Architectural agency in intra-organizational networks

Abstract

From the concept of homophily, we argue that the pattern of strong ties (closeness) of organizational actors is mainly the result of two forces, one bureaucratic (departmental similarity) and the other positional (structural equivalence). We suggest that the moderation between these forces causes the problem of excess redundant ties and that social actors limit these relationships. We tested these hypotheses using the Logistic Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure LR-QAP technique on 47,306 dyads collected during a sociometric survey in an intra-organizational network. We found that when two actors belong to the same department (departmental similarity), there is a greater likelihood of their being connected. We also found that this occurs when two actors have structural equivalence. In addition, we found that departmental similarity*structural equivalence moderation reduces the likelihood of the existence of strong ties between two actors, providing evidence of a type of architectural agency capability in egocentric networks.