Organizations typically employ a division of labor between specialist creator roles and generalist business roles in a bid to orchestrate innovation. We seek to determine the extent to which individuals dividing the work across roles can also benefit from dividing their network. We argue that collaborating individuals benefit from connecting to the same groups but different individuals within those groups—an approach we label dual networking—rather than from a pure divide-and-conquer approach. To test this argument, we study a dual career-ladder setting in a large multinational in which R&D managers and technologists partner up in their quest for innovation. We find that collaborators who engage in dual networking attain an innovation performance advantage over those who connect to distinct groups. This advantage stems from the opportunity to engage in the dual interpretation of input the partners receive, as well as from dual influencing that helps them to gain momentum for their proposed innovations, and it leads to more effective elaboration and championing of their ideas. In demonstrating these effects, we advance understanding of how collaborators organize their networking activities to best achieve innovative outcomes.

中文翻译：

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双重网络：合作者如何在寻求创新的过程中建立网络

组织通常在专业创造者角色和通才业务角色之间进行分工，以协调创新。我们试图确定将工作划分为不同角色的个人在多大程度上也可以从划分他们的网络中受益。我们认为，协作个人受益于连接到相同的群体但这些群体中的不同个体——我们称之为双重网络的方法——而不是纯粹的分而治之的方法。为了验证这一论点，我们研究了一家大型跨国公司的双重职业阶梯环境，在该环境中，研发经理和技术人员合作寻求创新。我们发现，与连接到不同群体的合作者相比，参与双重网络的合作者获得了创新绩效优势。这种优势源于对合作伙伴收到的输入进行双重解释的机会，以及双重影响，帮助他们为提议的创新获得动力，从而更有效地阐述和支持他们的想法。在展示这些影响时，我们加深了对合作者如何组织他们的网络活动以最好地实现创新成果的理解。