Social networks and novelty recognition: a review and research agenda

Novelty recognition is one of the most important processes in the journey of an idea from generation to implementation. Scholars have recently highlighted that social networks represent an important lens through which we can better understand novelty recognition – be it from creators, gatekeepers, or the field as a whole. A small yet growing niche of research has explicitly focused on the topic, trying to untangle relational and structural characteristics that could foster individuals’ ability to identify and select novel ideas. Moreover, more and more network-creativity research not empirically focusing on novelty recognition hinges on it as a key explanatory and theoretical mechanism. In this paper, we extend work in this area by adopting a more nuanced look at the idea journey that highlights three moments where novelty recognition happens. We illustrate how these three moments map onto three different set of judges (creators, gatekeepers, and the field), and onto three different models in network theory, and discuss the implications of this framework for extant research and future research.