Search

This paper examines the role of entrepreneurial networks in the context of women’s entrepreneurship in poverty. Using multi-method research design, we focus on the relationships between the interna...

This paper extends the theory of network effects by moving beyond the traditional treatment of the installed base of a technology as composed of “N” identical users, each having the same effect on ...

In this study we propose that another factor plays a role in explaining segregation in the American workplace: social structure. We examine the role of social networks on job search prospects for u...

Recent research suggests that people obtain complex, useful knowledge from other people with whom they work closely and frequently (i.e., strong ties). Yet there has been only limited systematic em...

Studies on the structure of alliance networks have explained how the formation, maintenance, and decay of local within cluster ties and shortcuts with semi-distant and distant organizations drive t...

This paper investigated the interrelationship between various dimensions of homophily as antecedents of tie formation in an Adhocracy. Exploring the general gap in the mobility studies, I investigate the co-mobility, or group transitions, between employees from a failed firm and treat them as instances of new tie formation. I use a unique, hand collected data on employees transitions after organizational failure and find that while the geographical homophily, or shared organizational loci, positively affects the likelihood of co-mobility between employees, the hierarchical homophily effects are not as salient. I further investigate the underlying mechanisms and find that strong ties between employees in an Adhocracy may be driving the results. Interestingly, employees from distant locations and in different hierarchical positions seem to have a higher likelihood of co-mobility which I explain with complementarities existing between employees in various geographical locations and based on market specializa...

Why do some networks perform better than others? Although strong ties have been shown to be beneficial for interorganizational activity at the dyadic level, we argue that this relationship may be m...

A study of 230 private colleges over 16 turbulent years supports two arguments: (1) Strong ties to other organizations mitigate uncertainty and promote adaptation by increasing communication and in...

Use of strong ties in entrepreneurial team formation is debated but not resolved. How does strength of tie between the founding entrepreneur and new entrepreneurial team member affect the team member’s performance? Our theoretical model illustrates the mediating role of resource flexibility: work role modification and potential to exit the working relationship. Data from German founding entrepreneurs on 170 entrepreneurial team members confirmed that strong ties increases role modification but reduces exit potential. Role modification improves team member’s performance, while exit potential has a negative effect. No relationship was found between strength of ties and resource flexibility for serial entrepreneurs.

The issue of network configuration has for long been debated in entrepreneurship. While the common view assumes that a heterogeneous network offers additional benefits to entrepreneurs, recent works have noted how contextual circumstances can motivate entrepreneurs to develop a homogeneous network. We pursue this issue further by uncovering how strong ties networks influence and shape entrepreneurial endeavours. Using an in-depth historical qualitative analysis of SEUR we demonstrate the dynamic interplay between social relationships embedded in strong ties networks and entrepreneurial processes over time. We conclude that the social foundation found in strong ties networks influences the economic development of the entrepreneurial firm.

Sociologists observe that social conflict is relational and endogenous, posing the problem of avoiding its escalation. Proposed mechanisms include the mobilization of strong ties and of weak, cross...

Network-related outcomes are organized into several distinct theoretical classes of causes and effects based upon the network structure these ties suggest. The differences in these classes imply fundamental shifts in the efficacy and valence of the outcomes associated with distinct types of ties. We argue that which stream of network effects dominates depends highly on the environment an actor resides in. In environments that are uncertain, unstable, and whose market interactions and outcomes involve a greater degree of risk, strong ties provide benefits above and beyond ties of other types, such as weak ties. The mechanism underlying this process occurs as network actors build strong working group relationships that develop trust, build routines, and facilitate exploration in the face of uncertainty. The cofunding networks of venture capital firms illustrate that strong ties built through repeat collaboration on startup firm co-investments explain the successful outcomes of startup firms. In particular, ...

This study examines how people’s attention allocation in social networks affects their ability to come up with good ideas. Using survey data on communication networks among 107 R&D employees in a software company, we find that R&D employees who bridge across structural holes in a sparse network are more likely to create good ideas by balancing their attention allocation across their non- redundant connections. We also obtain empirical evidence that R&D workers in a dense network, characterized by cohesion amongst contacts, are more likely to generate good ideas by selectively focusing their attention on strong ties sharing tacit knowledge. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that R&D employees in a dense network, who attend more to strong ties with tacit knowledge, sometimes overcome their structural liability by gaining the higher chance to generate good ideas than ones in a sparse network. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on social networks and innovation.

We adopt a social network perspective to examine the social underpinnings of intergroup effectiveness—the dyadic effectiveness with which pairs of teams perform collaboratively. We propose that the...

We examine a fundamental puzzle concerning people’s decisions to activate their social ties to help a job seeker who is in their social network but bears a potentially stigmatizing mark, such as ph...

Literature on the network effect of tie strength typically investigates the overall tie strength of an ego’s network at the aggregated level with little attention paid to the differences between ties in the network, but this paper instead focuses on the heterogeneity of ties in collaboration networks and its effects on research productivity and impact. We argue that weak and strong ties can coexist in unbounded collaboration networks and a composition of weak and strong ties is beneficial to creativity because it allows taking advantage of the respective strengths of weak and strong ties. The Tie Strength Gini indicator is developed to measure the skewness of tie strength distribution in collaboration networks. We analyze co-authorship networks of 589 American scientists across five research fields, and the empirical findings suggest that a collaboration network with some very strong ties and meanwhile a number of weak ties, namely with highly skewed tie strength distribution, is beneficial to both produc...

Prior research has revolved around the tension between accessing diverse knowledge through brokerage and the need for strong ties to enable knowledge transfer, both important elements in the produc...

Prior studies have argued that entrepreneurial orientation plays an important role in explaining firm performance. This study investigates the entrepreneurial orientation at the business unit level...

We propose a relational theory of how change agents in organizations use the strength of ties in their network to overcome resistance to change. We argue that strong ties to potentially influential organization members who are ambivalent about a change (fence-sitters) provide the change agent with an affective basis to coopt them. This cooptation increases the probability that the organization will adopt the change. By contrast, strong ties to potentially influential organization members who disapprove of a change outright (resistors) are an effective means of affective cooptation only when a change diverges little from institutionalized practices. With more divergent changes, the advantages of strong ties to resistors accruing to the change agent are weaker, and may turn into liabilities that reduce the likelihood of change adoption. Analyses of longitudinal data from 68 multimethod case studies of organizational change initiatives conducted at the National Health Service in the United Kingdom support these predictions and advance a relational view of organizational change in which social networks operate as tools of political influence through affective mechanisms. This paper was accepted by Jesper Sørensen, organizations.

Although the strength-of-weak-tie theory is foundational in social network research, studies have reported inconsistent results concerning outcomes. To address these inconsistencies, we explicate three boundaries of weak-tie theory: Culture, labor markets and outcomes. First, the theory was developed and tested extensively in western nations, raising the issue of whether cultural context affects outcomes. Second, the theory was derived from research concerning lower-level applicants finding jobs across organizations, raising the issue as to the applicability of the theory for job movement within organizations for high-ranking employees. Third, beyond the question of finding a job, the question arises as to strength-of-tie effects on outcomes such as access to information and job attitudes. Based on a meta-analysis of 101 studies (n = 23,303) we found that strong ties were more potent than weak ties in conformist cultures. Second, strong ties within the organization were more beneficial than weak ties. Als...