Strength of Strong Ties

Importance of Philos in organizations

What is tie strength?

• Granovetter:• Combination of time, emotional intensity,

intimacy and reciprocity• Empirically, only frequency of contact was

used

• Continuous function, yet discrete results

Efficacy of ties

• Increasing tie strength from 0 to n increases tie efficacy

• Increasing tie strength above n decreases efficacy

• Where is thebreakpoint?

Efficacy

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Preponderance of weak ties

• Given Granovetter’s definition

• Within an organization, everyone is connected to everyone with at least a weak tie

Psychology of Strong Ties

• Strong ties are affective• Up for interpretation

• Reciprocal service• “Service” can be measured• “Reciprocity” is much more difficult

• Time together is the only objective measure• Too coarse

Strength of Strong Ties

• Weak ties disseminate information and span subgroups

• Hypothesis• Strong ties are activated at times of stress

and uncertainty

Philos - a special kind of strong tie

• Components• Interaction frequency

• Creates opportunity for info exchange

• Affection• Creates motivation

• Time (extended relationship)• History of interactions = basis of trust• Predictable interactions

Methodology

• Philos is hard to measure because it is a time-based phenomenon

• One way to approach that is with cognitive networks• I.e. integrated individual perceptions of the

network

Cognitive Network

• Questionnaire:• For person A:

• Who does A go to for advice? {B,C,D,E…}• Who does A interact with socially?• Who do you think…

• B goes to for advice?• C goes to for advice?• …• B socializes with• C socializes with

Cognitive Network

• Result of questionnaire:• “Cognitive cube network” • Perception of network ties by third parties

is often inaccurate

True Network

• True network:• R*j,j=1 iff Ri,j,I=1 and Ri,j,j=1

• Logical “AND” of perceptual slices of ego and alter

Accuracy of Network Perception

• Number of ties among alters that ego percieves correctly

• Ci=Sum(Rkl,I AND R*kl)/(n-1)2

• High cognitive accuracy correlated with high network performance

Horizon of Observability

• Ci falls with distance from ego