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Mobilizing nascent ties: A Qualitative Structural Analysis of social(izing) capital in newcomer networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2020

Sabine R. Bakker Open the ORCID record for Sabine R. Bakker [Opens in a new window]
Sabine R. Bakker*
Affiliation:
Institute for Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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This paper investigates the processes involved when newly hired employees need to simultaneously build up and mobilize personal network ties during their organizational socialization. It focuses on the quality of ties at an early formative stage, characterized by the lack of a tie history between actors. Social capital theory would suggest that such nascent ties do not offer optimal channels for the kind and volume of resources that newcomers (need to) rely on during socialization. To better understand how this apparent mismatch between tie quality and resource needs is handled from an ego-centered perspective, the paper analyzes personal network data from 24 newcomers in nine organizations, using an adapted form of Qualitative Structural Analysis. Three tie-level qualities are found to explain how the lack of tie history may be alleviated, circumvented, or compensated. They comprise (a) variants of openness experienced with stronger ties, (b) perceptions of a lowered threshold towards weaker ties, and (c) sources of legitimacy regarding latent ties. Based on these findings, the paper presents an integrated conceptual model to clarify how nascent ties offer channels for network resources during socialization and discusses the need for further research on the role of specific moderators for the investigated processes.

Keywords

personal networkssocial capitalnetwork resourcesQualitative Structural Analysistie mobilizationtie developmentsocializationnewcomers
Type
Research Article
Information
Network Science , Volume 8 , Issue 3: Special Issue Ego Networks , September 2020 , pp. 381 - 398
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Footnotes

Special Issue Editors: Brea L. Perry, Bernice A. Pescosolido, Mario L. Small, and Ann McCranie

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