Organizational Social Networks Research Articles

Unveiling the Impact of Communication Network on Engineering Project Team Performance: The Interplay of Centralization and Tie Strength.

Recent research has focused on the impact of communication networks on the performance of construction project teams, attempting empirical exploration from various social network analysis perspectives. However, there is still a significant gap in understanding the variations in performance and the mechanisms for teams using different communication networks. Drawing from organizational learning theory and social network theory, this study, based on the Input-Mediator-Output (IMO) model, explores the effects of the interaction between centralization and tie strength in communication networks on team performance, as well as the mediating mechanisms of knowledge sharing behavior and team resilience performance in engineering project teams. Drawing on classic group communication experiment, we design an online communication and collaboration platform to simulate the execution of a construction engineering project. Finally, data was collected through the communication experiment with 720 participants, and hypotheses were tested using ANOVA and PROCESS. The results indicate that under conditions of weak tie strength, centralized communication networks yield higher performance. Conversely, under conditions of strong tie strength, decentralized communication networks demonstrate superior performance. Furthermore, this study also verifies the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior and team resilience performance when tie strength is strong. This study focuses on engineering project team, exploring the evolutionary development of knowledge sharing behavior and team resilience performance from the perspective of the interaction of communication network structural characteristics, as well as the paths to enhancing team performance. Our research results highlight the interactive effects of structural indicators and relational indicators of communication networks, revealing the mechanism by which the structure of communication networks impacts team performance. Additionally, from the perspectives of forming and timely adjusting team communication models, and motivating and supporting employee communication behavior, our study provides practical insights for project managers and relevant administrators.

Knowledge Sharing Behavior Shaped by Organizational Climate, Social Network, Perception, and Achievement Motivation

To date, knowledge sharing commonly discussed just as a part of knowledge management. However, knowledge sharing as a behavior is imperative to be investigated and managed carefully at a firm level. This study was aimed to examine employee knowledge sharing behavior could be shaped by organizational climate, social network, individual perception on knowledge itself, and achievement motivation. Data collected from questionnaires filled by 121 respondents who work at a multinational Japanese company operating in Indonesia (PT MII). Path analysis was used to evaluate causal model among variables. Result indicates that achievement motivation acts well as an intervening variable influences knowledge sharing behavior. Organization climate has a strongest path among variables with good practices performed by a supervisor; corporate policy to deploy knowledge; a knowledgeable feedback and corrective actions; and an assignment with a considerable time to deadline. Employees perceived that sharing behavior encouraged first in the network, promoted and managed by the organization, and lastly as a personal initiative. Motivated employees sharing their knowledge for self’s empowered, a sense of self merit, and share first at the situation of immediate and necessity. Idea for a better work more often shared than to find solutions for instant actions, tacit knowledge tends to be shared when requested, self’s refined knowledge shared individually rather than at a workgroup, and still there are some reluctances of senior owners to contribute their precious tacit knowledge at once. Keywords: Knowledge Sharing Behavior, Organizational Climate, Social Network, Individual Perception, Achievement Motivation

The effect of social network structure on group anchoring bias

Decisions—whether made by individuals or groups—often involve estimating quantities, a process that is subject to anchoring bias (Tversky and Kahneman in Science 185: 1124–1131, 1974). Differences in susceptibility to anchoring bias between individuals and groups have been recently explored with the result that groups appear less biased than individuals (Meub and Proeger in Theor Decis 85:117–150, 2018). However, existing studies treat groups monolithically without taking into account their network structure—the pattern of relationships among members. The present paper investigates the effects of group social network structure on anchoring bias. Using a structured survey instrument, we gathered data on competence-based trust relationships among 264 students enrolled in a university degree program. An anchoring experiment was conducted in which some of the students made estimates as individuals, while others did so in groups of different structures. The findings provide initial evidence of differences in bias levels across variously structured groups as well as relative to individuals. Groups with highly centralized trust networks (where a single person owned everyone’s trust) showed more anchoring bias than dense groups (where everyone trusted everyone else) and sparse groups (where no one trusted any other member of the group) showed more bias than dense groups. In addition, despite previous research demonstrating groups are less susceptible than individuals to anchoring bias, this study shows a higher presence of bias in both our centralized groups and sparse groups when compared to individuals, suggesting that group structure might moderate the mitigating effect of groups on anchoring bias. The research has implications for organizational behavior and social network literature. Specifically, this study contributes to the debate on anchoring bias for group decisions by highlighting the significant role of social network structure. At the same time, it contributes to the literature on network structure and performance by providing initial evidence of how network structure affects anchoring bias susceptibility. Moreover, our study contributes to management practice by alerting managers to the dangers of centralized networks, suggesting that competence-based trust plays a vital role in the resistance to anchoring bias.

1.L. Workshop: The social dimension of health literacy: empirical research and new insights

Abstract Background The social dimension of health literacy, also referred to as social health literacy or distributed health literacy, is meaningful and captures important aspects of the concept that areavailable within the social environment of people. While many studies in the realm of public health research, both qualitative and quantitative, rather focus the individual context of health literacy, research on the inherent social aspects of health literacy and how social environments and structures impact health literacy are scarce. However, in the recent years the body of empirical health literacy research that particularly looks at the social level and considers the social environment in which people live is growing and helps us to conceptualise health literacy as a resource that exists at a community as well as at an individual level. Studies focusing the social dimension of health literacy are based on sociological theories and socio-ecological concepts. In this new realm of empirical research, new approaches have emerged. Among which are, e.g., the analysis of social practices of health literacy, consideration of social networks and how they shape health literacy and health care interaction, the investigation of how health literacy is distributed within the social environment, how conditions within settings enable or impede that people use health literacy to make healthy decisions, and how this can facilitate an understanding of the wider determinants of health and agency for change across communities. These new approaches are deeply rooted in the fact that health literacy is always socially embedded. In daily life, the ability to make good health decisions, manage health information appropriately, or communicate effectively are influenced by one's social network. Objectives The purpose of this workshop is to focus on research on ‘social health literacy’. In the first part we will present and discuss insights from 4 projects that focus on the social aspect of health literacy. (i) The first presentation will introduce new findings in critical health literacy, which enables individuals and communities to reflect on the wider determinants of health. (ii) The second presentation will focus on key insights from a regional effort to build a health literacy community through social networks. (iii) The third presentation will focus on health literacy practices in a social online environment. (iv) The final presentation will illuminate medication safety through a social determinants of health and health literacy. Each project will be given 12 minutes (8 mins presentation & 4 mins for Q&A). The participants in turn will learn about recent results they can use in public health research, practice and policy. The second part of the workshop is dedicated to discuss best practices regarding cross-national comparative research in the field of social health literacy and vision future project opportunities. Key messages • The social dimension of health literacy have emerged in the past years and illuminates how social networks, environments and settings influence how and if people achieve their health goals. • This workshop will encourage and support research on health literacy in a social context, both for individual and in social networks of organizations, aiming at targeted approaches and heath equity.

Opening new brokerage opportunities while closing existing ones: The Tertius Iungens orientation as a source of network advantage

SummaryOrganizational members face a motivational dilemma in influencing the social relationships of others: The organization benefits from high connectedness among employees, but personal advantages accrue to those who occupy brokerage positions between disconnected others. In this study, we draw on the organizational paradox perspective to argue that the reconciliation of these contrasting objectives lies in recognizing one's agency to facilitate connectedness (closing) within a social structure and the search for new connections (opening) as mutually supportive. Across two field studies, we examine how individuals' advantageous position in an organizational network emerges from the interplay between a tertius iungens orientation to join others in collaboration and network building to open new brokering opportunities. In Study 1, analyses of a sample of two‐wave, cross‐lagged panel data show that a tertius iungens orientation contributes to the number of outgoing ties to other actors via network building. Study 2 uses a network survey to add that a tertius iungens orientation is positively associated with incoming ties from others and network brokerage, and again, these relationships are mediated by network building. Overall, our results indicate that by increasing connectedness in their organizational social network, individuals simultaneously activate opening behaviors that facilitate the expansion of their network, thereby revitalizing their structurally advantageous position.

Moral beacons: Understanding moral character and moral influence.

We introduce the concept of moral beacons-individuals who are higher in moral character than their peers and prominent within their social environment-and examine the degree to which moral beacons increase the moral awareness of their peers. Using data from cohorts of students in graduate business education across two universities, we applied theory and methods from organizational behavior, personality psychology, and social networks analysis to test two research questions about moral beacons. We used latent profile analysis of data from personality questionnaires and social network surveys completed by graduate business students at two universities (N = 502) to identify individuals classified as moral beacons. We used peer nominations and an in-class business case discussion exercise to assess moral influence. Latent profile analysis identified a latent class of moral beacons in our sample. These individuals received more nominations from their peers in end-of-class surveys as guides for moral thought and action and positively impacted the moral awareness of their peers in a discussion of a difficult business case about possible lead poisoning of employees, but did not significantly change their counterparts' moral awareness in a different case. These results provide promising initial evidence that moral beacons can be distinguished from their peers by both moral character and social prominence and can act as guides for others, at times encouraging greater consideration of the moral aspects of situations and decisions. As these results are the first of their kind, we encourage further replication and investigations of moral beacons and moral influence in other settings.

MANE: Organizational Network Embedding With Multiplex Attentive Neural Networks

Every organization has organizational networks for exchange of ideas and information. It is believed that organizational network analysis (ONA) can help the business be more effective. While considerable research efforts have been made for visualizing and analyzing relationships in organizational networks, it lacks a holistic way to model the complex social structures and rich semantic information of these networks. Indeed, employee behaviors can occur across different communication platforms, such as email and instant messaging systems, which naturally lead to the multiplex structure of organizational social networks. Meanwhile, it is also a challenge to model the impact of semantic information, such as employee attributes and organization charts, and the collaboration relationships of employees. To this end, in this paper, we propose a Multiplex Attentive Network Embedding (MANE) approach for modeling organizational social networks in a holistic way. Specifically, we first develop a multiple attributed random walk approach to jointly model multiple networks, with the integration of external work information. Then, we preserve the network structure by maximizing the probability of predicting the central node based on the surrounding context nodes. In particular, we introduce an attention mechanism to assign a weight to each context node in the training process, according to its attributed relation and structural relation with the central node by utilizing the k-core algorithm and the shortest path algorithm. In this way, the embedding results can be kept consistent with their structural relationships. Furthermore, to solve some department-level tasks, we introduce an attentive relational transition method to learn the representation of departments in the organizational networks. Finally, we evaluate the performance of MANE with extensive experiments on real-world data for three important talent management tasks, namely employee performance prediction, employee turnover prediction and department performance prediction. We also conduct a link prediction task to validate the effectiveness of employee embedding. Experimental results clearly show the effectiveness and interpretability of MANE for organizational network analysis.

Innovation and internationalization in an emerging market context: Moderating effects of interpersonal and organizational social networks

Innovation and internationalization in an emerging market context: Moderating effects of interpersonal and organizational social networks

Returns to Relationships: Social Capital and Household Welfare in India

Sociological scholarship, economic theory, and empirical studies all indicate that interpersonal relationships are valuable productive assets and deserve to be formally incorporated into the study of human development. This paper employs the India Human Development Survey to examine, using OLS and logistic regressions, the impact of different dimensions of social capital on multiple proxies for household welfare. Social capital in the form of memberships in local community organizations and social network connections has a statistically and economically significant association with household consumption expenditures, physical asset ownership, and the probability of a household living in poverty. Households that are members of any formal community organization are expected to have higher monthly per capita consumption expenditures than households without any memberships. Estimates of a similar magnitude are observed when modeling a household’s stock of physical assets, a longer-term indicator of economic welfare. These indicators of social capital are also significantly associated with lower odds of a household living below the poverty line. Organizational memberships and social networks are also associated with considerably higher odds of a household assessing its own economic situation positively. Overall, social capital is a catalyst for increasing household welfare along multiple dimensions, and, therefore, a critical area of focus for economists, sociologists, development practitioners, and policymakers.

Multi-Stage Machine Learning Model for Hierarchical Tie Valence Prediction

Individuals interacting in organizational settings involving varying levels of formal hierarchy naturally form a complex network of social ties having different tie valences (e.g., positive and negative connections). Social ties critically affect employees’ satisfaction, behaviors, cognition, and outcomes—yet identifying them solely through survey data is challenging because of the large size of some organizations or the often hidden nature of these ties and their valences. We present a novel deep learning model encompassing NLP and graph neural network techniques that identifies positive and negative ties in a hierarchical network. The proposed model uses human resource attributes as node information and web-logged work conversation data as link information. Our findings suggest that the presence of conversation data improves the tie valence classification by 8.91% compared to employing user attributes alone. This gain came from accurately distinguishing positive ties, particularly for male, non-minority, and older employee groups. We also show a substantial difference in conversation patterns for positive and negative ties with positive ties being associated with more messages exchanged on weekends, and lower use of words related to anger and sadness. These findings have broad implications for facilitating collaboration and managing conflict within organizational and other social networks.

Hitchhiking in board interlocks? The externality of partner innovation

PurposeThis study explores the influence of partner innovation in board interlock networks on a firm's innovation tendency.Design/methodology/approachThis study collects a sample of publicly listed Chinese firms from 2008 to 2017 and uses fixed-effects ordinary least squares regressions to analyze the data.FindingsThis study shows that interlocking partners with different innovation levels than that of the focal firm affect its innovation tendency in distinct ways. For more innovative partners, the innovation level has a U-shaped effect on the focal firm's innovation tendency. In the case of less innovative partners, the innovation level facilitates the focal firm's innovation tendency.Originality/valueGoing beyond previous research that emphasized the role of interorganizational networks in facilitating firm innovation through a unitary learning effect, this study differentiates network partners into two categories based on their relative level of innovation compared with the focal firm and takes the hitchhiking effect into account to highlight potential obstacles in the learning process depending on the innovation conditions of partners. The study advances the literature on organizational learning, social networks and innovation.

The Influence of Organizational Social Network on Enterprise Collaborative Innovation—Mediating Role of Knowledge Sharing and Moderating Effect of Digital Construction

This paper mainly discusses the influence of organizational social network on enterprise collaborative innovation, as well as the intermediary role of knowledge sharing and the regulatory role of digital construction. Based on social exchange theory and social cognition theory, an integration model of organizational social network influencing enterprise collaborative innovation is constructed. The hierarchical regression analysis was used to sample the high-tech enterprises in China’s Yangtze River Delta. Statistical analysis of 212 questionnaires was performed using SPSS and AMOS. It is found that organizational social network has a significant positive impact on enterprise collaborative innovation. Knowledge sharing plays a partially mediating role in the relationship between the organizational social network and enterprise collaborative innovation. Digital construction positively moderates the relationship between organizational social network and enterprise collaborative innovation. In general, In general, the research findings show that improving the construction of organizational social networks and enhancing employees’ knowledge sharing behavior can improve enterprises’ collaborative innovation ability. In addition, in the context of highly digital construction, the effect of organizational social networks on improving enterprise collaborative innovation is more obvious.

Link prediction in time-evolving organizational social networks

A time-evolving (or dynamic) social network is a network whose structure may change over time. The observed changes may refer to entities (for example, new members may join or existing members may leave the network) or connections between them (new relationships may be established or existing relationships may be broken). A number of studies have focused on the empirical analysis of time evolving networks to examine their properties. In this paper, the problem of link prediction is considered. It aims at predicting future connections between pairs of unconnected links based on existing current connections. A social network considered in the paper is an organizational social network, meant as a network where nodes represent employees or units of the organization, and edges between nodes represent formal or informal relations or information flow between them. The structure of our network is formed by digital communication between employees. The aim of the paper is to experimentally verify to what extent, if any, the similarity-based methods based on local or global information may support the process of predicting potential new (non-existent yet) connections between employees in a time-evolving organizational social network. Ten similarity methods based on local and global information have been considered and tested. As a result, the best similarity methods (candidates to be considered as good predictors of these future connections), have been suggested.

A network centrality bias: Central individuals in workplace networks have more supportive coworkers

Combining the results of two empirical studies, we investigate the role of alters’ motivation in explaining change in ego’s network position over time. People high in communal motives, who are prone to supportive and altruistic behavior in their interactions with others as a way to gain social acceptance, prefer to establish ties with co-workers occupying central positions in organizational social networks. This effect results in a systematic network centrality bias: The personal network of central individuals (individuals with many incoming ties from colleagues) is more likely to contain more supportive and altruistic people than the personal network of individuals who are less central (individuals with fewer incoming ties). This result opens the door to the possibility that the effects of centrality so frequently documented in empirical studies may be due, at least in part, to characteristics of the alters in an ego’s personal community, rather than to egos themselves. Our findings invite further empirical research on how alters’ motives affect the returns that people can reap from their personal networks in organizations.

MACHIAVELISM AS THE ANTECEDENT OF NEPOTISM: AN EMPRIC RESEARCH

People or organizations initiate to obtain or multiply resources. One of the personal initiatives is to increase resources by establishing marriage or kinship or using social networks. It is possible to evaluate nepotism as an effort of social networks to increase resources. Nepotism is often handled through a human resource management and cultural perspective. This research differs from the previous researches due to the combination of nepotism and behavioral traits of personality. In this research, it is aimed to examine the effect of Machiavellianism, which has become famous for its fundraising strategy on nepotism. The research focuses on combining the concepts of non-clinical Machiavellian personality traits influencing the recruitment process and promotion from human resource management functions. The universe of the research consists of companies serving in the energy sector in Adana. Questionnaire technique has been used as data collection method in the research. 243 participants have been reached through the convenience sampling technique. It has been seen that there is a positive and significant relation between Machiavellianism, nepotism in promotion and nepotism in recruitment. This research does not examine the outputs of employees who do not have social networks in organizations but deals with the Machiavellian tendencies to take advantage of nepotism only in terms of personality psychology.

How and When Envious Newcomers Form Their Developmental Networks in New Organizations

Drawing upon social functional theories of emotion, we develop and test a theoretical model of how and when newcomer envy—the envy that newcomers experience as a consequence of their social comparisons with coworkers—can further or thwart their efforts to form developmental networks with desirable features. We theorized and found that envious newcomers who perceive themselves as similar to coworkers are more likely to undermine coworkers, a dysfunctional behavioral response that thwarts their efforts to develop developmental networks with diverse and high-status contacts. In contrast, envious newcomers who perceive themselves as dissimilar to coworkers are more likely to build relationships with high-level organizational members, which helps them to form developmental networks with the desirable features. Our study advances scholarship on workplace envy with our balanced and nuanced approach to answer questions on when envy is expressed in a functional or dysfunctional way and how the behavioral transmutations explain the role of envy in the formation of developmental networks. It provides empirical insights into one’s emotions and actions as predictors of one’s developmental network formation and contributes to the further understanding of the origins of social networks in organizations. Additionally, it extends research on organizational newcomers that has not yet explored newcomers’ complex emotions (e.g., envy) and negative behaviors (e.g., undermining coworkers) as well as their implications.

Time for Change: A Dynamic Perspective of Employee Social Networks

Organizational social networks are dynamic systems that continuously emerge and evolve. The stability and change in social networks among employees, project teammates, and job applicants have important implications for organizations and the people in them. Much of the emerging organizational literature on network dynamics can be interpreted through the lens of the microfoundations of social networks, which drills down to basic factors that shape network evolution and dynamics. Building on and extending this stream of research, papers in this symposium shed light on issues of theoretical and practical importance, including the creation and retention of professional networks among job seekers, the formation and retention of idea sharing ties among employees, the dynamics of conflict roles in project teams, and the impact of increasing communication delay on network connectivity in instrumental and expressive team networks over time. Creation and Retention of Newcomers’ Professional Networks: Coevolution with Professional Knowledge Presenter: Xuan Liu; U. of Minnesota - Twin Cities Presenter: Yihao Liu; U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Formation and Retention of Idea Sharing Ties: Formal Work Relationships and Creative Role Identity Presenter: Yifan Song; Texas A&M U. Presenter: Dan Ni; School of Business, Sun Yat-sen U. Presenter: Le Zhou; U. of Minnesota Presenter: Xiaoming Zheng; Tsinghua U. Characters on the stage of intragroup conflict: An illumination of conflict role dynamics Presenter: Amanda Ferguson; Northern Illinois U. Presenter: Stephen L. Jones; U. of Washington, Bothell Presenter: Randall S Peterson; London Business School Presenter: Pri Pradhan Shah; U. of Minnesota The Impact of Communication Delay on Team Network Connectivity Presenter: Dorothy R. Carter; Michigan State U. Presenter: Aaron Schecter; U. of Georgia Presenter: Jacob Pendergraft; U. of Georgia Presenter: Joshua Pearman; U. of Georgia

Brokers in Action: How Shaping Others’ Relationships Influences One’s Own Network Position

Social network research has traditionally highlighted the advantages of brokerage positions in social networks. More recently, an emerging microfoundational perspective has shifted the focus from structures to brokering behaviors to explain how individuals activate network structures and develop structural opportunities. To address the focal question of how individuals “do” brokerage, the present study examines how different approaches to shape relationships between other actors become reflected in one’s own network position and social network activation. Specifically, addressing the diverging perspectives in brokerage theory, we examine whether and how individuals’ competitive (tertius gaudens) and collaborative (tertius iungens) brokering behaviors influence network positions. Across three studies—a two-wave panel study, a network survey, and an experimental study—our results reveal a pattern that emphasizes the value of collaborative activities in brokerage processes. Our findings also demonstrate how one’s network context might regulate the functioning of these processes. We discuss the implications of our results for organizational social network research.

The Effect of Knowledge Management on the Sustainability of Technology-Driven Businesses in Emerging Markets: The Mediating Role of Social Media

Sustainability is a fundamental principle for human resource management worldwide. This study aimed to examine the effect of knowledge management components on the sustainability of technology-driven businesses mediated by social media in emerging markets. This descriptive-correlational study was conducted in April 2022. The statistical population comprised 537 businesses, and the sample size (estimated using Cochran’s formula) was 224 research and development employees. A 25-item questionnaire scored on a 5-point Likert scale was administered to collect data, which were analyzed in SmartPLS 3. The findings showed that for technology-driven businesses to be in a sustainable environment, knowledge management components must be applied in all parts of the company. The application of knowledge management creates value and a sustainable competitive advantage in a dynamic environment. Furthermore, effective participation in the organizational social network can activate knowledge management and create value. Thus, knowledge acquisition through social media optimizes learning and ideation, and for technology-driven companies that lack resources, this acquisition enables development and sustainability in a dynamic environment.

Commentary on Burns, Nembhard and Shortell, “Integrating network theory into the study of integrated healthcare”: Revisiting and extending research on structural and processual factors affecting coordination

Burns et al.‘s innovative recommendation to use social network theory to study integration will contribute to our understanding of how healthcare systems can optimally deliver high quality, coordinated, person-centered care. We discuss three enhancements to this approach. (1) In increasing our attention to social network analysis and processual perspectives, we must not “throw out the baby with the bathwater” and abandon research that includes formal organizational structure. Structure remains an important focus for researchers and healthcare managers, who spend considerable resources on reorganizing. Since there is evidence that formal structure affects social processes and coordination, future research should build on that evidence and investigate how coordination is affected by the segmentation of organizations into units and the structures and processes designed to integrate interdependent work across those units. Conducting network analysis in the context of formal structure can help us better understand how formal structure affects both social networks and coordination. (2) Using multi-level, mixed methods, and qualitative research will be critically important to fully understand how and why formal organizational structure, social networks, and processual dynamics contribute to coordination or fragmentation of care. Because the relationships among these constructs occur not only within, but also across multiple levels, multi-level research is necessary to understand their effects on coordination. In considering the individual level, patients can be studied as a role embedded in networks. In addition, however, we must not lose a focus on patients as people at the center of multi-level networks, whose attitudes, values, preferences and goals may directly affect processual dynamics and coordination of care. (3) Finally, our field lacks precision in nomenclature, specification of levels, and the constructs within them, including ambiguity around even what is meant by “structure” and its variations. Furthermore, different authors use “macro”, “meso”, and “micro”, differently, contributing to confusion in the discourse on organizational phenomena. Greater clarity and consistency in terminology is needed to facilitate research and improve communication across the field.