Seite - (000022) - in Knowledge and Networks

10 exceptionally complex interdependencies (e.g., functional, epistemic, normative, emotional) in sophisticated ways at different levels simultaneously. Actors thus face multiple dilemmas of collective action. Without this multilevel coordination between individuals, between organizations, and between individuals and organiza- tions, neither individuals nor organizations can access or mobilize on their own all the resources that are needed to produce, compete, and survive. Collective learning and knowledge-building are heavily dependent on the exis- tence of such superimposed levels of agency, each of them characterized by hori- zontal interdependencies that sociologists can examine as sets of local social systems. Interpersonal interdependencies consist of individuals tied together within or across organizations through cowork, advice, friendship, and the rules that orga- nize their social exchanges. The content of these relationships varies. This level of agency is different from that of the organizations to which these same individuals are affiliated. Interorganizational interdependencies are created most often by con- tractual agreements between organizations specifying the contributions, rights, and responsibilities of each organization in the pursuit of a particular objective, but they also depend on the existence of institutions that guarantee the credibility of those contractual agreements. Economic, contracting activity has been shown, for instance, to depend heavily on collective learning and knowledge-building at the interpersonal level (Brailly et al., 2016a, 2016b). Cross-level interactions between individuals and organizations as well as reliance on collective learning built into such cross-level interactions are vital in the organizational society. In a multilevel context where each level has its own temporality, synchronization costs are efforts— made by individuals and by organizations in very asymmetrical ways—to keep pace with each other by reshaping a structure of opportunity and constraints. Given this complexity, geography’s focus on the spatiality of knowledge creation is crucial to social sciences that need the dynamics of multilevel structures to understand current organizational societies. Enhancing the Conversation This book intends to open the floor for engaged conversation between topographies and topologies of knowledge. As the brief appraisal of these different lines of research suggests, the empirical evidence of the association between geography, networks, and knowledge is still inconclusive. To some scholars, geography appears to be a force; to others, a moderator. To still others it is only an indirect factor medi- ated by more important factors such as connectivity. These empirical contingencies may be consequences of the variety and incomparability of methodologies and mea- sures as well as of the kinds of knowledge and networks observed. Whereas geog- raphy is often observed either as a binary (inside/outside a region) or as a measure of geometric distance, network relations and the types of knowledge and relations vary widely. Relations in networks range from informal to contractual relationships and from individual to organizational levels. New knowledge is usually measured as J. Glückler et al.