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 influences managerial performance and innovativeness. The results suggest that knowledge heterogeneity in networks 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 are at the root of the performance-network structure relationship found in prior studies and 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 currently working on a simulation to explore the behavioral implications of Structural Hole theory on organizational learning. My work with McFarland 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.