“In Good Company”: An Alter-centric Micro-foundation of Network Centrality

Abstract

Tracking network dynamics of knowledge transfer among professionals in a hospital department, we investigate the role of alters’ motivation in explaining change in ego’s network position over time. Motivational orientations affect the kind of co-workers with whom people preferentially interact in the workplace, such that people high in communal motives will prefer to establish ties with co- workers occupying central positions in the network. This motivation- driven network effect results in a systematic network centrality bias: the personal network of central individuals (i.e., individuals with many incoming ties from colleagues) will be more likely to contain more supportive and altruistic people than the personal network of individuals who are less central (i.e., individuals with fewer incoming ties). Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the alter-centric psychological foundations of an individual’s network centrality and call for further empirical research on how alters’ motives affect the development of an individual’s social networks.