Introduction

Networks are pervasive in social and economic life, and the concept itself has been used to describe a plethora of different phenomena. The multidisciplinary origins of network studies gave birth to one of the most prolific and transversal areas of research for its application to many fields as different as physics, biology, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, economics and management. The network approach, in fact, “allows researchers to capture interactions of any individual unit within the larger field of activity to which the unit belongs” (Kilduff & Tsai, 2003, p. 13). In this view, the network perspective offers a distinctive focus on social interactions that allow capturing the complexity of organizations and their micro, meso and macro social systems necessary to tackle some fundamental questions for management and organization scholars. The rich multidisciplinary approach that characterized the birth and life of network studies suggests that they have the potential to complement management studies in the analysis of an increasingly complex world, where challenges as important as the digital transformation, the sustainable development, and the international tensions in the political, social, health and safety domains are changing organizations and institutions. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.