"Research in the field of social cognition found that humans use schema for the storage and processing of network information. Schema use differs by gender and power, in theory because individuals differ in the schemas that apply to the network structures they are involved with. I analyze a survey dataset collected during the COVID-19 pandemic that asked respondents about how often they interacted with people, and organizations, as well as what forms of communication they used. In addition, a network recall survey experiment was conducted to measure their network recall accuracy. If schema are learned cognitive rules the brain uses to process information, then how an individual recalls a network should be shaped by ongoing opportunities to practice schemata. This effect should be moderated by the respondent’s level of social poverty with higher levels of social poverty (i.e., inadequate social integration) being associated with poorer recall accuracy. Results will uncover more about the role that practice plays in the formation of social schemata and will shape future understanding of the differences in individual network recall ability across categories. Furthermore, it will contribute to efforts to design more efficient, and effective, organizations."

Traditional social network research primarily focuses on network structure, content, and dynamic evolution, assuming the external institutional environment as a static factor. However, in practice, there is a close co-evolutionary relationship between institutional changes and organizational networks. Particularly within the dynamic regulatory environment of China, institutional changes tend to have a stronger influence on the dissolution of relationships than on their formation. To bridge this gap, this study explores the impact of institutional changes on organizational networks, with a particular focus on their vulnerability to shocks and the dissolution of various attributes of ties. Utilizing the China Ministry of Education policy in 2015 that limited the concurrent appointments of university-affiliated independent board directors as a policy shock, we examine how institutional changes affect the disruption of corporate independent director networks. Our findings indicate that firms with a higher proportion of state-owned shares experience more pronounced network disruptions, particularly in the reduction of network ties and structural hole positions. Additionally, we observe that the geographical distance of a firm from the policy epicenter inversely correlates with the strength of ownership-related effects on network disruption. While institutional isomorphism explains the general trend of tie dissolution, heterogeneity persists due to varying legitimacy pressures and differences in policy enforcement across organizations. This study also proposes an analytical framework to understand the effects of institutional changes on network disruption, where the formation, severance, and reconstruction of relationships represent a complete cycle of organizational network evolution, capturing the dynamic process from disembedding to re-embedding.

Research on status processes, which examines how social hierarchy is created and maintained based on uneven distributions of respect and esteem, often considers the role of interactional networks and affiliations in identifying and measuring status based on accumulated acts of deference. By focusing on deference relationships, a network analysis enables us to study status as a relational construct. However, urban sociologists have rarely engaged with these insights, despite the long-standing tradition that conceptualizes place as a social construct co-constituted through material and symbolic processes. We advance scholarship on neighborhood hierarchy by applying a network framework to conceptualize and quantify neighborhood status as accumulated acts of deference. To investigate neighborhood status through acts of deference, we draw on the case of Airbnb hosts and their use of neighborhood names to market their properties. Specifically, we analyze how Airbnb hosts use other neighborhood names in their listing descriptions – name-dropping – as an act of deference. We aggregate name-dropping behavior to the neighborhood level and create a valued name-dropping network for Chicago, Manhattan, and San Francisco. We argue that a neighborhood’s position in the name-dropping network will represent its symbolic status from accumulated acts of deference, reflecting prestige in the context of the rental housing and tourism market. Our innovative methodological approach demonstrates that neighborhood status is not solely determined by aggregated demographic indicators, such as class and race, but also consists of intersubjective recognition, which aligns with the relational nature of status.

This research examines the leadership succession of chief executive officers (CEO’s) in sport organisations through an application of social network theory. An extensive social network analysis of CEOs (n=13) was undertaken with Australian CEOs. Findings demonstrate both intraorganisational and interorganisational networks are valuable for potential CEO successors. Networks are perceived to be of benefit in the selection process while also helping CEOs perform effectively once in the role. Notably, the research found major differences in CEO networks are by gender, insider / outsider status, and type of national sport organisation (NSO) (professional or Olympic sport) they lead. This study demonstrated a connection between social networks and executive leadership career progression in sport management. Furthermore, this research makes a novel contribution by analysing personal networks data provided directly from CEOs and not from assumed affiliation networks.

By blending remote and in-office arrangements, hybrid work offers flexibility and autonomy but creates at the same time unique challenges for international employees, impacting on their social and psychological well-being. Through the lenses of Job Demand-Resource Theory and Paradox Theory, this study explores the paradoxical tensions faced by international creative professionals in hybrid work environments, as well as how these tensions can affect social relationships and organizational networks.

Our qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews with 40 international academics in Swiss universities, a context characterized by employees’ high mobility and cultural diversity. Preliminary findings reveal challenges in building social resources, due to difficulties in maintaining relationships and integrating into host countries’ professional and cultural environments while working both at home and in the office. Participants report tensions, including valuing the flexibility of remote work while struggling with isolation and limited peer support, essential for creative performance and career growth.

This research helps to understand the nuanced impact of hybrid work on globally mobile creative professionals. It highlights the critical role of social networks in mitigating resource loss and addressing paradoxical tensions inherent to hybrid arrangements. By unpacking these tensions and identifying balanced approaches to employees’ flexibility, productivity, and integration, this study offers insights for organizations to support and value international creative employees in hybrid work settings. The findings further underscore the need for more structured, inclusive practices fostering meaningful connections and enhancing well-being among diverse, hybrid workforces.

A key objective of innovation policies supporting large, syndicated projects for collaborative innovation is to facilitate boundary-spanning knowledge exchange across individuals, organizations, sectors, and regions. This exchange helps recombine existing knowledge and generate new insights. Despite policymakers increasingly adopting large-scale, often self-governing funding formats, empirical evidence on their effectiveness in fostering collaboration and innovation remains limited. To address this gap, we examine Innovation Spaces in Germany—large consortia of inter-organizational R&D projects under a shared funding initiative aimed at advancing the bioeconomy. We surveyed interpersonal knowledge-exchange networks within three Innovation Spaces, each focused on distinct technical domains: (i) bioeconomy in metropolitan areas, (ii) biobased textiles, and (iii) bioeconomy in marine environments. Using the situational organizational network analysis (SONA) approach, we analyzed knowledge exchange among 200 individuals spanning 56 projects and 170 organizations. Our network analysis investigates how governance practices influence collaboration levels and the extent to which learning relationships transcend individual project boundaries.

How do employers, competing in the same markets, come to cooperate? In dyads, cooperation evolves if pairs of actors interact repeatedly, because it is mutually beneficial. Third actors support such dyadic cooperation by circulating information on actors' past behavior allowing actors to avoid non-cooperators. This paper focuses on the role of these third actors in cooperative networks. It shows that third actors establish local hierarchies (transitive triads), rather than horizontal connections (cycles). Local hierarchies may reflect actors' desire to achieve prestige by connecting to higher-standing actors. Empirically, the paper analyzes how employers cooperate in networks by exchanging information on prospective employees (referral networks). It analyzes eight local referral networks in two different economic sectors based on exponential random graph models. Results show that triadic closure in these networks takes a hierarchical (transitive) form, rather than one of horizontal exchange (cycles). It also shows that employers in these triads are more prestigious. This finding is interesting considering the literature highlighting reciprocity as an important factor facilitating cooperation.

The social network literature shows that brokers accrue benefits from their position, but often overemphasize the informal organization and overlooks formal arrangements, in addition, it overwhelmingly focuses on individual performance, rather than collective outcomes. I argue that returns to brokerage are heterogenous across brokers and that this is as a result of the effects of the formal organization. I also suggest that understanding the effect of brokerage on collective outcomes is important as most of the relevant outcomes for firms are collective ones. I theorize that collective return to brokerage will be greater when associated with formal positions of leadership. I test this in the context of creative performance of projects using a network of French movie crews (comprising directors, producers, art directors, editors, and cinematographers) between 1996 and 2010. I find that the network position of the team leader—the movie director—has a positive effect on collective creative performance: leaders in a brokerage position enhance collective creative performance. I explore the implication of this theory for managers and discuss paths for future research.

Management literature highlights two key mechanisms for forming collaborative partnerships between firms: fostering trust through repeated interactions (relation-based mechanism) and building capabilities by expanding and specializing in diverse resource pools (resource-based mechanism). This study investigates how firms balance and transition between these mechanisms over time. While both mechanisms are integral throughout a firm’s development, their relative importance evolves. For firms with limited investment experience, relation-based mechanisms are essential for fostering trust and mitigating uncertainties. However, as firms accumulate experience and develop coordination capabilities, they increasingly rely on resource-based mechanisms to broaden and specialize their resources. This study examines this dynamic interplay using a longitudinal dataset of 3,401 venture capital (VC) firms in China from 1994 to 2023. By employing relational event models, we capture the endogenous processes underlying network formation. Findings reveal that relational reciprocity and inertia initially drive new syndicate formation, while geographical distance and industry overlap between VC firms pose barriers. However, as firms gain experience, they gradually reduce their reliance on reciprocity and inertia while seeking geographically distant or industrially overlapping partners. The paper goes beyond viewing partnership formation as a one-time consideration and offers a dynamic perspective in which firms balance relationship building with resource accumulation.

Network perception deals with the understanding of an individual´s perception of their surrounding networks and the comprehension of relational ties. The mental representations of relationships in a person´s mind can be captured by assessing an ego´s cognitive social structures (CSS). The deviation between actual and perceived networks, one´s cognitive network accuracy, plays a crucial role for the gathering of resources, goal attainment, and power in a social network. This means in turn, that the degree of accurately perceiving the social network, shapes interpersonal interactions. Structural mechanisms have been shown to influence social network patterns (e.g., advice seeking, friendship) among professionals in actual networks. Our study aims to shed light on the role of structural network patterns, such as homophily, triadic closure and preferential attachment, for perceived networks in professional settings. We introduce a novel perspective on CSS by exploring network mechanisms as drivers for (mis-) perceived social networks in the context of entrepreneurship through exponential random graph models (ERGM).

We recruited 93 students from three distinct classes, who were enrolled in an entrepreneurship course at a prestigious business school (response rate 89,25%). The survey participants were part of a long-term international MBA program tailored for senior corporate executives and experienced entrepreneurs, creating a unique data set. Our preliminary results indicate varying levels of homophily and triadic closure on the perceiver level, as well as accuracy depending on the personal attributes of the perceiver.

This study proposes the use of the induced centrality measure to the destination network of airlines worldwide. The use of this Social Network Analysis measure in this industry aims to provide a tool to business managers on what is the relative value of each destination for each airline. This relative value is given based on how much the loss of a destination means for the company in terms of the sum of the geodesic distances. In this sense, if eliminating a destination increases the total geodesic distance, this will mean that airlines will have to increase the number of intermediate nodes to reach other destinations and thus also increase costs (due to more take-offs and landings).

The data used for this study are all origin and destination routes (more than 1200) of the 300 most important airlines worldwide in 2015. Including their grouping in the three major alliances: Star Alliance, Sky Team and One World. Therefore, this study applies a multilevel analysis by looking at this issue not only at the airline level, but also at the Grand Alliance level. Thanks to cooperation between airlines, these companies are able to reach destinations they would not otherwise be able to reach. Therefore, this study examines the impact of this measure in both cooperative and non-cooperative situations.

Chain of command distance (CCD)—defined here as the undirected geodesic distance along the chain of command—significantly influences workplace tie formation yet remains relatively understudied compared to other structural factors such as physical proximity, homophily, and transitivity.

This study examines CCD's impact on the formation of instrumental ties across eight Scandinavian organizations: (1) a municipal government agency (2) a state-owned gaming company (3) a university engineering department (4) a construction equipment rental firm (5) an architectural/urban planning practice (6) a financial services company specializing in debt collection (7) a global developer of renewable energy systems and (8) a provider of flow assurance solutions for optimizing oil and gas flows through pipelines.

Analysis was undertaken using logistic regression quadratic assignment procedure (LRQAP). Controls included various demographic and organizational factors including gender, tenure, age, nationality, employment status, native language, and place of work.

Results demonstrate exponential decay in tie likelihood as CCD increases, with the probability decreasing 50-70% per unit increase in command distance. This pattern holds consistently across both information-seeking and advice-seeking relationships in all organizations, with one notable exception: the gaming company's R&D unit (n=84) showed less than a 15% decay per unit distance.

These findings parallel research on physical proximity's effects on organizational networks, suggesting formal organizational structure shapes informal networks through similar mechanisms.

The study contributes to our understanding of how hierarchical structure influences informal network formation and highlights the importance of considering command chain distance when designing organizational interventions aimed at fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing.

As digital workspaces become increasingly central to knowledge production, unlike the traditional face-to-face spaces, virtual platforms enable rapid, global knowledge exchange, reshaping how information circulates between the Global South and North and integrating workers into open-source environments. This paper investigates how nationality shapes the evaluation of knowledge transfers in digital workspaces, focusing on the role of status in determining perceptions of legitimacy. Grounded in social closure theory, we argue that national identity serves as a boundary that reinforces in-group preferences and exclusionary practices. As a marker of social status, nationality could influence how competence is assessed, determining whose contributions are recognized and whose are marginalized in virtual professional settings.

This study focuses on GitHub users who worked for software development companies founded in the US. Using a database of 87,122 pull requests on GitHub from 9,836 software developers from 2018 to 2021, we operationalize knowledge transfer through the platform’s pull request function, where project members decide whether to accept or reject proposed code contributions. Preliminary results indicate that nationality status and homophily strongly influence pull request rejection, software developers in the US are significantly more likely than non-US developers to have their pull requests accepted, while also being less likely to accept the pull requests that they receive. Pull request acceptance is also highly likely when the requester and the decider are from the same country. These results reveal how nationality affords status, homophily, and social closure benefits for knowledge and innovation transfers in high-tech online workplace communities.

In this study we ask how individuals search for experts at networking events. Building on the intuition that individuals’ propensities to engage in certain search actions, as well as their effectiveness in locating experts, will depend on the quality and salience of the metaknowledge they have about others, we conducted an expert search game as a field experiment in which we randomly assigned participants – researchers in a multinational corporation – to one of three treatment conditions, reflecting varying degrees of search planning. Based on data from sociometric badges, we derive a taxonomy of the micro-decisions individuals make at events. We find that letting others approach yields more referrals than taking the initiative in starting conversations, and that planning increases the tendency to maintain such initiative even when doing so is ineffective – a possible manifestation of the Einstellung effect.

To further bolster our two main results, we plan to run two additional experiments using sociometric badges. The first will focus on the effect of reciprocity on referral yield, and the second on how the Einstellung effect may distort rational search efforts.

How neurological disorders affect the social activity of individuals in the workplace has received little to no attention in the management and organization literature. This is the case despite the high prevalence of certain disorders, such as ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) in the adult population, and the detrimental effects of ADHD on multiple social and work-related outcomes. This is an important gap in our understanding given the robust literature showing the importance of social networks on work performance. Recent research in developmental and clinical psychology has begun to focus on the positive aspects of ADHD, some of which might directly relate to social behaviors and personal relationships. However, the question of whether ADHD helps or hinders individuals’ social activity in the workplace, which ultimately impacts their unique set of work-related social ties, is unanswered. This study is a first step in linking ADHD with social networks in work-settings by investigating the personal (ego) networks among adult entrepreneurs in the US. The findings indicate that ADHD is directly related to the number of reported conflict, advice, and friendship ties. However, findings also indicate key differences in social networks between hyperactive and inattentive ADHD subtypes. Supplemental analysis of data from a large organization of 892 employees finds connections between ADHD and various brokering orientations.

This study examines how adverse events shape the evolution of professional collaborations in healthcare. Drawing on a longitudinal dataset of 13,842 physician dyads using Florida’s inpatient discharge data from 2016 to 2021, we investigate how extreme adverse events - patient deaths - influence the persistence of dyadic collaborations. We focus on physician dyads that experienced a patient death and exploit the quasi-random variation in the timing of death, using difference-in-differences event study design. We find that brokers - attending providers works in multiple hospitals and hence have exposure to multiple organizational environments – are more likely to keep the same collaboration ties compared to non-brokers. At the same time, brokers are also more selective – they are more likely to retain collaboration ties when the death was from a complex case instead of a simple case. The study contributes to the growing literature on network evolution by advancing our understanding of how adversity shapes the evolution of professional relationships.

Recruitment and mobility are generally seen as individual phenomena, driven by individual factors, especially human capital. In the classical labor market framework, the exit option reveals the individual market value of a worker. What if labor mobility is not only individual, but could have a collective dimension? Indeed, this is what happens when a firm poaches a pre-formed team from another firm. In such a case, the output of the whole counts more than the sum of the human capital of the individuals. Therefore, team movements challenge the classical individualistic approach to the labor market.

Previous work (Lazega, 2001, Groysberg, 2010, Godechot, 2017) has shown that team moves seem to be crucial for the functioning of the labor market in a number of upper-class occupations, such as law firms and finance. However, beyond this seminal research on team moves, we don’t know much about their magnitude and underlying mechanisms. When and where do we find such team moves? Who are the leaders? How are they connected to their followers? How profitable are these moves?

Previous qualitative research in finance suggests that such moves are more likely to occur in immaterial industries, where firm boundaries are not well guarded and immaterial assets are easier to move. The leadership of such teams is likely to depend on a combination of formal hierarchy, seniority, and proximity to team members. Long experience of working together and homophily may be at the core of these close-knit teams. The moves should be profitable not only for the leader who organizes them, but also for other team members.

To test preliminary hypotheses emerging from field observations, we rely on interviews and three data sets: UK financial market based on the register of Financial Service Authorities (n=300,000); Linked-in profiles of lawyers in the top 300 French law firms (n=30,000); and the Paris region labor market for managers and professionals based on the exhaustive French social security wage dataset (DADS n=17,000,000 worker*year observations).

The data also allow us to test the effects of team moves. Using staggered diff-in-diff and first-difference methods, we show that team moves lead to significant wage increases. Team movers enjoy a 10-12% wage premium over stayers and a 3-5% wage premium over solo movers. The team move premium is even larger in the financial sector, with a 20% wage increase relative to stayers and a 10% premium relative to solo movers. Thus, team moves play a role in the reconfiguration of capitalism by allowing groups of (highly skilled) workers to use their collective power to undermine the boundaries of the firm and appropriate some of the capital for their own interests.

The question of how innovation diffuses across networks has been a driving force in research on organizational networks for decades, with much research being done on the interorganizational level and through assessing the role of specific network structures. Yet, multiple facets of this process have remained largely unexplored: (i) the cadence and frequency at which innovation diffuses, (ii) the role of culture, or (iii) how innovation may overcome regional boundaries. Using a unique dataset of time-stamped data that depicts lyrical references between rap songs, we tackle these research gaps. More precisely, we interpret genre adoption in music as evidence of innovation diffusion and model this process via a bipartite DyNAM that spans the 100 most popular rap songs each year across two decades.

In so doing, our study contributes to research on innovation diffusion in multiple ways: First, we explore how the success of innovations – i.e., commercial success as indicated by billboard charts – influences the speed at which innovation diffuses. This is particularly relevant because music is a fast-moving space with potentially infinite competing products. Second, we highlight the role of cultural proximity in innovation diffusion, which has so far been virtually missing from extant literature. And third, given that many musical genres start – and often stay - in geographical pockets, we leverage our dataset to investigate the role of geographical proximity in innovation diffusion and how an innovation’s success moderates the likelihood of said innovation becoming a supra-regional phenomenon.

Many forms of economic exchange don't take place in 'pure' markets, but instead are socially embedded into communities where they are guided by social logics of exchange in addition to economic ones. In this presentation, we investigate the degree to which the reliance on such social or community logics increases in times of crisis. In crisis, social embedding can be argued to serve both as a mechanism for uncertainty reduction as well as a selection mechanism when previous levels of transactional activity cannot be maintained. Our empirical case consists of a large scale mutual currency system in Italy with a dataset of more than 2 million transactions that have occurred before, during, and after the covid-19 pandemic. Based on this dataset, we use relational event models to study the degree to which exchange structure varies in line with social and community-based logics of exchange between periods of normality and periods of crisis.

Purpose. We assessed the relationship between social support networks in primary care clinics and clinician and staff job outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intention).

Methods. We conducted a social network survey (2021-2022) in 23 primary care clinics in two U.S. states—New York (14) and Pennsylvania (9). All clinicians (e.g., physicians and nurse practitioners) and staff (e.g., nurses, social workers, administrators) in each clinic received an online survey, in which the respondents identified their team members and reported who they seek out for work-related support. They also answered questions about job outcomes.

In total, 626 respondents completed the survey with a response rate of 52% (range: 21-82%). Social network analyses (SNA) evaluated respondent-level degree centrality and betweenness centrality, and clinic-level attributes, such as density. Regression models examined the relationships between support network SNA metrics and job outcomes.

Results. Respondents from clinics with denser support networks, indicating higher levels of interaction, reported lower burnout (B=-0.12, p-value=0.028) and had lower odds of turnover intention (OR=0.53, p-value=0.004). Respondents with greater betweenness, indicating they more often served as a bridge between colleagues, were more likely to report greater job satisfaction (cumulative OR=1.09, p-value=0.09) and lower burnout (B=-0.06, p-value=0.07) with marginal significance.

Contribution. The U.S. is facing challenges to primary care delivery and workforce shortages driven by burnout, job dissatisfaction, and turnover. Our findings indicate that when team members are connected and can seek out work-related support, they report better job outcomes. Clinic-level interventions to promote teamwork and support sharing are needed.

The structural positioning of individuals within organisational social networks plays a pivotal role in shaping cognitive processes, yet its influence on systems thinking remains insufficiently examined. Systems thinking, defined as the ability to recognise interdependencies, feedback loops, and emergent patterns in complex environments, is critical for effective decision-making and problem-solving. However, the extent to which an individual's network position enhances or constrains systems thinking remains unclear.

This study addresses this gap by employing Social Network Analysis and the Systems Thinking Scale developed by Davis and Stroink (2016) to assess how four centrality measures - degree, closeness, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality - affect systems thinking capabilities. Data were collected from 114 employees in knowledge-intensive firms, capturing workplace interactions and evaluating systems thinking through a Likert-scale survey.

Findings indicate a positive relationship between network centrality and systems thinking ability. Eigenvector centrality emerged as the strongest predictor, suggesting that individuals embedded within well-connected, influential clusters develop superior systemic insights. Closeness centrality also demonstrated a notable effect, highlighting the cognitive benefits of rapid access to diverse perspectives. In contrast, betweenness centrality had a weaker predictive effect, indicating that while brokers facilitate information flow, they may lack sustained engagement in systemic thought.

These findings highlight the critical role of social network structure in shaping individual's systems thinking. Organisations can enhance strategic decision-making and innovation by identifying and leveraging individuals in key network positions. Future research should explore causal mechanisms and longitudinal dynamics to further elucidate how social connectivity fosters the development of systems thinking over time.

Literature on team leadership tends to focus predominantly on individual attributes that make effective leader or on relational strategies that leaders should employ in order to get desired outcomes. Much less attention is paid to social relationships in which leaders are embedded. Following the classical structural approach, leadership is viewed as a role that is constrained by the structure of social relationship in the network. To explore these ideas, we used the data from a survey of teams and team leaders from Slovenian and Finnish organizations using a whole-network survey method. For each of the 23 teams in the sample the survey obtained complete network data for advice and socializing networks. We calculated network density, different measures of centrality and range and used the network properties in exploratory cluster analysis obtaining four distinct clusters. The analysis suggested that team leaders had four different types of networks indicating four different leadership roles with further implications on team performance. The key contribution of this paper is in the departure from standard analysis of “leadership styles” that leaders can pick at will, showing instead that leadership roles are based in the structure of social relationships that constrain and define their role as leaders.

While corporate strategy has traditionally been perceived as an exclusive and relatively ‘closed’ activity, recent research shows a shift towards more open approaches to strategy work. Benefits include the leveraging of expertise of a wider range of actors, enabling the creation of better strategies, as well as allowing the distribution of valuable strategic knowledge across different levels of a firm, facilitating strategy implementation. The scale of the open strategy literature is still relatively small, but the pace of publication is increasing.

The purpose of this project is to focus on the obstacles and enablers for participation in open strategy settings. In support of this, a systematic literature review and thematic analysis has been conducted; themes identified in this review focus on issues around inclusion, participation, transparency and technology. From a methodology perspective, the intention is to apply a mixed-method approach to gather data via a longitudinal study at a corporate organisation (access already secured). The intended methods are a mix of qualitative (semi-structured interviews/focus groups), quantitative (surveys collecting data on participation, inclusion, transparency and technology), and network data (to capture data on relational dynamics over time, largely missing in open strategy research to date). This combination of methods, network analysis in particular, is new in the open strategy literature.

The aim is to provide a response to calls from the literature for more empirical work on participation in open strategy; this research will also be of interest to organisations seeking to open up their strategizing processes.

This study investigates the role of communication ties in shaping the synchronization of social loafing behaviors among employees. While prior research has documented various antecedents of social loafing, the impact of social networks remains relatively underexplored. Grounded in social influence theory, this study examines how the existence of communication ties between dyadic pairs influences the disparities in their levels of social loafing. Furthermore, we differentiate the effects of strong and weak communication ties on social loafing and explore how these effects are contingent on age disparity. Our data were collected from all employees in a Chinese technology company. Communication ties were assessed using a roster-based survey, where participants identified colleagues they communicate with and reported the frequency of communication to characterize the strength of communication ties. Dyadic pairs were categorized as having no communication ties, weak communication ties, or strong communication ties. Our results reveal that dyads with strong communication ties exhibit significantly smaller differences in social loafing levels, while the presence of weak communication ties exhibits insignificant effects on differences in social loafing between dyads. Additionally, our findings show that age disparity negatively moderates the effect of weak communication ties, suggesting that larger age gaps may hinder the influence of weaker ties on the convergence of social loafing. However, age disparity does not significantly moderate the effect of strong communication ties. This study advances our understanding of how to leverage communication dynamics between employees to mitigate social loafing and enhance collective productivity within organizations.

The working conditions in nursing homes (EHPAD in French) are shaped by a combination of physical, organisational and psychosocial constraints, which are further exacerbated by the increasing dependency of elderly residents, many of whom suffer from neurodegenerative diseases (Balavoine 2022). A DREES study reveals that nearly 50% of hospital nurses leave their positions or change professions after ten years (Pora 2023), with sick leave being widespread in the healthcare sector, particularly among cleaning and orderly staff (Pollak et Ricroch 2017). Although solidarity mechanisms have made it possible to cope with the workload, the deterioration in working conditions also seems to have reduced opportunities to create bonds and support between colleagues (DREES 2016). The study utilises social network analysis to explore the relationship between interpersonal networks and the distress experienced by healthcare professionals in nursing homes. The investigation encompasses multiplex relationships: professional ties (colleagues, residents and their families) and personal networks, (including family members and friends). The research methodology involves the administration of field surveys, incorporating participant observations, the utilisation of questionnaires, and in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals in the Occitanie region of France. The present study has been designed to facilitate an understanding of how caregivers perceive and define work-related hardship, the role of social networks in either alleviating or intensifying these challenges, and the impact of workplace conditions on relational dynamics. Preliminary findings highlight the importance of solidarity networks, often centred around friendly groups, and reveal the role of residents in assisting caregivers.