Upcoming network talk

Post date: Jan 20, 2013 10:28:55 PM

Please join us this Thursday (Jan 24 at 1:30 in B&E 446) for a talk on political behavior, networks and innovation by Travis Grosser. Thursday. Title and abstract below. Travis is an advanced graduate student in the Management Dept. and will be using this as practice for a job talk he will be giving in Hong Kong very soon, so please come and give him some comments.

Political behavior, communication devices, and individual innovation: A conditional indirect effects model.

This study examines the relationship between employee political behavior and individual employee innovation, which is defined as the generation, acceptance, and implementation of new ideas, processes, products, or services. Data included measures of each employee’s tendency to engage in political behavior and to use stories and metaphors in their work communications. Measures of employee innovation were captured through peer evaluations. Data were gathered from employees at a global product development company headquartered in the United States. One hundred and forty four employees involved in the firm’s innovation activities comprise the sample. Results were consistent with my hypothesized conceptual model in that political behavior positively affects innovation through an employee’s propensity to use stories and metaphors during workplace communications. This indirect was found to be conditional upon two moderators—employee perspective taking and social network centrality—such that the indirect effects model is strongest when each moderator is at a high level. In sum, these results shed new light on the political nature of innovation by demonstrating the key role played by communication devices, perspective taking, and network centrality.