Research – Weak Ties and Innovation

Resource Type
Presentation
Publish Date
10/12/2015
Authors
Natalie Schoch, Len Huskey, Andrew Maxwell, Robert McNamee
Topics
Alliances and Collaborations, Leading Innovation Organizations
Associated Event
2015 Member Summit

2013 – 2015

This ROR examined organizational or social networking factors facilitating the connection of weak ties to drive innovation, particularly ways that trust can be developed quickly. The project team executed a series of survey-based network and innovation studies. In addition, it ran a series of workshops looking at trust development in organizations. Trust is a critical element to enabling weak ties to be powerful sources of innovation.

The concept of weak ties is one of the most influential sociological concepts in the last 40 years. Weak ties refer to people we don’t see frequently, those that we know only through referrals from others, or those that we share some affiliations with but with whom we have not built relationships. Although strong ties are quite good at facilitating the exchange of knowledge because levels of trust/engagement and shared understanding are high, these relationships also frequently possess largely redundant knowledge. Weak ties in contrast are more likely to offer novel knowledge and thus may be more important to creativity and certain phases of innovation. 

  • Why weak ties are increasingly important in driving innovation
  • Importance of developing trusting relationship with weak ties
  • How do you make trade-offs between trust and control
  • Building interpersonal, organizational and industry level trust

Links

2015 Member Summit Report Out