Non-Formal Social Ties as Threat to the Implementation of Innovations

Abstract

This paper aims to provide novel insights about the barrier associated with organizational development, namely, resistance to new management practices implementation which emerges from tightly knit social networks – the “blat”. We follow claims for more empirical studies as we provide Social Network Analysis to present a real-life study of how blat networks of operational management lead to the failure of digital transformation attempt at the Russian metallurgical enterprise. We analyzed underlying forces, but deliberately stayed away from developing theories from our case. The close association with CEO allowed us to benefit from the rich and deep “local knowledge” and present case that provided valuable insights into different forms of behavior of line management and the social dynamics at the time of digital transformation attempt.