Network Centrality, Power, and Innovation Involvement: Determinants of Technical and Administrative Roles

Abstract

The reported research investigated the relative impacts of individual attributes, formal position, and network centrality on the exercise of individual power, measured as involvement in technical and administrative innovations. Centrality was more important for administrative innovation roles, and rank and centrality were indistinguishable in their effects on technical innovation roles. Centrality also appeared to mediate the impact of individual attributes and formal position on administrative innovation roles to a greater extent than it mediated their impact on technical roles. Results suggest that an organization's informal structure may be more critical than its formal structure when the exercise of power requires extensive boundary spanning and that sources of power have both general and innovation-specific effects.