No abstract

While previous research has investigated structural hole positions through single-level models, describing their positive effects, this article elaborates a multilevel model and supports an antithetical position, revealing a dark side of structural holes. Although individual-level structural holes are supposed to exercise positive effects, it is theorized that group-level mean and grouplevel variance in structural hole positions are negatively associated with individual outcomes. The argument that justifies the aforementioned negative association is that the individualistic, competitive, manipulative and power-oriented behaviors of employees occupying structural hole positions may be beneficial when considering independent individuals, but, instead, they create frictions and problems when it comes to group functioning and group climate. This article provides evidence that group composition variables exercise a constraining effect on individuals, making them perceive less autonomy, and negatively affect satisfaction and performance. Findings provide support for the multilevel nature of networks and for the opposite causal mechanisms activated by structural holes at different levels of analysis.

Because job crafting research proposes that individuals alter jobs on their own, there is an open debate on how others influence an individual’s job crafting. Whereas previous research has recognized that incumbents engage in job crafting depending on the characteristics of their own job, this study shows that job crafting depends on the job characteristics of the incumbents’ network contacts, meaning all employees in the organization with whom the incumbents frequently communicate about task-related issues. Applying role theory, the article theorizes that network contacts act as role senders who affect job crafting because they communicate role expectations that vary as a function of their own task activities. Key empirical findings show that contacts’ autonomy and contacts’ feedback from the job positively affect job crafting, whereas contacts’ task significance exercises a negative effect. The findings further show that the effect of job crafting on performance depends on the central position occupied by the incumbent in the network of relationships. When designing jobs, managers should therefore not only consider the tasks of each single incumbent but also the tasks of the people connected to him or her.

In this study, the authors investigate how network relations affect project performance through creativity. They challenge previous conceptualizations of creativity by proposing the idea that creative outcomes in project industries can be conceptualized as deviation from past projects and deviation from partners' projects. While previous research has mostly assumed that network relations are beneficial to performance because they increase innovation and creativity, this conceptualization of creativity reveals different empirical regularities. The authors show that network relations are likely to exercise both positive and negative effects on creativity and that creativity is also likely to exercise both positive and negative effects on performance. In addition, networks show both convergent and divergent effects on the two dimensions of creativity. The findings show that network relations activate important trade-offs that organizations must consider in their strategic choices and open up research on the social side of creativity.