Journal article
Bridging Cultural Holes in Organizations: The Dynamic Structure of Social Networks and Organizational Vocabularies Within and Across Subunits
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Tasselli, Stefano
ORCID
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands;
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Zappa, Paola
ORCID
School of Business, Maynooth University, W23 WK26 Maynooth, Ireland;
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Lomi, Alessandro
ORCID
University of Exeter Business School, Exeter EX4 4ST, United Kingdom
Published in:
- Organization Science. - Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). - 2020, vol. 31, no. 5, p. 1292-1312
English
The mechanisms by which social networks and organizational vocabularies combine jointly to affect communication patterns across organizational boundaries remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we examine the mutually constitutive relation between the network ties through which organizational members communicate with each other and the vocabularies that they use to describe their organization. We suggest that the dynamic structure of social networks and organizational vocabularies is contingent on the formal design of organizational subunits. Within subunit boundaries, members who interact with each other are more likely to develop similar vocabularies over time. Interestingly, between subunits, the more two members share similar organizational vocabularies, the more likely they are to form a tie over time. We find empirical evidence for these arguments in a longitudinal study conducted among the managers of a multiunit organization. Organizational vocabularies, we suggest, may sustain communication patterns across organizational boundaries, thus bridging cultural holes within organizations.
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Language
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Open access status
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closed
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Identifiers
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Persistent URL
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https://sonar.ch/global/documents/117538
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