Reinforced structural holes

Holes in social structure are variably reinforced by the social organization around the hole. The more reinforced the hole, the greater the difficulty in bridging it, but the more likely a successful bridge will carry information novel, and so potentially valuable, to people on the other side. To study how reinforcement varies with access to structural holes, and the achievement associated with access, I propose a measure of access to reinforced structural holes (RSH), and present results predicting achievement in an integrated banker organization and a balkanized supply-chain organization. In both study populations, the people who have access to structural holes also have access to reinforced structural holes, and all measures of access have a statistically significant association with achievement. However, there is no consistent prediction advantage from incorporating reinforcement in measures of access to structural holes. The reinforced-holes measure predicts compensation better or as well as network constraint and betweenness, but is weaker or no better than a count of nonredundant contacts. I do not infer from the results a rank-order of alternative measures so much as substitutability. I expect achievement to be associated with access to structural holes, but I expect the association to vary across alternative measures depending on how achievement is achieved in a specific population.     

Social Capital in Wide Family Contexts: An Empirical Assessment Using Social Network Methods

Using a sociometric approach to family relationships, we test the hypothesis that the way individuals define their family context has a strong impact on the types and amount of social capital available to them. Binding social capital is defined in terms of network closure, i.e. a redundancy of ties within a group. From this perspective, social capital is to be found in groups with a high density of connections, network closure enhancing expectations, claims, obligations and trust among individuals because of the increase of normative control. Bridging social capital is an alternative way of defining family social capital as a function of brokerage opportunities: the weaker connections between subgroups of a network create holes in the social structure which provide some persons—brokers—with opportunities to mediate the flow of information between group members and hence control the projects that bring them together. Using a sample of college students from Switzerland, we found that family contexts based on blood relationships such as those with grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, provide a ‘binding’ type of social capital, whereas family contexts based on friendship provide a ‘bridging’ type of social capital. Inclusion of stepparents is associated with neither type of social capital.     

Psychological predispositions and network structure: The relationship between individual predispositions,structural holes and network closure

We examine the effect of individual psychological differences on network structures, proposing several hypotheses about how individual differences might predispose actors to structure their social environment by seeking network closure or by sustaining structural holes. We introduce a new triad census method to examine personal networks of strong and weak ties. For 125 egocentric networks we correlated the triad census results with several extensively researched psychological instruments. The triad census reduced to three principal components, describing central aspects of strength-of-weak-ties and structural holes theories. Psychological predispositions explained a significant proportion of the variance in each of these components. Our results suggest that people who see themselves vulnerable to external forces tend to inhabit closed networks of weak connections. On the other hand, people who seek to keep their strong tie partners apart, and thereby bridge structural holes, tend to be individualists, to believe that they control the events in their lives, and to have higher levels of neuroticism. Finally, people with strong network closure and “weak” structural holes (as with the “strength of weak ties”) tend to categorize themselves and others in terms of group memberships. They also tend to be more extraverted and less individualistic.     

Co-creative Leadership: An Integrated Approach towards Transformational Leadership

The classical understanding of team leadership is extremely difficult to sustain in times when complexity and dynamics have risen to such high levels that very few individuals can assimilate them. The success of team leadership requires the ``participation of those already implicated'' in the development and implementation of a solution – and therefore in the leadership process. How can this be achieved practically? It requires a leadership approach that allows each relevant perspective to be included, in a practical way, in the development of a common position, which can then be implemented collectively. Co-creative leadership creates this possibility – a transformational leadership approach that allows an organisation as a whole to adapt to its environment.     

Digitalisierung der Arbeit: Konsequenzen für Führung und Zusammenarbeit

In this paper, we focus on the characteristics and requirements of digital leadership and cooperation when teams are working on complex and dynamic project tasks, and cooperation is mediated by modern information and communication technology. Based on current research results we discuss the question, whether the thesis can be supported that leadership of complex digital teamwork can only be successful if leadership functions are delegated to the team and personal leadership is complemented by structural leadership. Despite many ambiguous research results regarding the effects of digital leadership current findings seem to support that more shared leadership in self-managing project teams seems to be helpful for team performance.     

Envisioning Democracy: Participatory Filmmaking with Homeless Youth

This paper explores the democratic potential for participatory filmmaking with homeless youth, as well as the constraints and dilemmas associated with this visual method. Theorizing democracy through the work of Hannah Arendt and Pierre Bourdieu, the paper approaches democracy not as an end, but rather as a process that seeks to lessen social injustice. Bourdieu's work helps us appreciate, however, that this process is constrained by structures of inequality that shape access to the political dispositions that enable such engagement. Consistent with other research on low‐income and marginalized young people, this study found that homeless youth engage with democracy through forms of community participation and mutual support, and are disinclined to orient toward liberal democratic structures such as voting and political parties, which they see as harmful or problematic. With a focus on one particular dilemma faced by the research team—namely, the question of how to make sense of and represent the issue of legalizing marijuana, which had been signaled by the youth participants as of primary political importance to them—the paper uses Arendt and Bourdieu to discuss how participatory filmmaking can help to expand the space of appearances available to homeless youth in Canadian society, and create a space at a shared table of understanding with middle class power brokers.     

Structural holes and managerial performance: Identifying the underlying mechanisms

Structural holes theory suggests a variety of possible explanations for the empirically observed relationship between structural holes and individual managerial performance. However, little has been done to disentangle one mechanism from another. This paper empirically tests a mediated moderation model that distinguishes between the five different theoretical mechanisms: autonomy, competition, information brokering, opportunity recognition and innovativeness. The findings suggest that of these five theoretical causal motors, innovativeness plays a key role in linking network structure and network content to performance.     

Congenial public, contrary press, and biased estimates of the climate of opinion

This field experiment focused on perceived public opinion about the use of primates in laboratory research. We used this contentious issue to examine the simultaneous effects of three hypothetical ideas-the hostile media perception, the persuasive press inference, and the projection bias-on partisan perceptions of public opinion. Our data supported the projection hypothesis but also confirmed that partisans on each side of the issue judged news articles to be biased in a disagreeable direction relative to judgments of those on the other side. The perception of relatively disagreeable media bias, in turn, influenced perceptions of public opinion. Results supported the hypothesis that people make inferences about the climate of opinion based on their reading of the news, especially the perceived slant of that news.     

Status differences in cross-functional teams: effects on individual member participation, job satisfaction, and intent to quit

Cross-functional teams (CFTs) play an increasingly important role in health care. However, despite their potential, CFTs often fail to function effectively. This paper contributes to the literature in medical sociology by examining how the steep and well-defined hierarchy characteristic of the health occupations proves to be dysfunctional in the CFT setting. Previous research has shown that status differences among members of work teams negatively affect their functioning. Yet the specific mechanisms that connect variations in status to poor team functioning remain unclear. We hypothesize that it is the suppression of participation among low status team members that leads to poor CFT functioning. Our theoretical model integrates status characteristics theory and the value attainment theory of job satisfaction to link team members' statuses to participation in team decision-making and, ultimately, to their attitudes about the job. We use causal modeling to test our hypotheses. Our results indicate that relationships between health professionals defined in broader social contexts affect status, roles, and functions within CFTs, and these, in turn, affect the team's interpersonal processes. We suggest changes in organizational structure and in team leadership styles that might make CFTs more effective.     

DO REAL ESTATE BROKERS ADD VALUE WHEN LISTING SERVICES ARE UNBUNDLED?

This paper measures the effects of real estate brokerage services provided to sellers, other than MLS listings, on the terms and timing of home sales. It is not obvious that sellers benefit from those services. On the one hand, brokers offer potentially useful knowledge and expertise. On the other hand, because the relationship between the homeowner and the broker resembles a classical principal‐agent problem, the broker may not deploy services in ways that promote the seller's interests. Yet as long as valuable MLS listings are bundled with brokerage services, homeowners may use brokers even if the agency costs exceed the benefits of brokers' knowledge and expertise. Thus, quantification of the net value of brokerage services other than MLS listings bears directly on the recent policy debate over the desirability unbundling of MLS listings. We estimate the effect of a seller's decision to use a broker on list prices, selling prices, and speed of sale for a real estate market with an unusual and critical characteristic: it has a single open‐access listing service that is used by essentially all sellers, regardless of whether they employ brokers. Our central finding is that, when listings are not tied to brokerage services, a seller's use of a broker reduces the selling price of the typical home by 5.9% to 7.7%, which indicates that agency costs exceed the advantages of brokers' knowledge and expertise by a wide margin. (JEL D12, R31, L85)     

Social network and family business: Uncovering hybrid family firms

What does it mean for a private enterprise in China to be embedded in a family? Our purpose here is twofold: (1) use social network analysis to describe what it means for a firm to be embedded in a family, (2) reveal from the application a new kind of firm, not family, yet akin to family. Armed with data on a large probability sample of private enterprises — a third of which meet ownership and employment criteria of being family businesses — we uncover a category of “hybrid family firms” that look modern in the style of firms that exclude family, but operate socially in ways similar to family firms. Our conclusion from summary statistics on the sample is that there are no differences in average performance level or network advantage for the three categories of businesses: family firms, hybrid family firms, and family-excluded firms. The fact that CEOs of family firms and hybrid family firms more often turn to family as key business contacts is a fact about network composition that raises no question about network mechanisms. Whether the CEO turns to more or fewer family contacts, government help is more likely with stronger political connections, and business success and survival are more likely with a large, open network. That said, the look-modern, act-traditional hybrid family firms stand alone in prospering with a CEO embedded in a closed business network. Recognition of hybrid family firms adds to the literature’s illustrations of social network analysis used to distinguish types of businesses and business people, and extends the population of organizations within which governance and strategy are likely to be better understood when viewed through a family logic.     

A Model for Change: Legislative Advocacy to Improving Access for the Uninsured and Underinsured in New York State 1

Advocates can successfully improve access to health care for people without health insurance. This article demonstrates the success of what began as a local advocacy effort to improve access to health care on Long Island, which later grew to become a major statewide advocacy movement. It explores the process taken by local coalition members to successfully fight for monumental public health legislation—first locally then statewide—to improve access to hospital care for the medically indigent. Using New York State as a model, it includes several approaches that could facilitate the enactment of legislation in other states. The experiences of New York advocates suggest that with focused collaborative efforts it is feasible to promote significant changes to public health laws to benefit the uninsured and underinsured.     

Good health and the bridging of structural holes

Bridges that span structural holes are often explained in terms of the entrepreneurial personalities or rational motivations of brokers, or structural processes that lead to the intersection of social foci. I argue that the existence and use of bridges in interpersonal networks also depends on individuals’ health. Poor health may make it more difficult to withstand the pressures and to execute some of the common tasks associated with bridging (e.g., brokerage). I examine this possibility using egocentric network data on over 2500 older adults drawn from the recent National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP). Multivariate regression analyses show that both cognitive and functional health are significantly positively associated with bridging, net of sociodemographic and life-course controls. The relationship between functional (kinesthetic) health and bridging appears to be partially mediated by network composition, as older adults who have poorer functional health also tend to have networks that are richer in strong ties. Several potential mediation mechanisms are discussed. Cognitive function remains significantly associated with bridging net of network composition, suggesting that the inherent challenges of maintaining bridging positions may be more difficult to cope with for those who have cognitive impairments than for those who have functional impairments such as limited mobility. An alternative explanation is that cognitively impaired individuals have more difficulty recognizing (and thus strategically using) bridges in their networks. Theoretical implications and possibilities for future research are discussed.     

Why social status matters for understanding the interrelationships between testosterone,economic risk‐taking,and gender

We conduct an extensive review of the literature on testosterone and economic risk‐taking behavior. In sum, there is evidence of a positive association between testosterone and economic risk taking, although it is unlikely to be a strong association given the abundance of null results. However, we argue that the existing literature may overstate the causal effects of testosterone on economic risk taking (or even report a spurious correlation) because this research has not considered the potentially confounding role of social status. Status could concurrently influence both testosterone and economic risk taking, given that testosterone is a social hormone with a reciprocal relationship with social status, and social status has been found to drive risk‐taking behavior. We also argue against using findings from this literature to make gender essentialist claims, primarily because social phenomena influence the size—and existence—of gender differences in economic risk‐taking behavior. We conclude with suggestions for future research.     

Voluntary leadership: motivation and influence

In social dilemmas, leading a team by making heroic efforts may prove costly, especially when the followers are not adequately motivated to make similar sacrifices. Attempting to shed light on what drives people to lead, we devise a two-stage public good experiment with endogenous timing. We show that leading by making generous contributions is widespread and relatively persistent. At least three motives explain this behavior. Some use leadership strategically to distill personal gains, with the expectation that others will respond by being at least as generous. Others are more altruistic, volunteering to lead even though this may come at a personal cost. Yet for another fraction of volunteers, a concern for maintaining a positive social image appears to be responsible. We also find that voluntary leaders are not necessarily more influential than randomly-chosen leaders.     

Organizational Resources and the Gender Gap in Congregational Lay Leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational resources affect the gender gap within lay (volunteer) leadership in religious congregations. Using institutional theory as a framework, this study situates congregations within a larger field of organizations competing for legitimacy. Congregations with higher levels of resources—such as wealthier members, better-educated members, or larger memberships—are more likely to be connected to the core of the field and therefore more likely to have gender egalitarian practices in order to signal their legitimacy. Therefore, I hypothesize that women in resource-rich congregations will have greater access to volunteer leadership positions than women in congregations that are resource deficient. I analyze 70,942 individuals in 344 religious congregations from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey using multilevel modeling. I show that religious congregations with more members, better-educated attenders, and wealthier attenders have smaller gender gaps in volunteer leadership positions. Congregational resources can mitigate the gender gap in lay leadership, and women within resource-rich organizations have greater access to positions of authority.     

How could conditional cash transfer programme conditionalities reinforce vulnerability? Non‐compliers and policy implementation gaps in Uruguay's Family Allowances

Influential research shows that conditionalities could incentivize recipients of conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTs) to send their children to school and to regular health check‐ups. However, a growing literature is elucidating the risks of conditional transfers, from both a philosophical and an empirical perspective. This article highlights the varied deficits that have accompanied the implementation process in some Latin American countries, as well as the consequences that these deficits might have on the beneficiaries. In particular, it suggests that, rather than reducing vulnerability by improving access to services, conditionalities could be reinforcing vulnerability among non‐compliers if non‐compliance leads to the immediate suspension of the cash transfer and if this sanction is poorly implemented. While this hypothesis has gained attention and is part of both an academic and a political debate, empirical research around it is scarce. This article is an attempt to start filling this gap by focusing on the implementation process of conditionalities in a CCT programme in Uruguay (Family Allowances) and how this is experienced by a group of recipients who failed to comply with the conditionalities and were sanctioned with the suspension of the benefit. In particular, it identifies the main reasons why these beneficiaries did not comply, how they experience the sanction and how they managed—when they do—to apply for the benefit to be restored. Based on a qualitative design of in‐depth interviews, it provides empirical evidence to unpack causal relationships linking conditionalities to increased vulnerability among non‐compliers. Our findings offer evidence on the role played by the conditionalities in reinforcing vulnerability and the possible causal mechanisms that could be operating between both phenomena. This picture of policy implementation constraints that could lead conditionalities to reinforce vulnerability among recipients could be relevant to policy‐makers having to deal with non‐compliance and managing sanctions in CCTs.     

Economic and behavioral factors in an individual's decision to take the influenza vaccination in Japan

In this paper, we investigate what people in Japan consider when deciding to take the influenza vaccination. We develop an economic model to explain the mechanism by which people decide to take the influenza vaccination. Using our model and the data obtained from a large-scale survey we conducted in Japan, we demonstrated that people make rational decisions about vaccinations after considering its cost and benefits. People consider the probability of infection, severity of the disease, and the vaccination's effectiveness and side effects. The time discount rate is another consideration because the timing of costs and benefits of the vaccination differ. Risk aversion (fearing the contraction of the flu and vaccination's side effects) also affects the decision. People also deviate from rationality—altruism and status quo bias play important roles in the decision-making. Overconfidence indirectly affects the decision via perception variables such as the subjective probability of infection and assessment of influenza's severity. The decision also depends on attributes such as gender, age, and marital status. If the general perception of flu and vaccination is inaccurate, supplying accurate information regarding those may increase or decrease the vaccination rate, depending on whether this perception is, respectively, higher or lower than the objective rates. Thus, we examine whether the general perception is biased. Our survey suggests that disseminating information on the vaccination's effectiveness may increase the rate of vaccination, whereas that on the probability of infection may have the opposite effect.     

Structural holes and bridging in two-mode networks

Social networks are often structured in such a way that there are gaps, or “structural holes,” between regions. Some actors are in the position to bridge or span these gaps, giving rise to individual advantages relating to brokerage, gatekeeping, access to non-redundant contacts, and control over network flows. The most widely used measures of a given actor’s bridging potential gauge the extent to which that actor is directly connected to others who are otherwise not well connected to each other. Unfortunately, the measures that have been developed to identify structural holes cannot be adapted directly to two-mode networks, like individual-to-organization networks. In two-mode networks, direct contacts cannot be directly connected to each other by definition, making the calculation of redundancy, effective size, and constraint impossible with conventional one-mode methods. We therefore describe a new framework for the measurement of bridging in two-mode networks that hinges on the mathematical concept of the intersection of sets. An actor in a given node class (“ego”) has bridging potential to the extent that s/he is connected to actors in the opposite node class that have unique profiles of connections to actors in ego’s own node class. We review the relevant literature pertaining to structural holes in two-mode networks, and we compare our primary bridging measure (effective size) to measures of bridging that result when using one-mode projections of two-mode data. We demonstrate the results of applying our approach to empirical data on the organizational affiliations of elites in a large U.S. city.     

The Gatekeeper

Gatekeepers control access to benefits that they do not own. When granted access, their clients incur obligations that take the form of fees owed to the gatekeeper. This paper examines a variety of forms that gatekeeping has historically taken, looking closely at the network positions that gatekeepers have occupied. Not previously resolved is what determines the size of the client's obligation. The theory presented here predicts 1) the size of that obligation from the value to the client of the access sought. It also predicts that 2) to benefit, gatekeepers must monopolize their positions, or, failing monopolization, 3) must organize to form a shared monopoly. In exchange networks, gatekeeping takes the form of "ordering," a new structural power condition. Resistance equations generate exact quantitative values for hypotheses expressing the three predictions above. Experimental tests in the well-understood context of exchange networks offer strong support for the hypotheses.