The collaborative organization: How to make employee networks really work

MIT Sloan Management Review

Volumn 52, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 83-90

  Cross, Rob ^a,b   Gray, Peter ^c   Cunningham, Shirley ^d   Showers, Mark ^e   Thomas, Robert J ^f  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

^b GRENOBLE ECOLE DE MANAGEMENT   (France)

^c McIntire School   (United States)

^d MONSANTO COMPANY   (United States)

^e Reinsurance Group of America Inc   (United States)

^f ACCENTURE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79952391731     PISSN: 15329194     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. "Making the Difference: The 2008 CIO Agenda", survey, Gartner Executive Programs, January 2008.
2. R. L. Cross, R. D. Martin and L. M. Weiss, "Mapping the Value of Employee Collaboration", McKinsey Quarterly 3 (August 2006):29-41;
3. R. Cross, J. Liedtka and L. Weiss, "A Practical Guide to Social Networks", Harvard Business Review 83, no. 3 (March 2005):124-132; (Pubitemid 40345892)
4. and R. Cross and R. J. Thomas, "Driving Results Through Social Networks: How Top Organizations Leverage Networks for Performance and Growth" (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
5. "Creating Enterprise Leverage: The 2007 CIO Agenda", cited by B. Burton, in " Justifying Emerging Technologies to Business Leaders" (presentation at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2007, Sydney, Australia, November 20-23, 2007).
6. "The McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives, July 2005", McKinsey Quarterly, July 2005, www.mckinseyquarterly.com/links/22581.
7. R. Cross, T. Laseter, A. Parker and G. Velasquez, "Using Social Network Analysis to Improve Communities of Practice", California Management Review 49, no. 1 (fall 2006):32-60. (Pubitemid 44917126)
8. Interestingly, junior employees placed on virtual teams were sought out by their colleagues more frequently than senior employees who were not on a virtual team. Monsanto leadership came to see virtual team membership as an important on-boarding and development vehicle. With recent shifts in IT human resources management away from a recruiting-based "war for talent" and toward a retention-based model that must fast-track high performers and weed out low performers, anything that can effectively decrease time to productivity and help junior employees build and demonstrate their capabilities is likely to be valuable.
9. Energizing ties were based on employees' response to the question: How do interactions with this person typically affect your energy level? (Response could be positive, neutral or negative.) See R. Cross, W. Barker and A. Parker, "What Creates Energy in Organizations", MIT Sloan Management Review 44, no. 4 (summer 2003):51-56.
10. A. B. Hargadon, "Firms as Knowledge Brokers: Lessons in Pursuing Continuous Innovation", California Management Review 40, no. 3 (spring 1998):209-227.