My central research interest is in knowledge and the social processes involved in its application and transfer. I have developed an allied interest in social network theory particularly as it impacts knowledge flows, learning and innovation. Knowledge recombination, the subject of my paper with Galunic (1998), deals with the question of the knowledge associated with a firm's competencies, and in particular, how this knowledge may be recombined to create novel and potentially income generating new competencies. My dissertation research sought to understand from a network perspective how the distribution of knowledge in a social network influences managerial performance and innovativeness. The results suggest that knowledge heterogeneity leads to both higher managerial performance and greater innovativeness (Rodan & Galunic 2004). I am currently at work on another paper using the same data in which I show that innovation and creativity rather than arbitrage or competition are at the root of the performance-network structure relationship found in prior studies and that innovation and creativity fully mediate the structure performance relationship.

Knowledge flows and the impact of both individual and firm level attributes was the subject of my simulation work extending March's 1991 model of organizational learning (Rodan 2005). I am also working on simulations exploring the behavioral implications of structural holes theory on organizational learning; the first paper in this area appeared in Computational and Mathematical Sociology in 2008. My simulation work with McFarland (Sociology of Education, forthcoming) investigates the relative contribution of institutional, social and cognitive process in career decision-making in schools, the results of which are compared to observed mobility patterns.