Digital Relationships

Jason Davis is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD. His work has been published in top academic journals, such as the Administrative Science Quarterly, The American Economic Review, and the Strategic Management Journal.

"In this highly original volume, Jason Davis revisits the classic problem that individual and organizational goals typically diverge. He does so in the context of modern digital media that dramatically facilitate individuals' creation of network ties. When such networking is at cross-purposes to organizational well-being – as often happens when weak ties proliferate – managers badly need the ingenious advice that Davis offers."—Mark Granovetter, Joan Butler Ford Professor, Stanford University; author of Society and Economy: Framework and Principles "Rarely does a book come along that so completely rewrites what we thought we knew. Digital Relationships is just such a book. It's a 'must-read' for academics and executives who want to understand why social networks are so challenging. By probing the deepening chasm between individual and organizational interests, Digital Relationships will re-shape your conception of how social networks work. And more often, don't."—Kathleen Eisenhardt, S. W. Ascherman Professor, Stanford University; co-author of Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World "Digital Relationships, whose technology-focused title understates its broader implications, marshals an impressive combination of field observation and computational modeling to apply, examine, and elevate both theory and practice."—David Obstfeld, Administrative Science Quarterly

• 1. Networks are the Problem: Confronting the Social Capital Consensus2. Too Many Ties: Divergent Interests with the Falling Costs of Digital Networking3. Ties Too Weak: Insufficient Firm-Specific Social Investments to Mobilize Diversity4. Entrenched Brokers and Ossified Bridges: Monopolies of Information and Control5. Scale Too Free: Negative Externalities of Inequality in Social Capital6. Persistence: Managerial Intervention Transience and the Reemergence of Agency Problems7. Agentic Function of the Executive: Strategic Social Capital and the Work-From-Home Experiment8. Network Governance:ReinterpretingOrganizational Design and Boundaries9. Network Agency over the Life Cycle: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystems10. A Research Agenda: More Cases, More Models, More Experiments