Abstract
Like other social systems, corporations comprise networks of individuals that share information and create interdependencies among their actions. The properties of these networks are crucial to a corporation’s success. Understanding how individuals self-organize into teams and how this relates to performance is a challenge for managers and management software developers looking for ways to enhance corporate tasks. In this paper, we analyze functional and social communication networks from industrial production plants and relate their properties to performance. We use internal management software data that reveal aspects of functional and social communications among workers. We found that distinct features of functional and social communication networks emerge. The former are asymmetrical, and the latter are segregated by job title, i.e., executives, managers, supervisors, and operators. We show that performance is negatively correlated with the volume of functional communications but positively correlated with the density of the emerging communication networks. Exposing social dynamics in the workplace matters given the increasing digitization and automation of corporate tasks and managerial processes.
Highlights
Corporations are complex systems comprising dynamic social networks where information flows across organizational structures [1,2,3,4,5]
We show that functional networks are asymmetrical and social communication networks are segregated by role or job title
We constructed and characterized digitized functional and social communication networks from industrial production plants and determined the network patterns that distinguish both types of interactions and affect team efficacy, in terms of the timely completion of work orders
Summary
Corporations are complex systems comprising dynamic social networks where information flows across organizational structures [1,2,3,4,5]. We analyze data from a management software company in industrial settings and construct and characterize their functional and social communication networks. We characterize users and teams by their individual and collective behaviors, namely, how they organize work (functional communications) and chat with each other on the software platform (social communications). 2. Related Works e literature on the implications of functional and social communication patterns on team performance includes many types of corporations and areas. Either within or across teams, the networked structure of both formal and informal social relationships can improve information flows, facilitate the coordination of activities, and result in better performance [28]. E software integrates in a single platform both the assignment of work orders, which we define as functional communications, and social interactions among workers and team members in the form of online chats. Chats occur as a sequence of messages populated freely by workers and team members
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