Intraorganizational Network Dynamics: Past Progress, Current Challenges, and New Frontiers

Social networks are dynamic by nature. While network research has typically treated relationships between social actors as static, there has been a surge in literature extending a dynamic lens to intraorganizational networks. Critically, there is no comprehensive and systematic review of intraorganizational network dynamics studies. Moreover, the field lacks programmatic coherence, clear and consistent terminology, and methodological clarity. This review attempts to resolve these issues. To foster a common language, we provide an integrative definition and clarify the scope of intraorganizational network dynamics. This allows us to distinguish four domains of dynamic network theorizing. Building on this, we develop an encompassing framework that maps the multiple facets of this literature and apply it to organize our summary and synthesis. We then take a bird’s-eye view of the full body of research and discuss four foundational areas in which network dynamics research can be conceptually and methodologically extended. We end by elaborating on the issue of interdependence in network data and providing an overview of leading statistical approaches for modeling longitudinal network data that explicitly account for dependence among observations. We see this review as an entry point for researchers interested in intraorganizational network dynamics and as a way to spark new scholarship on questions that remain open in this literature.