Thanks so much for your comment!

You are so right– the rhetoric involved in conversations about networks obscures the real challenges that networked structures pose. It’s an interesting case of conceptual inversion– if power = bureaucracy = hierarchy, and hierarchy is the opposite of networks, then networks have no bureaucracy and no power issues. But people forget that the transitive property works better in algebra than it does in human social systems.

Do you know of any work (or have you done some yourself?) that sets out the specific power-related challenges of a network structure, in a really simple way?
cv

Second, a flattened organization that devolves decision-making without appropriate information sharing and mechanisms for interacting can produce a lot MORE conflict. Right? If lots of teams and groups are jockeying for key information or organizational resources, or merely muddling through unstructured problems, then we might see more conflict. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but some may imagine that network organization rhetoric implies a seamless kind of collective mind and coordination.

Third, lots of network theorists, like me, :<), and Castells, are quite explicit that viewing the world as networks does not sublimate or dissolve power. The opposite: networks have their own "programs" that dictate inclusion or exclusion. Whoever writes or inserts the code has power. In the case of your networked organization, it may be the managers (or the nebulous "market") who have the power to determine what the network values and hence who is in or out of the network.