dynamics that rule organizations.    

Social Networks have received much attention from researchers from different fields over the last years, including Biology, Psychology, Maths, Economy, Computational Sciences, Political Science, among others. In the management field, the grow of publication in the last 50 years has been exponentially (Borgatti & Foster, 2003). This boom in social network research is probably related to the shift from an atomistic, individualist and essentialist view of human relations to a more structuralist, relational, contextual and systemic view.  However, this increase has not yet fully leveraged the contribution of organizational studies to the understanding of social networks in the organizational setting.

Accordingly, the purpose of this special issue is to ask for papers that present theoretical, conceptual and empirical research concerning social networks applied to organization studies. Both quantitative (e.g., cross-sectional; prospective) and qualitative studies are of interest. Theoretical and/or methodological contributions will also be considered.

Topics can include, but are not limited to

• Inter-organizational networks
• Group network structures
• Leadership
• Positive relations in social networks
• Social media
• Contagion through social networks
• Collaborative work in virtual environments
• Effectiveness of social networks
• Innovation generation and social networks
• Trust in social networks
• Team performance and social networks

Authors should read over the journal’s Author’s Guidelines carefully before submission, Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Paper Submission System.

Please kindly notice that the “Special Issue’’ under your manuscript title is supposed to be specified and the research field “Special Issue — Social Networks and Organization Studies: Where to head for?” should be chosen during your submission.

According to the following timetable:

Special Issue Editor

Guest Editors:

André Escórcio Soares, Polytechnic Institute of Tomar

Miguel Pereira Lopes, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa

For further questions or inquiries

Please contact Editorial Assistant at

sn@scirp.org