Abstract
This study examines how during COVID professionals in the financial sector in Hong Kong experienced adaptations to previous ways of networking and what the material outcomes were. Becoming acquainted traditionally relies heavily on face-to-face interaction to advance and cement feelings of trust that eventually lead to successfully concluded transactions. Using linguistic ethnography, I interviewed 36 professionals about networking during COVID. For all three aspects of networking (creating, cultivating, and utilizing relationships for attaining professional goals), participants indicated significant changes as embodied co-present interactions all but ceased and were replaced by computer-mediated communication, including video platforms such as Zoom. Many, but not all, participants indicated that they had made either no new, or a greatly decreased number of new professional acquaintances, compared to pre-COVID times. The cues that would be present in face-to-face interaction were largely viewed as essential for establishing trust in deepening relationships and achieving professional goals such as concluding transactions. There were some compensatory affordances such as more ‘objective’ evaluations and equalization for those in more peripheral geographic locations. The material outcomes were that, for most, new relationships were significantly handicapped, resulting in networks in a state of stasis, a situation that privileged extant connections and those with strong professional networks.
Highlights
Becoming acquainted with someone new is largely seen as a linguistic endeavor (Maynard and Zimmerman 1984; Svennevig 1999; Usami 2006; Silverstein 2004; Haugh and Carbaugh 2015)
Past ways of working one’s way up from stranger to acquaintance to trusted collaborator, employee, or partner that relied on rapport-building no longer remain as pre-COVID opportunities for socially serendipitous encounters such as afterwork happy hours, coffee breaks at conferences, and intra-industry networking events have disappeared
This study examines impacts on professional networking practices in Hong Kong, an important financial hub, which ranks fourth in the world for competitiveness based on the global financial centres index (Wardle and Mainelli 2021)
Summary
Becoming acquainted with someone new is largely seen as a linguistic endeavor (Maynard and Zimmerman 1984; Svennevig 1999; Usami 2006; Silverstein 2004; Haugh and Carbaugh 2015). Past ways of working one’s way up from stranger to acquaintance to trusted collaborator, employee, or partner that relied on rapport-building no longer remain as pre-COVID opportunities for socially serendipitous encounters such as afterwork happy hours, coffee breaks at conferences, and intra-industry networking events have disappeared. It stands to reason, that relationship establishment and building have been attempted in novel ways. The data will be presented and analyzed (Section 4) with respect to the impact of COVID on communication and social relations for networking through three phases: meeting new contacts (creating); deepening relationships (cultivating); and employing them for attaining professional goals (utilizing). The paper ends with a discussion of the results and wider issues (Sections 5 and 6)
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