Companies to communicate and to work on the huge social and geographical spaces. So, to share valuable knowledge and transmitted through these spaces is important to create and maintain a healthy culture of innovation. To facilitate this, managers need to look beyond the formal organizational structures in the informal network of connections and relationships that make up the staff for all functions and departments. Through his research, IESE Prof. Marco Tortoriello has identified a number of strategies aimed at strengthening these informal networks. The first step is to establish a boundary spanning operations, which means that the identification of people within the organization who have the right set of features to serve as conduits for the transfer of knowledge within and between departments. Further, a wide network of communication should be developed to support the border covering results. This means ensuring that the bonds between the informal networks of the company are strong enough and the corresponding range to send vital knowledge between units. By far the most important step involves creating a "best" network conditions that will support the transfer of knowledge between different parts of the organization, which can help to improve the conditions for innovation. "Hide
by Marco Tortoriello Source: IESE-Insight Magazine 8 pages. Publication Date: December 15, 2012. Prod. #: IIR089-PDF-ENG
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