Endogeneity and permeation in an organizational communication network

Abstract

Face-to-face conversation has been shown to be influenced by features that ensure comprehensible and linear conversation (“endogeneity”), and attributes of its potential participants, such as organizational position or contextual role, that “permeate” these endogenous effects. A direct comparison of both features is rarely studied, however, due to methodological challenges it presents. In addition, conversation is increasingly taking place in new mediated forms, such as emails and social media. It remains to be seen if social dynamics observed in face-to-face conversation transfer to these new media forms. Using an email network among individuals during a military exercise, we use relational event modeling to determine whether social norms of communication dominate conversation flow in this medium and to what extent individual attributes affect the flow of messages to and from those in the organization. Though email communication does not require immediate response, we find that immediate-response turn-taking dynamics occur anyway; though emails are only visible to sender and recipient(s), we observe a “Matthew effect” in the communication sequence (i.e., those who receive many emails receive even more in the future). Finally, these dynamics are only marginally affected by measured individual attributes (e.g., military rank, situational awareness), suggesting the primacy of “endogenous” conversation dynamics in this network. We thus find that many previously-observed social dynamics in face-to-face conversation carry over to the new form, despite practical differences between the two types. This study is only one of a handful that directly compares endogeneity and permeation in a communication network.