The Role,Use and Activation of Strong and Weak Network Ties: A Qualitative Analysis*

abstract A characteristic of studies seeking to explain the structure and operation of networks is the use of Granovetter's strong and weak tie hypothesis. Whilst this hypothesis has become an established paradigm, questions and disagreements arise over its applicability at demonstrating the real use and value of each tie. This study extends the work of Granovetter. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach to explore in‐depth the networking activities of fourteen respondents, it aims to enhance understanding about the role of ties, how they are used and activated for business activity. Findings demonstrate that it is strong ties that are instrumental for business activity and used extensively to provide knowledge and information but also to maintain, extend and enhance business and personal reputations. Unless activities require their reactivation and manifestation, strong ties remain latent and dormant within the network. Strong ties also provide the mechanism to invoke ‘weak’ ties, represented by nodes operating in a wider social context.     

Global careers: a social capital paradox

Global careers, typically defined as involving multiple international relocations including various positions and assignments in several countries, have recently received increasing research attention. This interest is driven by a growing corporate need for managers who are able to deal with global integration and co-ordination in large multinational corporations. An important aspect of the competency of a global manager is his or her social capital, i.e. the network relationships he or she possesses. However, while the concept of social capital has been widely used in a number of research fields recently, it has received relatively little attention thus far in the IHRM context. This paper contributes to this research gap, and seeks to answer the empirical research question of how multiple international relocations affect the social capital of a manager. Our qualitative interviews of 20 Finnish MNC managers with global careers identified that such careers represent a ‘social capital paradox’. Global careers are characterized by a broad and diverse network of both internal and external ties. This breadth and diversity relate to (1) the managers' internal contact networks of weak ties (2) their internal support networks of strong ties and (3) their external networks of both strong and weak ties. These typical characteristics represent three major social capital paradoxes in the sense that they carry both significant social–capital-related benefits as well as potential risks.     

Networking,entrepreneurship and microbusiness behaviour

It has been argued that networking by owner-managers of small businesses will enhance business performance. Yet to define and demonstrate the presence of networking activity is suffused with methodological difficulties. In this paper the authors attempt to disentangle some of these difficulties. The paper draws on quantifiable data from 104 owner-managers and qualitative data from 34 critical incident interviews from a study of microbusinesses to assess the nature and extent of networking activity. The paper shows: a high proportion of owner-managers use their trading contacts as sources of useful additional information; they use ‘weak ties’ for purposes such as recruitment; a sparse use of institutional networks; an association between networking activity and business performance, although it seems that this must be qualified by sectoral differences; an association between type of owner-manager on a scale of entrepreneurship and networking activity. The policy implications of this paper suggest that economic development agencies continue to have problems reaching out to the microbusiness. This paper recommends that such agencies might use a tool to differentiate more finely amongst the microbusiness population.     

The importance of being networked: The costs of informal networking in the Western Balkans region

This is the first study to measure the size and costs of informal networking, quizzing the premise that informal networks benefit individuals, households and entrepreneurs. On the basis of survey data from the Western Balkans (WB) and empirical analysis, we establish that informal networking, or use of personal contacts for getting things done, has a regular occurrence in the region and its economic cost is substantial. In the structure of networking costs, the costs of invested time dominate over money. Respondents who perceive networking as important and beneficial tend to invest more time and money to maintain their networks. Higher costs are associated with larger networks, which are predominantly built on strong ties. The informal networking costs are also higher for those with better education and income, and in particular for entrepreneurs. Consequently, individuals bear the high costs of informal networking not only for social and culturally determined reasons, but to a large extent for instrumental purposes. Our data suggest that both sociability and instrumentality drive informal networking, which makes it an outcome of both informal constraints (taboos, customs, traditions, and codes of conduct) and inefficient formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights).     

Linking network ties to entrepreneurial opportunity discovery and exploitation: the role of affective and cognitive trust

Entrepreneurial opportunity discovery (EODI) and opportunity exploitation (EOEX) are two critical entrepreneurial activities which heavily depend on external social network. The present study provided a nuanced investigation on the roles of affective and cognitive trust in the relationship between network ties (strong and weak ties) and opportunity discovery and exploitation. We examined the hypothesized relationships using longitudinal data collected from a sample of 207 nascent entrepreneurs in China. Our results showed that affective trust mediated the positive effects of network ties on EODI and EOEX. Further, cognitive trust moderated their relationships, that is, high level of cognitive trust enhance the positive relationship between weak ties and EODI as well as the positive relationship between strong ties and EOEX. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Outsourcing customer support: The role of provider customer focus

An increasing number of firms are outsourcing customer support to external service providers. This creates a triadic setting in which an outsourcing provider serves end customers on behalf of its clients. While outsourcing presents an opportunity to serve customers, service providers differ in their motivation and ability to fulfill customer needs. Prior research suggests that firms with a strong customer focus have an intrinsic motivation to address customer needs. We suggest that in an outsourcing context, this intrinsic motivation does not suffice. Using a Motivation–Opportunity–Ability framework, we posit that the effect of a provider's customer focus will be moderated by a set of relational, firm, and customer characteristics that affect its ability to serve end customers. We test our conceptualization among 171 outsourcing clients from the Netherlands and then validate these results among 135 Indian outsourcing providers. The findings reveal that customer-focused providers achieve higher levels of customer need fulfillment but this effect is contingent on their ability to serve end customers. In particular, customer-focused providers more effectively fulfill customer needs when clients and providers share close relational ties, when clients also have a high level of customer focus, and when end customer needs exhibit a low degree of turbulence. In addition, we find that, in turbulent markets, equipment-related services offer greater opportunity for effective customer need fulfillment than other outsourced services.     

The dynamics of entrepreneurs’ networks in a transitioning economy: the case of Russia

Despite its theoretical and practical importance, the evolution and development of entrepreneurs’ networks has attracted a little attention of researchers. The emerging research literature on this topic found that the dynamics of entrepreneurial networks were contingent upon venture lifecycle, industry and region, and resource needs of the firm. In addition and contrast to the previous research, this article examines the effects of the initial network structure, and firm performance of previous years on the changes in entrepreneurs' network structure, relations, and resources over 4 years. The empirical data is composed of the face-to-face interviews with 75 Russian entrepreneurs in 1995, and the follow-up interviews with 56 original respondents in 1999. I found that the greater the initial network size, the less the increase in network size, strong and weak ties, and resources over time. Further, the findings indicate that revenue growth of previous years predicts the changes in networks in the reverse manner. Thus, I found that the greater the average revenue growth, the less the increase in network size, weak ties, and resources over time.     

Risk-taking and relational perspective on turnover intentions

This study investigated risking-taking and network ties and their impact on an individual's intention to quit from a relational perspective. Using the social identity and social capital as the theoretical foundation, hypotheses were developed to examine how internal instrumental and external ties as well as ties with higher ranked individuals and their association with turnover intention. These hypotheses were empirically tested using data collected from 126 full-time employees in a Chinese setting. The results showed that high risk propensity was positively associated with turnover intention. Not only internal ties that binds, but external networking also matter in turnover decisions.     

网络关系、资源获取与新企业国际化——四家企业的案例研究

基于社会网络理论和资源基础理论,本研究通过运用跨案例研究方法,以浙江四家新企业国际化为例,分析网络关系如何促进新企业在国际化过程中进行资源的获取。研究表明,根据网络连接的强弱与地理距离分类,新企业在国际化过程中建立的网络关系可以分为国内强连接、国内弱连接、国外强连接与国外弱连接,这四种不同类型的网络关系在新企业国际创业过程中扮演不同的角色。对于创业者具有本土背景和具有国际背景的国际新企业而言,不同类型的网络连接对于国际化过程资源获取作用不同。     

New business creation and regional development: Enhancing resource acquisition in areas of social deprivation

Over 7 years, the UK-Government funded an entrepreneurship scholarship scheme in the most deprived regions of England. This study examines how, for 211 of these nascent entrepreneurs, bootstrapping compensated for their inability to obtain debt or equity funding. Results show that social capital (strong, weak and brokerage ties) is important for access to bootstrapped resources. While human capital, including previous business experience and financial skills, are linked to joint-utilisation approaches to bootstrapping, higher financial investment is linked to owner- and payment-related approaches. A key outcome for developing appropriate regional policy is that ‘brokers’ provide a link between socially disadvantaged entrepreneurs and external resources.     

Spatial versus social mismatch

The aim of this paper is to provide a new mechanism based on social interactions, explaining why distance to jobs can have a negative impact on workers’ labor-market outcomes, especially ethnic minorities. Building on Granovetter’s idea that weak ties are superior to strong ties for providing support in getting a job, we develop a model in which workers who live far away from jobs choose to have less connections to weak ties. Because of the lack of good public transportation in the US, it is costly (both in terms of time and money) to commute to business centers to meet other types of people who can provide other source of information about jobs. If distant minority workers mainly rely on their strong ties, who are more likely to be unemployed, there is then little chance for them of escaping unemployment. It is therefore the separation in both the social and physical space that prevents ethnic minorities from finding a job.     

The Importance of Attributional Complexity for Transformational Leadership Studies

Attributional complexity refers to the capability of discriminating and integrating dimensions related to social judgment in order to understand social behaviour. While previous leadership research has examined the role of leader attributions, it has neglected the role of attributional complexity. We theorize and find support for a relationship between higher attributional complexity and transformational leadership behaviours, based on a sample of 100 leaders and their direct reports. Leaders who were more complex in their social judgments, attributing complex external and internal causes to others' behaviours and actions, were seen as more transformational by their direct reports. Our findings suggest that attributional complexity is a construct that warrants consideration in future research on both transformational leadership and leadership attributions.     

International Sister-Cities: Bridging the Global-Local Divide

With the demise of the sharp urban-rural divide as a framework for urban analyses, debates have arisen regarding the utility of the city as a theoretically significant construct. Recently however, the growing emphasis on globalization has brought the analysis of global cities into sharp focus. The countervailing trend emphasizes the significance of "the local." International sister-cities provide a site of analysis which illustrates the global-local interface and yet delves deeper. Initially conceived as a post-war means of developing friendships and cultural ties, sister-cities were based on similarities such as name or economic function. More recently, greater recognition has been given to the economic foundations and benefits of these connections. Providing an extension to an integrated approach to the study of sister-cities based on the multifold relationship between culture and commerce, this paper adds a further dimension by focusing on simultaneously operating multi-level entrepreneurial partnerships necessary to sustain active sister-city relationships. Drawing on New Zealand examples of twinning arrangements, it is demonstrated that the emergence and development of embedded partnership ties is vital to deriving sustainable economic and social benefits. While the global outreach of the sister-cities phenomenon appears to transcend the geographic confines of cities, strong locality considerations and local activism nevertheless predominate. A novel feature of this paper is the conceptualization of a hybrid form of entrepreneurialism, "municipal-community entrepreneurship," which is argued as a valuable facilitator of the economic and social vibrancy of cities. to the two cities, it is broadening out to include cultural and work exchanges.     

``Three Can Keep a Secret if Two are Dead' (Lavigne, 1996): Weak Ties as Infiltration Routes

Among several ways of trying to suppress terrorist conspiracies,infiltration has probably received the least attention.Impressionistic evidence suggests that conspiracies that carry outviolent attacks usually have a small number of participants, and thatlarge conspiracies either fail to materialize, fail to organize actualattacks, or are substantially less difficult to uncover. Due to theprevalence of weak social ties in larger groups there may be anintermediate group size, around 7–10 members, that is highly subjectto infiltration. Building on work by Freeman, Granovetter, and others,this study examines a few features of the social ecology ofinteraction ties. We introduce a procedure for counting,within groups of size $n$, all interacting pairs {P, Q},where P and Q are disjoint or nonoverlapping subsets(Freeman, 1992: 153) of a given group; these subsets usually contain more than one person, i.e., the interacting units do not invariably consist of individuals. This procedure generates interaction configurations having unique patterns of strong, weak, and ``weakest' ties – i.e., three levels of tie strength corresponding to core, primary, and secondary ties inFreeman's terminology – such that relatively weak ties predominatewithin larger conspiracies. We speculate about ways in which theseconfigurations may evolve through time.We then use a combinatorial analysisof group structure to develop arough calculation of the probability of infiltrating conspiracies ofsize $n$, and we show that relatively large conspiracies,having 7 or more members, tend to have interaction structures that make them highly vulnerable to infiltration. Finally, Collins' (1985: 170–172) approach to interaction-chain analysis suggests that, while in real situations it would be hard to anticipate departures from our probability model, attempts to ``turn around' conspirators with weak ties appear tohave a fairly high prospect of success.– But the child's sob in the silence– Curses deeper than the strong man in his wrath.– Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ``Cry of the children'     

Market novelty, competence-seeking and innovation networking

Studies of innovation networking have frequently been concerned with the occurrence of dyadic relationships and with their apparent impact on simple measures of firm-level innovation outputs. This paper takes a more detailed look by analyzing the connection between different types of innovation and forms of networking. Based on the market novelty of innovation outcomes and the extent to which innovation activities require new competences, four types of innovation are identified. It is proposed that these types correlate with various innovation network dimensions, including the volume of networks, the strength and content of ties, and the specificity of ties. Drawing on survey data of 594 innovations realized by Dutch small firms, it is observed that the requirement to access new competences for innovation correlates positively with the number of network partners involved. We also note more subtle connections between types of innovation and networking, including that novel innovation outputs correlate with using network partners as a source of inspiration, whilst new competences associate with networking for knowledge capital. In the latter case, these activities also draw on new and intended ties relatively often, i.e. network partners which are actively sought out for the specific contributions they may make to the innovation process. Finally, innovation which is simultaneously new-to-the market and requires new competences uses strong ties relatively often. Implications for innovation policy and practice are discussed.     

Differentiating weak ties and strong ties among external sources of influences for enterprise resource planning (ERP) adoption

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems represent a major IT adoption decision. ERP adoption decisions, in the chemicals and allied products sectors, were examined between 1994 and 2005. Networks of strong ties and weak ties partners are investigated. Results show that neighbouring companies linked with strong ties can have an influence on organisations making such adoption decision. Past decisions made by major trading partners have a significant influence on the decision to adopt an ERP system for a given organisation. This reflects the complex nature of the knowledge required for such adoption.     

An institutional perspective of public policy and network effects in the renewable energy industry: enablers or disablers of entrepreneurial behaviour and innovation?

This study extends theory on the effects of public policies stimulating technology demand and of industry network ties on firm-level entrepreneurial behaviour. We take an institutional perspective to develop a theoretical model examining the mechanisms through which public policies, regulatory uncertainty, and industry network ties affect firm-level entrepreneurial decision-making processes and the ability to introduce highly innovative products and to sustain superior performance. We focus on firm-level effects, which enables the study of the tension between institutional pressures of homogeneity and competitive pressures of heterogeneity for entrepreneurial decision-making processes in environments characterized by policy-induced market demands. To test our hypotheses, we draw on data from a large-scale survey among German renewable energy firms. Our results show that public policies can constrain firm innovativeness and risk-taking behaviour because they steer firms towards a more conservative attitude and discourage the pursuit of high-risk innovation projects. However, firms can counteract these influences and enhance their innovativeness by maintaining close network ties with research associations as we find that innovativeness and a highly innovative product portfolio are key success factors. In summary, these findings provide important implications for the study of public policy effects, industry network ties and entrepreneurial behaviour.     

Toward an overarching multi-level conceptualization of emergent leadership: Perspectives from social identity,and implicit leadership theories

Organizational leadership research has typically focused on hierarchal top-down leadership where the leader has legitimate authority over organizational tasks and roles. However, rather recently, research has emphasized the emergence of leaders within teams and groups, which is referred to as emergent or horizontal leadership. Due to its infancy, the concept has limited theoretical development and coherence. To further extend our understanding of the topic, we draw on social identity, and implicit leadership theories and offer a multi-level conceptualization of emergent leadership. We first compare emergent leadership to various leadership concepts and through a detailed review, identify mechanisms through which emergent leadership can be identified. Following that, we design an organizing framework based on existing research and then offer propositions presenting a multi-level conceptual model highlighting how different factors at different levels relate to informal leader emergence. We hope that by reforming the research of leadership emergence with a multi-level approach, we renovate the idea considering contextual factors and process mechanisms.     

From network ties to network structures: Exponential Random Graph Models of interorganizational relations

Theoretical accounts of network ties between organizations emphasize the interdependence of individual intentions, opportunities, and actions embedded in local configurations of network ties. These accounts are at odds with empirical models based on assumptions of independence between network ties. As a result, the relation between models for network ties and the observed network structure of interorganizational fields is problematic. Using original fieldwork and data that we have collected on collaborative network ties within a regional community of hospital organizations we estimate newly developed specifications of Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) that help to narrow the gap between theories and empirical models of interorganizational networks. After controlling for the main factors known to affect partner selection decisions, full models in which local dependencies between network ties are appropriately specified outperform restricted models in which such dependencies are left unspecified and only controlled for statistically. We use computational methods to show that networks based on empirical estimates produced by models accounting for local network dependencies reproduce with accuracy salient features of the global network structure that was actually observed. We show that models based on assumptions of independence between network ties do not. The results of the study suggest that mechanisms behind the formation of network ties between organizations are local, but their specification and identification depends on an accurate characterization of network structure. We discuss the implications of this view for current research on interorganizational networks, communities, and fields.     

The changing role of network ties and critical capabilities in an international new venture’s early development

The importance of networks for firm internationalization has been pointed out for several decades. Especially for small and new firms, networks have been found to be an important tool to gain access to resources and to overcome liabilities of newness, smallness and foreignness. Yet, there is a lack of understanding regarding which types of capabilities are developed through networking and how and when networks are used. The aim of this article is to explore how and when different networking activities develop critical capabilities during different phases of an international new venture’s early development. The article is based on a longitudinal, in-depth case study of a Swedish international new venture from the medical-technology industry. We find that the development process is greatly affected by how the individual key actors leverage their network ties to develop critical capabilities – they use existing network ties and different indirect ties during the pre-founding, start-up and establishment of production phases. During the commercialization and sales growth phases, however, many new network ties are developed. The heterogeneity of the individual actors’ backgrounds plays an important role during the different developmental phases. We conclude by advancing a number of propositions in relation to how critical capabilities are developed through networking during different developmental phases.