Social Networks, the Tertius Iungens Orientation, and Involvement in Innovation

This study introduces the tertius iungens orientation, a strategic, behavioral orientation toward connecting people in one's social network by either introducing disconnected individuals or facilitating new coordination between connected individuals. The tertius iungens mechanism contrasts with the tertius gaudens mechanism emphasized in structural holes theory that concerns the advantage of a broker who can play people off against one another for his or her own benefit. A multi-method study finds that a tertius iungens orientation, dense social networks, and diverse social knowledge predict involvement in innovation. Tertius iungens activity is examined as a social mechanism central to the combinative activity at the root of innovation within the firm. Innovation is crucial to organizational growth and competitiveness (Schumpeter, 1942; Van de Ven, 1986; Tushman and Moore, 1988; Jelinek and Schoonhoven, 1990) and has attracted an extraordinary amount of research. Key managerial questions about the innovation process and how it happens remain unanswered. Van de Ven and Rogers (1988: 648), citing Coleman’s pioneering work on mechanisms, suggest that specification of mechanisms is the first requirement for a theory of innovation: [The theory] should explain how structure and individual purposive action are linked at micro and macro levels of analysis. The dominant paradigm of social science rests on the firm belief that any macro theory of organizational innovation must be grounded in the purposive actions and ambitions of individuals (Coleman, 1986). The importance of specifying the social processes associated with innovation is identified in the renewed emphasis in social theory on mechanism-based theorizing (Hedstrom & Swedberg, 1998). 2 According to Hernes, “A mechanism is not so much about ‘nuts and bolts’ as about ‘cogs and wheels’... -the wheelwork or agency by which an effect is produced” (1998: 74). The champion literature (e.g., Schon, 1963; Howell & Higgins, 1990; Day, 1994) illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of innovation research in the absence of a mechanism orientation. This literature illuminates how advocacy is often critical to innovation but often confounds individual champion roles with social processes. The wide variety of fixed role categories (e.g., idea generators, champions, gatekeepers, boundary spanners, sponsors, coaches, and mentors), with often overlapping or contradictory specifications (Howell & Higgins, 1990), often obscure potentially common processes of advocacy. An emphasis on social process redirects our 2 Hedstrom and Swedberg explicitly identify Simmel’s tertius gaudens, to which the tertius iungens is meant as an alternative, as an example of a mechanism.