Research for this paper was partially supported by research grants from Boston College and the Boston CollegeCarroll School of Management. The authors would like to thank Barbara Davidson for her research assistance. The authors are indebted to Martin Kilduff, Ron Rice, several anonymous ASQ reviewers, ASQ Associate Editor Reed Nelson, and ASQ Managing Editor Linda Johanson for their insightful advice and comments.This study uses social movement concepts to explain the success and failure of actors in a network of relationships trying to influence policies on environmental issues in a small city. Results show that strategies to take action and mobilize others in a network of interorganizational relationships can vary depending on the social context, which consists of the political opportunity structure defined by government regulators, whether the actor faces opposition, and the actor's position in the network. Decisions to engage in strategies to try to influence government regulators directly, to use a broker to reach agreements with the opposition, or to form a coalition with actors in other organizations to influence government decision makers are affected by this social context. Results also show that even peripheral actors, usually assumed to be powerless in network studies, can influence policy if they use a direct-contact strategy and the political opportunity structure is favorable.0 Increasingly, studying networks has become an accepted way of understanding organizational life. Researchers have studied the networks of actors in the informal structure within organizations and have found, among other things, that connections to others in networks have effects on turnover (Krackhardt and Porter, 1985), power (Brass, 1984), and the adoption of innovations (Burkhardt and Brass, 1990). The network perspective has also been used to study relationships between organizations. We have become aware that economic relationships between organizations are embedded in networks of social relationships (Granovetter, 1985; Uzzi, 1997), many organizational activities now take place in joint ventures and alliances (Miles and Snow, 1986; Jones, Hesterly, and Borgatti, 1997), communities take action through interorganizational networks (Laumann, Galaskiewicz, and Marsden, 1978; Galaskiewicz, 1989), and public policies at the local (Laumann and Pappi, 1976) and the national levels (Laumann and Knoke, 1989) are negotiated through interorganizational networks of businesses, government agencies, interest groups, and lobbyists. Nevertheless, research on networks has, by and large, failed to connect the actions of individuals to their network position (Galaskiewicz, 1985;Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1994). Although a number of studies have established that a central network position for an individual or an organization is correlated with influence in a network of relationships (e.g., Brass, 1984), we do not know how these centrally located people use or do not use their influence in social situations. We do not know the strategies of act...

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It is often assumed that directors with human capital such as prior management experience or independence from the company are the most influential board members. By contrast, in a survey of all the board members in 14 companies we found that ties to others in a network of strong ties among those who meet outside of board meetings were more important predictors of social influence than human capital or ties across boards. These ties within the board represent the social capital of members in the form of prior relationships with other directors, ties to others on the board, and membership in cliques within the board's network of ties. These results support a social capital perspective on influence that emphasizes relationships with others on the board as important factors in the social dynamics of board decision-making. Copyright (c) Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2008.

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