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Don't Talk to Strangers? Technology-enabled Relational Strategies and Value Creation

2015; Academy of Management; Volume: 2015; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5465/ambpp.2015.31

2376-7197

Forrest Briscoe, Marion Brivot, Wenpin Tsai,

Complex Systems and Decision Making

Technologies such as knowledge-sharing systems open up access to knowledge that was previously unavailable to organizational members, but they may also disrupt or alter established social structures. In this research, we investigate how technology use and collaboration together shape value creation outcomes in a large law firm. Drawing on qualitative data in our research setting, we identify three technology-enabled relational strategies that capture the ways managers make changes in their relationships after using the new technology. We then test the effects of those strategies on managers’ value creation outcomes. We measure technology use with data on document downloading through the new technology, and combine that with network collaboration data constructed from project co- participation. We find that all three hypothesized strategies affect value creation based on individuals’ client revenue generation. However, contrary to our expectations, technology-enabled new tie formation significantly decreases value creation, while technology-enabled network closure and technology-enabled network adjustment both increase value creation as expected. We further find that the closure strategy is most beneficial for managers with low centrality, while the new-tie strategy is less negative for managers of high centrality.