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Structural vs. relational embeddedness: social capital and managerial performance
Author(s) -
Moran Peter
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
strategic management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 11.035
H-Index - 286
eISSN - 1097-0266
pISSN - 0143-2095
DOI - 10.1002/smj.486
Subject(s) - embeddedness , social capital , relational capital , business , product (mathematics) , resource (disambiguation) , industrial organization , structural equation modeling , value (mathematics) , capital (architecture) , sample (material) , quality (philosophy) , marketing , knowledge management , intellectual capital , sociology , computer science , social science , archaeology , finance , anthropology , history , computer network , philosophy , chemistry , geometry , mathematics , chromatography , epistemology , machine learning
This paper examines the impact of managers' social capital on managerial performance. Two dimensions of social capital are compared—the structural embeddedness (i.e., configuration) of a manager's network of work relations and the relational embeddedness (i.e., quality) of those relations. Based on a sample of 120 product and sales managers in a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical firm, this paper presents evidence indicating that both elements of social capital influence managerial performance, although in distinct ways: structural embeddedness plays a stronger role in explaining more routine, execution‐oriented tasks (managerial sales performance), whereas relational embeddedness plays a stronger role in explaining new, innovation‐oriented tasks (managerial performance in product and process innovation). This research considers resource exchanges within firms as key to value creating behaviors and contributes a deeper understanding of how social capital influences productive resource exchanges. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.