Multiplex Relationships Research Articles

Become Brokers Among Multiplex Relationships: Multiplex Brokerage, Trust and Leadership Emergence

Become Brokers Among Multiplex Relationships: Multiplex Brokerage, Trust and Leadership Emergence

Social Networks in the Work-Nonwork Borderland: Developing an Integrative Model of Cross-Domain Multiplex Relationships

Individuals’ networks are multiplex—bundles of roles, interactions, and exchanges—in which the boundaries between work relationships and non-work relationships are often blurred, or integrated. Surprisingly, though, there is a paucity of research that explicitly integrates the work-nonwork literature and the social networks literature. In this paper, we advance theory on cross-domain multiplexity—multifaceted relationships that occupy a blended work–nonwork role space by superimposing work and nonwork interactions, roles, and exchanges. Specifically, we draw from work-family border theory to propose that cross-domain multiplex relationships represent a qualitatively unique form of multiplexity that involve distinct norms, drivers, and tensions. We advance the conversation around social network analytics and work-nonwork boundary research by presenting a theoretical model of cross-domain multiplex relationships that unpacks their components, as well as their unique antecedents, outcomes, and dynamics. We also review three methodological approaches that scholars can employ to analyze our propositions. Given recent theoretical and methodological advancements in both arenas, we propose that employing social network analytic methodology can inform how scholars theorize and design research around the work-nonwork interface, expand the methodological toolkit applied to these research questions, and resolve inconsistencies in whether multiplex relationships are enriching or depleting.

History, Linked Lives, Timing, and Agency: New Directions in Developmental and Life-Course Perspective on Gangs

For more than three decades, developmental and life-course criminology has been a source of theoretical advancement, methodological innovation, and policy and practice guidance, bringing breadth and depth even to well-established areas of study, such as gangs. This review demonstrates how the developmental and life-course perspective on gangs can be further extended and better integrated within broader developments in criminology. Accordingly, we structure this review within the fourfold paradigm on human development that unites seemingly disparate areas in the study of gangs: ( a) historical time and place, or the foregrounding of when and where you are; ( b) linked lives, or the importance of dynamic multiplex relationships; ( c) timing, or the age-grading of trajectories and transitions; and ( d) human agency, or taking choice seriously. We conclude by outlining a vision that charts new directions to be addressed by the next generation of scholarship on gangs.

Longitudinal multiplexity and structural constraints of online emergency collaborative networks: A tale of two Chinese societies.

Drawing upon the concept of longitudinal multiplexity and the Institutional Collection Action (ICA) framework, this article conducts a longitudinal observation of online emergency collaborative networks (ECNs) built and sustained among organizational actors within Shenzhen and Hong Kong in response to Typhoon Mangkhut. In addition to investigating the multiplex relationships among three types of online ECNs (i.e., preparedness networks, response networks, recovery networks), this article takes a comparative approach to examining how the structural constraints imposed by distinct emergency management systems (EMSs) influence the network formation and evolution as the disaster evolves over time. Findings obtained from a series of inferential network analyses reveal that preexisting online collaborative ties formed at the disaster preparedness stage are important for increasing organizations' tendency to build and sustain online collaborations during disaster response and recovery. Moreover, the decentralized EMS in Hong Kong exhibits more effectiveness in facilitating online network changes during both transitional periods. These findings demonstrate a pressing need for emergency researchers and frontline communication managers to understand the dynamic relationships among online ECNs across different disaster phases and further explore potential opportunities to facilitate online emergency collaboration on a broader scale.

Exploring personhood and identity marking: paintings of lions and felines in San rock art sites from the southern Maloti-Drakensberg and northeastern Stormberg, South Africa.

ABSTRACT With the influence of the ‘new’ ontologies of animisms and performative materialisms, research has shown that people, animals and things are relational and have agency. In southern San ethnography, behaving with understanding was essential for maintaining reciprocal, beneficial relationships between human and animal persons for the good of these communities. People identified with certain animals to facilitate these negotiations. This paper also considers how certain people may have identified through specific animals. San rock paintings of lion and other felines and their painted contexts provide an opportunity to investigate these multiplex relationships and identities. Felines are relatively commonly depicted in sites from the southern Maloti-Drakensberg and adjacent northeastern Stormberg Mountains. Predominantly, lions and felines are depicted walking or standing and are painted with male and female eland, female rhebok and hartebeest. Felines are also depicted with men and women in clothing, postures and equipment that have been associated with ritual specialists and their use of potency. These painted contexts of felines bring focus to their roles as efficient hunters and protectors and the establishment of reciprocal relations with antelope. The similar roles and skillsets of ritual specialists and their leonine transformations are highlighted with both their dividual and individual selves. In addition, the paper considers the affective range of wild and tame behaviours and notions of ǃko᷉ɑ-se and related ǃnɑnnɑ sse practices. Depictions of felines may be exemplars of powerful ritual specialists accentuating their skill and status, an interpretation that has important implications for realising a multiplex understanding of San personhood and identity marking.

Mining multiplex interaction relationships from usage records in social networks

Social networks have become increasingly popular and are commonly used in everyday life. They also become the most convenient places to send information or receive advertisements. The multiplex network is an important study topic in social networks, in which many features could be appropriately represented in different layers. In this paper, we propose an approach to find the multiplex interaction relationships based on the action records of users on social networks. The multiplex user interactions are found and divided into three levels: high, normal and low. They are then used to check the friend and the follower relations such that users can find which friends or followers are active or not. In the experiments, the parameters are chosen based on Dunbar’s number, which is the number of social relationships that humans can have with high confidence. The results show the proposed approach is effective in helping users know the truly close friend relationships on a social network.

“Ok—I Need Help from Somewhere”: ‘The Educational Value of Multiplex Student Relationships in a Commuter College’

The present mixed-methods study provides insight into how students in higher education describe and form multiplex relationships in a cohort of students attending a commuter college, thereby improving our understanding of the complex relationships within student groups and their relation to learning. The main aim was to understand the student experience of networking with other students, particularly how commuter students perceive their academic multiplex relationships. Relational data were collected in a cohort of students (n = 109), complemented by 15 semi-structured interviews. One main finding was that students perceived that their largely homophilous multiplex relationships were central to academic achievement, but if students also had limited friendship relations these multiplex relationships could limit students’ academic experience. Another finding was how orientation week and group work done during the first semester mainly supported the formation of multiplex networks but were also perceived as barriers by some students. Likewise, commuting both scaffolded network building and became a barrier, especially for students with an immigrant background. One important implication for curriculum development is that faculty cannot leave relationship building to the students alone. A strategic model is discussed that supports emerging multiplex relationships, which can lead to gains in learning, retention, and integration.

It's nothing personal, or is it? Exploring the competitive implications of relational multiplexity in supply chains

AbstractSupply chain relationships—both within and between firms—can have significant implications on the firm's ability to successfully compete. Thus, it is increasingly important for supply chain managers to skillfully navigate multiplex relationships to coordinate and manage resources across functions and firms in today's competitive environment. In this work, we describe, in a supply chain context, how the prevalence of multiplex relationships, which exist when multiple, potentially incongruous relationships are present between firms and among individuals within these firms, is an important basis for individual behaviors that influence firm competitiveness. Drawing on recent advances in the relational multiplexity theoretical perspective, we identify and discuss several research opportunities for enriching our understanding of interpersonal level antecedents of firm competitiveness. Specifically, we present research opportunities related to supply chain behavioral implications of individual differences and socio‐structural adaptation, informal relationship capitalization and creation, temporal orientation and transience, contemporary multiteam structures, and cross‐level relational valence (a)symmetries. Throughout, we emphasize the importance of the informal, interpersonal relationships that overlay formally specified roles and develop representative research questions to spur further exploration in each area.

Co-use among confidants: An examination of polysubstance use and personal relationships in southeastern Nebraska

This study examines the relationship between personal networks and polysubstance use among people who use drugs (PWUD) in a medium sized city in the Midwest. A large body of work has demonstrated that personal relationships have an ambivalent association with substance use. On the one hand, a supportive network is associated with safer drug use practices and dramatically improves the outlook for recovery. However, individuals whose personal networks are composed of co-drug use partners are more likely to engage in risky practices. We argue that this notion of “supportive” social contacts and “risky” social contacts is ultimately incomplete: risky behaviors are introduced and further developed in a social context, often with the people who provide emotional support. We argue that personal networks with more multiplex relationships (where co-drug use and confiding fuse) are harmful because they combine norms of trust and reciprocity with drug use. We use data from the Rural Health Cohort (RHC) study to test this idea. The sample consists of 120 adult PWUD in a medium sized city located in southeastern Nebraska who were recruited using respondent-driven sampling. Participants listed up to nine confidants and nine co-drug use partners, indicating any overlap between the two networks. Our results demonstrate that multiplex ties are as strongly associated with polysubstance use as simple co-drug use relationships. As the drug crisis has increasingly shifted to underserved populations outside large urban centers, this paper represents an important advance in our understanding of the current drug crisis.

Market orientation and innovation behaviour: how do service employees benefit from their uniplex and multiplex intrafirm network centrality?

ABSTRACT Intrafirm networks enable service employees to transform market orientation behaviours into innovation behaviours. Few studies, however, have investigated how network centrality in intrafirm networks can moderate this relationship. This paper investigates how service employees can leverage their intrafirm network popularity in three types of social networks: advice, friendship, and multiplex networks. The findings of a multi-source, multilevel study among 1175 service employees embedded in 60 firms demonstrate the important role of multiplex-network centrality. Employees who have a central position in multiplex networks (with overlapping friendship and advice ties) can tap into the complementarity of the assets rooted in friendship and advice networks, allowing them to more effectively convert market orientation into innovation behaviours. Our study demonstrates the importance of investigating multiplex relationships next to uniplex relationships in order to better understand the relative effects of different network types. Direct implications are given to encourage employees’ MO and innovation efforts.

What Influences Relationship Formation in a Global Civil Society Network? An Examination of Valued Multiplex Relations

Recent interorganizational communication research has taken up the question: why are networks structured the way they are? This line of inquiry has advanced communication network research by helping explain how and why networks take on certain structures or why certain organizations become positioned advantageously (or not). Yet, those studies assume relationships among organizations are either present or absent. This study considers how the strength of ties and multiplex relationships among organizations may reveal a more complex explanation for why networks take on certain structures. Our results challenge some long held assumptions about the mechanisms that influence network formation. For instance, our results offer important insights into the consequences of closure mechanisms, the applicability of preferential attachment to real-world networks, and the nuances of homophily in network formation on multidimensional relationships in a communication network. Implications for interorganizational networks are discussed.

Expectations and realities of digital public spaces: A case study of digital community engagement in Melbourne, Australia

This article analyses expectations and experiences of digital public spaces that facilitate community engagement with urban planning. While viewing digital spaces as part of an expanding repertoire of public spaces and events – physical and digital – that signify the participatory turn in municipal governance, we argue that local officials and residents are overly optimistic about the democratic and administrative capacities of the digital sphere. Through a case study from Melbourne, Australia – a city with significant growth pressures – we argue that the experience of new participatory digital platforms falls short of expectations, for both residents and officials. Data show that well-documented problems with established modes of community engagement such as agenda control and ‘black boxing’ of responses, are replicated in on-line settings. The wariness residents have of administrators and elected officials are overlaid by new concerns of digital distrust and digital exclusion. For officials, using these digital spaces effectively requires time to develop and apply new skills. Our study suggests that digital spaces are not homogenous but are made up of diverse and complex practices and interrelationships. The multiplex relationships making up these digital spaces suggest that strategic and contextual combinations of online and offline engagement may be a path towards inclusive and democratic community engagement.

Network selection and influence effects on children’s and adolescents’ internalizing behaviors and peer victimization: A systematic review

In interpersonal models of developmental psychopathology, friendships and affiliations with peers have been considered as both consequences and determinants of children’s and adolescents’ internalizing behaviors and peer victimization. Longitudinal stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOMs) allow developmental researchers to disentangle peer selection processes where children or adolescents choose friends who are similar to themselves in internalizing behaviors or peer victimization from peer influence processes where children or adolescents become more similar to their friends over time in internalizing behaviors or peer victimization. This paper highlights the methods and results from a systematic review that screened 1447 empirical articles and located 28 using SAOMs to understand the interplay between peer social networks and internalizing behaviors or peer victimization. The results provide some evidence for both peer selection and influence related to depression, social anxiety, and peer victimization. Additionally, the results provide insight into directions for additional substantive and methodological research. Based on the findings of this review, future research is recommended that considers specific tests of peer selection and influence mechanisms, developmental and gender differences, individual and contextual moderators, multiplex relationships, methodological quality, and direct replication of prior studies.

Virtually (In)separable: The Centrality of Relational Cadence in the Formation of Virtual Multiplex Relationships

The increasing use of technology and rise of virtual work has fundamentally changed how employees interact with each other. No longer can employees reliably predict when and where their coworkers w...

Network-Level Correlates of Sexual Risk Among Male Sex Workers in the United States: A Dyadic Analysis.

Male sex workers (MSWs) are at increased risk of HIV infection in the United States. Research is limited on sexual and drug use network characteristics of MSWs. Community-based organization and health center in 2 US Northeast cities. One hundred MSWs completed a behavioral assessment and sexual and drug network inventory. Using dyadic analyses, we assessed whether network characteristics, including sex worker-male client age, race, and HIV status homophily and risk multiplexity (ie, overlap in drug-use and sex networks), were associated with condom use. MSW participants' mean age was 33.6. Two-thirds identified as Black or Latino, 12% identified as heterosexual, and 90% reported recent drug use. Participants reported an average of 5.3 male clients in the past month (SD = 3.4), and having anal sex with 74% of these clients, at a rate of 2.2 times per month (SD = 4.6). Participants reported inconsistent condom use during anal sex with 53% of clients. In multivariable models, inconsistent condom use was more common in relationships with presumed HIV status homophily [odds ratio (OR): 1.25; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.07 to 1.46] and sexual and drug network multiplexity (OR: 1.19; 95% CI: 1.09 to 1.30); and less common within relationships where the client is older than the MSW participant (OR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.74 to 0.93). Number of multiplex relationships was positively associated with number of condomless anal sex acts with male clients (incidence rate ratio: 1.35; 95% CI: 1.19 to 1.54). Network characteristics may contribute to disproportionate HIV risk among MSWs. Modeling studies should include network characteristics when simulating HIV transmission, and future HIV interventions should address the role of networks.

Dutch-Portuguese Diplomatic Encounters, 1640-1703: Exchanges, Sovereignty and “World Peace”

Abstract This article traces the multiplex relationships established between Portuguese ambassadors, consuls and extraordinary envoys in the Dutch Republic between 1640 and 1703 with the Portuguese kingdom, the king, the Portuguese “Nation” in Amsterdam and the Dutch States General. In negotiating multiple contracts and treaties regarding “world peace,” these men determined the course of history not so much because they were bound by the service of a state or a king but rather because they served a multiplicity of interests that often damaged national interest in favor of specific interest groups. The article focuses particularly on the Dutch-Portuguese clashes in Western Africa and Brazil and how their settlements impacted the Dutch-Portuguese power sharing in Asia, ultimately challenging premises of sovereignty at a global scale.

The Uniplex Third: Enabling Single-domain Role Transitions in Multiplex Relationships

Actors in a multiplex relationship—one crossing multiple domains—can struggle to transition into new roles in one domain without disrupting existing interactions and the role hierarchy in another. Via an inductive study of intergenerational leadership successions in seven Chinese family firms, we examine how actors can complete such a single-domain role transition. We find that a succession between the founder/father and the successor/son is successful when the mother (i.e., the founder’s wife) is active in the family but not the firm, acting as a trustworthy third party to the founder and successor in the family while staying nonpartisan to their business disagreements. Limiting her involvement to the family allows the mother to help the founder and successor maintain their existing family roles and interactions while transitioning into new roles in the firm. A mother involved in both firm and family could not stay nonpartisan between the founder and successor, which compromised their trust in her and prevented her from legislating over their multiplex relationship and facilitating the succession. We conceptualize the position of the uniplex third: the network position an actor occupies when she or he is connected in only one domain to two actors who have a multiplex dyadic relationship. Our cases reveal that the uniplex third position grants an actor authority via establishing trustworthiness and nonpartisanship relative to a multiplex dyadic relationship. The uniplex third party can thus facilitate change in one domain and maintain stability in another. We also observe how the mother is inhibited from occupying the uniplex third position when her kin are involved in the firm’s top management. If conflicts exist in the firm between the mother’s nuclear family and her kin, we find the mother disengages from succession-aiding activities in both family and firm domains.

Impact of Multiplex Relationships on Rural Science Education

Relationships play a strong role in rural communities and education, and multiplex relationships – relationships that can overlap due to multiple contexts of interaction in a rural school – are unique to the rural setting. This study focused on multiplex relationships and their impact on science classroom performance, as measured by science standardized test scores, through the lens of Social Capital Theory. Quantitative survey results from rural science teachers regarding number of student relationships and state-based science test scores were correlated. Additionally, qualitative survey answers from a subset of respondents were used to construct a more complete picture of the essence of these relationships and their perceived impacts. Results indicate multiplex relationships do not impact science test score achievement however, teacher accounts of classroom experiences with students illustrate a strong perception that multiplex relationships increase their ability to help students succeed.

Explaining HIV Risk Multiplexity: A Social Network Analysis.

Risk multiplexity (i.e., overlap in drug-use, needle exchange and sexual relations) is a known risk factor for HIV. However, little is known about predictors of multiplexity. This study uses egocentric data from the Colorado Springs study to examine how individual, behavioral and social network factors influence engagement in multiplex risk behavior. Analyses revealed that compared to Whites, Hispanics were significantly more likely to engage in risk multiplexity and Blacks less so. Respondents who were similar to each other (e.g., in terms of race) had significantly higher odds of being in risk multiplex relationships, and respondents' risk perceptions and network size were significantly associated with engaging in multiplex risk behaviors. Findings from interaction analysis showed the effect of knowing someone with HIV on the odds of multiplexity depends partly on whether respondents' know their HIV status. Findings suggest that demographics, HIV behaviors and network factors impact engagement in multiplex risk behaviors, highlighting the need for multi-level interventions aimed at reducing HIV risk behavior.

Psychosocial and Career Support from Different Types of Role-Multiplexity in Developmental Relationships

Related to role theory’s expansion approach, this study focused on how various social roles in one focal person-network member relationship (i.e., multiplexity) relate to the amount of psychosocial and career support. We expected different types of multiplex relationships in comparison to simplex relationships to be positively associated with the support received by the focal person. Via multilevel analysis in M plus, 2995 dyadic relationships of developmental networks nested in 533 persons were analysed. Concerning psychosocial support, a positive association with multiplex relationships from the non-work context, and the combination of work and non-work context could be observed. Multiplex relationships from the work context and multiplex relationships from the work and non-work context were positively associated with career support.