Social Network Position and Its Relationship to Performance of IT Professionals

An important informing channel for information technology professionals and other knowledge workers is their social networks. Taking the perspective of the transdisciplinary social capital theory, this study explores the relationship between information technology professionals’ social network positions and job performance. We operationalized their network positions as their network constraint, i.e., inability to bridge structural holes in social networks. Social network analysis on data collected from information technology professionals at a large defense company revealed a network woven by 371 people. Logistic regression results showed a significant, inverse relationship between performance and constraint. Therefore, network constraint appears to be an informer/client characteristic that influences his/her ability to take advantage of social networks as an informing channel and to improve performance.