Bridging Ties Research Articles

The not-so-forbidden triad: Evaluating the assumptions of the Strength of Weak Ties

Abstract The Strength of Weak Ties is among the most influential social theories of the past 50 years. However, its prediction that weak ties are especially useful for obtaining novel information is sometimes not supported. To understand why, I investigate whether social networks typically satisfy the theory’s assumptions, and whether the theory’s prediction is robust to violations of its assumptions. First, examining a diverse corpus of 56 empirical social networks, I show that empirical social networks (nearly) satisfy some but not all of the theory’s assumptions. Second, using a simulation of information diffusion, I show that the predicted utility of weak ties is not robust to violations of these assumptions. When the assumptions of the theory are violated, as is common in social networks, access to novel information depends on bridging ties, regardless of their strength. Moreover, when they exist, strong bridges (i.e., bridges with high bandwidth) are more useful than weak bridges (i.e., bridges with low bandwidth). I conclude by recommending that research applying this theory should first consider whether its assumptions are satisfied, and that a tie’s strength and bridgeness should be measured and modeled independently.

Effects of knowledge transformation and social capital on business performance

PurposeThis article delves into the antecedents of business performance. The main aim of this study is to analyze the effect of knowledge transformation on business performance in firms in the tourism industry and how cognitive and structural social capital heterogeneously moderate this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical study was conducted on a sample of 300 firms from the tourism industry in Arequipa-Perú. The analysis was performed by means of partial least squares structural equation modeling, using the Smart PLS software.FindingsOur findings show that knowledge transformation is key factor for increasing business performance. The results also highlight the significance of interorganizational relationships in this effect and the importance of analyzing each dimension of social capital separately. Thus, it is observed that cognitive social capital enhances the relationship between knowledge transformation and business performance, while (Sari and Indriani, 2023) structural social capital hinders it.Practical implicationsThe findings assist practitioners in developing a shared culture, values and goals with their contacts to improve business performance. Furthermore, firms should establish bridging ties with external agents to avoid be stuck in excessively dense networks. Relationships with institutions can act as a bridging agent.Originality/valueThis paper analyses the unresolved question of how knowledge transformation affects the business performance of companies in the tourism sector as well as how different dimensions of social capital influence in this relationship. Addressing these two critical, but as yet unresolved questions, this study draws on absorptive capacity and social capital theories as an overarching framework to present a conceptual model that integrates both theories in order to analyze the effect of knowledge transformation on business performance in tourism firms and the role of structural and cognitive capital on this relationship.

Inclusion in education: Its bonds and bridges

Social AbstractSocial capital is one of the core concepts in the studies of education. This concept is broadly used in relation to inclusion. At the same time, the analysis of social capital of parents of children enrolled in mainstream schools in post-socialist countries is still missing in the literature. Based on a survey carried out in Russian mainstream schools in 2020 – 2021 by means of regression analysis with interaction terms and principal component analysis, we attempt to fill in this gap by examining and comparing social capital types among the parents of children with and without special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). On the one hand, the parents of a child with SEND have limited access to social capital resources. On the other hand, the level of structural social capital is higher for this group of parents as compared with those who have a child without SEND. This indicates that parents of children with SEND seek to interact with other parents more often than parents of children without SEND and are more actively involved in activities of public organizations and associations. When school policies prove to be more accessible and inclusive, parents of children with SEND decrease their bonding and increase bridging ties. This study outlines the main challenges of acquiring the social capital in post-socialist cultural and political context and formulates recommendations on how to facilitate social capital of families of children with SEND.

Strong collaborative governance networks support effective Forest Stewardship Council-certified community-based forest management: Evidence from Southeast Tanzania

Research on community-based forest management indicates its conservation outcomes depend on local rule enforcement, extraction pressures, and community support. However, many community-based forest management projects, particularly in the Global South, also involve collaborative networks of non-state actors such as NGOs and private corporations. Many of these networks promote sustainability certification under programs like the Forest Stewardship Council. We report on analyses of longitudinal forest cover data constructed using satellite observations alongside inter-organizational collaborative governance network data constructed from archival sources, document analysis, and oral histories to assess how collaborative governance networks shape community-based forestry’s conservation effectiveness in eight villages in Kilwa District, Tanzania. Our findings indicate certified community-based forestry’s impacts on deforestation can depend on the composition and structure of collaborative governance networks. Using matched Cox proportional hazards models with geographic fixed effects, we find evidence that certified community-based forest management can stem forest loss as effectively as state-led forest management (in the form of National Forest Reserves). However, the characteristics of collaborative governance networks connecting organizations engaged in forest management in our study villages shape both which areas are selected into certified community-based forest management and villages’ overall deforestation rates. Specifically, we find that the more each village government’s organizational partners are connected to one another through bonding ties, and the more civil society organizations collaborate with each village government through bridging ties, the lower the village’s deforestation risk. More private sector organizations connected to village governments through bridging ties, however, are associated with higher deforestation risks. Our evidence highlights the importance of investments in inter-organizational networks for promoting sustainably certified community-based forest conservation.

Family firm performance: the effects of organizational culture and organizational social capital

PurposeThe goal of this paper is to examine the mediating role of organizational social capital between family firms' organizational culture, characterized by their group vs individual orientation and external vs internal orientation, and their performance.Design/methodology/approachA structural equation model is developed and tested in a sample of 176 US family firms recruited through Prolific Academic.FindingsThe authors show that group vs individual cultural orientation fosters bonding social capital, while external vs internal cultural orientation fosters bridging social capital. In turn, family firm performance is only enhanced by bridging social capital, not bonding social capital, which appears to have neutral to negative direct performance effects. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that bonding social capital facilitates the establishment of bridging ties, leading to overall positive performance outcomes.Originality/valueThe understanding of how organizational culture influences family business heterogeneity and performance, along with the clarification of how bonding social capital fosters or hinders performance, provides novel insights for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand the complexities within the unique context of family businesses.

COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Community Connections and Third Place Engagement: A Qualitative Analysis of Older Americans

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruption and upheaval across communities. This qualitative study uses data from the national COVID-19 Coping Study to investigate how community engagement shifted during the pandemic among older Americans. We conducted reflexive thematic analysis of open-ended online survey responses from a random subsample of 500 participants. Our analysis identified ways in which participants altered sources of community and engagement, struggled with engagement, and increased engagement, and how experiences differed among bonding ties compared to bridging ties. Results reinforce the importance of third places for heterogeneous social connections and inform strategies to strengthen community among older Americans.

Anatomy of an urban mobilization network

How can urban mobilizations move their cities towards democratic and sustainable governance structures? This question has been under discussion in theoretical urban studies since the 1980s. According to these studies, networks of successful urban mobilizations consist of (1) densely connected specialized groups of urban organizations and (2) bridging ties between these local groups. The bridging ties are essential for the emergence of place-based collective identities and pushing urban organizations beyond the confines of their local agendas to become agents of meaningful social change at a larger scale. In this study we test and advance these arguments empirically using theoretical and methodological tools from the field of network science. We use a novel urban protest event data set based on police records and local newspapers from Ankara, Turkey. Our analyses show that the observed network consists of specialized urban groups that are densely connected with each other but the number of bridging ties between these groups are insufficient. Using network regression, we illustrate that most organizations in the network tend to form ties with organizations that have similar characteristics to themselves. Further analysis of the urban mobilization network reveals that the limited number of organizations that facilitate the bridging ties between specialized sub-groups are mostly professional organizations (e.g., the Chamber of Architects). We explain the distinctive attributes of these organizations based on the political context of their historical origins and the characteristics of their membership base. Our paper concludes with some policy recommendations emphasizing the necessity of networked approaches when evaluating urban organizations' capacity for social change.

How do network ties affect firm performance growth and its variability? The mediating roles of exploratory and exploitative knowledge utilization

In studying the implications of alliance networks on firm performance, one stream of research has underscored the structural properties of alliance networks whereas another has highlighted alliance partner characteristics such as partner trustworthiness, relationship duration, and relationship quality. Grounded in the knowledge-based view (KBV) and the social capital theory (SCT), this study examines how strong ties and bridging ties facilitate firm performance through the mediation of exploratory utilization and exploitative utilization in the context of alliances. Analysis of 332 manufacturing firms in China reveals a full mediating role of ERU. Meanwhile, the findings reveal that strong ties (or bridging ties) have a positive effect on performance growth, but no effect on performance variability through exploitative utilization. More specifically, we find a double-edged effect of exploratory utilization on firm performance. This study advances alliance research by reconciling the two divergent perspectives. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for research.

New directions to create dynamic capabilities: The role of pioneering orientation and interorganizational relationships

This study delves into the gap in the literature on the analysis of the antecedents/microfoundations of dynamic capabilities. Thus, the main aim of this study is to analyse how pioneering orientation influences the generation of dynamic capabilities. To do so, it explores how two key facets of interorganizational relationships moderate this relationship—cognitive proximity with firm's contacts and bridging ties. The study is based on a sample of 292 Spanish agri-food companies. The ordinary least-squares (OLS) approach was used to analyse the survey data. Our findings show the positive effect of pioneering orientation on dynamic capabilities. This effect is reduced when companies have high cognitive proximity and is reinforced when companies have bridging ties. Therefore, companies should conduct their networks of relationships in such a way as to avoid high cognitive proximity with their contacts and seek out contacts that are unconnected to their main network of contacts.

Feeling at home: An explorative field study of seasonal agricultural workers with different (dis) location backgrounds

The sense of feeling at home by people ‘on the move’ was inquired through an adaptation of the homemaking approach. Two groups of people who make their living by working in agricultural sites (internally mobile seasonal agricultural workers and internationally displaced migrant workers) were reached out to examine associations between feeling at home, social interactions, perceived degradation, and subjective well-being. Results showed that both worker groups (seasonal and displaced workers) felt at home despite precarious working and living conditions. Expectedly, feeling at home was predicted significantly by social interactions with others; however, the type of interactions also determined the direction of the effects. While within-group interaction (binding ties) predicted feeling at home positively, across-groups interaction (bridging ties) predicted it negatively for both groups. Additionally, perceived degradation and subjective well-being moderated the effect of feeling at home partially: the effect emerged for a cross-groups but not for within-group interactions. In conclusion, the notion of binding and bridging ties could help to attain an increased explanatory power rather than contact theory alone in understanding the patterns of feeling at home.

Health behavior homophily can mitigate the spread of infectious diseases in small-world networks

Research has repeatedly shown that the spread of infectious diseases is influenced by properties of our social networks. Small-world like structures with densely connected clusters bridged by only a few connections, for example, are not only known to diminish disease spread, but also to increase the chance for a disease to spread to any part of the network. Clusters composed of individuals who show similar reactions to avoid infections (health behavior homophily), however, might change the effect of such clusters on disease spread. To study the combined effect of health behavior homophily and small-world network properties on disease spread, we extend a previously developed ego-centered network formation model and agent-based simulation. Based on more than 80,000 simulated epidemics on generated networks varying in clustering and homophily, as well as diseases varying in severity and infectivity, we predict that the existence of health behavior homophilous clusters reduce the number of infections, lower peak size, and flatten the curve of active cases. That is because agents perceiving higher risks of infections can protect their cluster from infections comparatively quickly by severing only a few bridging ties. A comparison with epidemics in static network structures shows that the incapability to act upon risk perceptions and the low connectivity between clusters in static networks lead to diametrically opposed effects with comparatively large epidemics and prolonged epidemics. These finding suggest that micro-level behavioral adaptation to health risks mitigate macro-level disease spread to an extent that is not captured by static network models of disease spread. Furthermore, this mechanism can be used to design information campaigns targeting proxies for groups with lower risk perception.

Climate adaptation pathways and the role of social-ecological networks in small-scale fisheries

Climate change is expected to have increasing impacts on marine ecosystems which will threaten the livelihoods and wellbeing of millions of people. Drawing on social-ecological network and sociodemographic data collected via face-to-face interviews with 404 small-scale commercial fishers from 9 Galician communities (Spain), we empirically examine the adaptation pathways that fishers follow when they face hypothetical impacts on their fishery resources and test the role of five social-ecological network structures on fisher’s stated intended responses to such scenarios. Our results show that fishers generally intend to follow a ‘remain—adapt—transform—exit (the fishery)’ pathway when faced with increasing climate impacts. Next, we demonstrate that trust-based bonding ties and ties to informal leaders are associated with a ‘business-as-usual’ strategy. In contrast, communicative bonding ties are associated with adaptive responses, while communicative bridging ties are associated with transformative and exit strategies. Our findings provide key empirical insight that broaden our understanding of the intricate relationship between social networks and adaptive behaviour relevant to social-ecological systems worldwide.

Peer benchmarking and CEO compensation: An examination of the community structure of the compensation peer network

AbstractResearch Question/IssueThe increase in executive pay has been attracting attention to the practice of peer benchmarking, which is commonly used to determine CEO compensation. Using a network approach, we construct and analyze the compensation peer network and examine how the structure of the network influences CEO pay.Research Findings/InsightsUsing data on public firms in the period between 2006 and 2020, we find that the peer network exhibits strong community structure and that bridging across communities influences CEO pay. Specifically, CEO pay increases by approximately $10 million as the number of bridging ties increases from 30 to 100, which indicates that obfuscation can result in inflated CEO pay and supports the managerial power perspective.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsWe empirically distinguish the predicted effect of peer benchmarking on CEO pay as outlined in the market for executive talent and the managerial power perspectives. We show that firms may avoid scrutiny and offer high CEO compensation when they either have a very small number of targeted bridging ties or a very large number of diffused, nontargeted bridging ties in the peer network.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsThe intent of peer benchmarking was to make CEO compensation practices more transparent, legitimate, and functional; however, our findings indicate that these intentions have not been fully realized and instead benchmarking can be used to inflate CEO pay while avoiding stakeholder scrutiny through obfuscation. These insights provide an opportunity to policy makers to be more effective in encouraging additional transparency and stronger justification for boards' choice of peers.

What (Exactly) Is Novelty in Networks? Unpacking the Vision Advantages of Brokers, Bridges, and Weak Ties

The strength of weak ties and brokerage theory both rely on the argument that weak bridging ties deliver novel information to create “vision advantages” for actors in brokerage positions. However, our conceptualization of novelty is itself fundamentally underdeveloped. We, therefore, develop a theory of how three distinct types of novelty—diversity, non-redundancy, and uniqueness—combine with network structure to create vision advantages in social networks. We test this theory using panel data on an evolving corporate email network. Three main results emerge from our analysis. First, we confirm the diversity-bandwidth tradeoff (DBT) at the heart of the vision advantage. As brokers’ networks become more diverse, their channel bandwidth contracts, creating countervailing effects on access to novel information. Second, we uncover a mechanism driving the DBT, which helps explain differences in vision advantages across strong and weak ties. Strong, cohesive ties deliver greater information diversity and non-redundancy, whereas weak bridging ties contribute the most unique information (the information that is most different from what other contacts deliver). Third, we find network diversity (in contrast to network constraint) to be positively associated with longitudinal entropy, a measure of the accumulation of novel information over time. This suggests that weak bridging ties, which provide the most unique information through low bandwidth, structurally diverse channels, contribute the most to one’s aggregation of novel information over time. Collectively, these results take a step toward resolving a long-standing debate in network theory about whether strong, cohesive networks or weak bridging networks contribute more to vision advantages. This work firmly establishes that it depends.This paper was accepted by Kartik Hosanagar, information systems.Supplemental Material: The code and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4377 .

CEO Social Capital and Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility of the Firm: Bonding and Bridging Effects.

A considerable body of upper echelons theory research demonstrate the role that various facets of CEOs’ individual characteristics play in shaping firm’s strategies and behaviors. With the increasing debate concerning the different drivers and determinants of CSR, we complement these two lines of inquiries by theorizing and proposing a CEO-social capital perspective on CSR. Furthermore, we discuss the various types of social capital ties and how they could lead to different CSR strategies depending on the density and the quality of the social capital ties. More specifically, we discuss two types of social capital: bridging and bonding ties. We propose that bridging ties lead to greater emphasis on CSR actions that are directed towards external stakeholders while bonding ties within the organizational members lead to greater emphasis on internal CSR. Lastly, we propose that the balance between internal and external CSR will be influenced by the density, intensity, and quality of the ties.

From a domestic cluster to an internationalised firm: bridging ties in international business

From a domestic cluster to an internationalised firm: bridging ties in international business

Social capital and maternal and child health services uptake in low- and middle-income countries: mixed methods systematic review

BackgroundSocial capital has become an important concept in the field of public health, and is associated with improved health services uptake. This study aimed to systematically review the available literature on the role of social capital on the utilization of maternal and child health services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).MethodsMixed-methods research review and synthesis using three databases PubMed, Scopus, and Science Direct for peer-reviewed literature and Google Scholar and Google search engines for gray literature were performed. Both quantitative and qualitative studies conducted in LMICs, published in English and in grey literature were considered. Prior to inclusion in the review methodological quality was assessed using a standardized critical appraisal instrument.ResultsA total of 1,545 studies were identified, of which 13 records were included after exclusions of studies due to duplicates, reading titles, abstracts, and full-text reviews. Of these eligible studies, six studies were included for quantitative synthesis, and seven were included for qualitative synthesis. Of the six quantitative studies, five of them addressed the association between social capital and health facility delivery. Women who lived in communities with higher membership in groups that helps to form intergroup bridging ties had higher odds of using antenatal care services. Synthesized qualitative findings revealed that women received some form of emotional, informational, and instrumental support from their network members. Receiving health information from trusted people and socio-cultural factors influenced the use of maternal and child health services.ConclusionsSocial capital has a great contribution to improve maternal and child health services. Countries aiming at improving maternal and child health services can be benefited from adapting existing context-specific social networks in the community. This review identified limited available evidence examining the role of social capital on maternal and child health services uptake and future studies may be required for an in-depth understanding of how social capital could improve maternal and child health services.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO CRD42021226923.

Entrepreneurial process in international multiunit franchise outlets: A social capital perspective

This paper examines how social capital facilitates entrepreneurial process in international multiunit franchise outlets, operating under an area development agreement. Despite empirical evidence showing that international multiunit franchisees pursue entrepreneurial objectives, there is shortage of knowledge as to how these occur. This study reveals that micro-level entrepreneurial process in international multiunit franchise outlets (operating under an area development agreement) is bounded within structural, relational and cognitive dynamics. Structural dynamics involve diverse forms of interactions (i.e. horizontal, bottom-up, portfolio, franchisor-franchisee and franchisee peer) and their structural properties (i.e. strong, weak, appropriable, hierarchical and bridging ties), which determine the resources to be mobilized and the activities to be actuated at different phases of the entrepreneurial process. Relational and cognitive dynamics involve interpersonal and collective conditions (i.e. obligations, shared stories, trust and norms), which facilitate or constrain interactions and the entrepreneurial process. The study provides implications for incorporating sociological perspectives in franchisee entrepreneurship research.

Coping with Racial Discrimination with Collective Power: How Does Bonding and Bridging Social Capital Help Online and Offline?

Featuring an online experiment and content analysis of a research sample of 185 participants with different races/ethnicities, this study investigates how bridging and bonding capital online and offline (a) encourage targets of racial discrimination to seek support, (b) buffer targets’ emotional distress, and (c) facilitate assertive coping behaviors. Hierarchical regressions indicate individuals bridging with a wider range of interpersonal networks offline are more likely to seek support than those with fewer bridging ties. Online bonding helps buffer emotional distress when targets perceive the prejudiced acts encountered as less severe. Maintaining connections with diverse people offline also helps targets cope with racial discrimination assertively when the supportive messages received fail to fully validate their feelings. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Analysis of Network Characteristics to Assess Community Capacity of Latino-Serving Organizations in Philadelphia.

Latino immigrants are disproportionately impacted by substance use, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, and mental health (SAVAME). The burden of these syndemic conditions is influenced by limited access to health and social services to prevent and treat these conditions. The syndemic nature of these factors necessitates an integrated, coordinated approach to address them simultaneously. We analyzed characteristics of Latino-serving organizations in Philadelphia, PA, that provide SAVAME-related health and/or social services, and their interorganizational collaborations to meet the needs of Philadelphia’s Latino communities. We surveyed Latino-serving organizations (N=43) identified through existing resource directories and key informants. Network analyses identified patterns and density of collaborative ties (i.e., referrals, administrative, or planning/advocacy) across organizations and characterized these ties by type of service. Density (expressed as percent of all possible ties) revealed a higher referral rate (40%) than administrative (29%) or planning (26%) coordination. Network sociograms display clusters of providers by geography. Examination of bonding (within-group) ties revealed comparable perceptions of high value among both South/Center Philadelphia (57%) and in North Philadelphia providers (56%), but bridging (between-group) ties suggest lower levels of high-value perceptions (24%). No evident clustering by type of service based on syndemic factor was observed. Density of bridging across types of providers was highest for referrals (38%) followed by planning (23%) and administrative coordination (20%). Interventions to promote collaboration between providers should focus on facilitating administrative and planning collaborations that leverage existing capacity of the network. Given the syndemic nature of these conditions, greater collaboration between providers of complementing SAVAME services is imperative.