Strong Ties (strong + tie)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


With a Little Help from Their Friends: Exploring the Advice Networks of Software Entrepreneurs

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2003
Cathleen A. McGrath
This field interview study examined patterns and content of advice sharing networks among 20 software executives to provide a clearer understanding of how advice relationships are established, the types of advice that are shared and the role that relationships play in the support of information exchange and diffusion. Most advice relationships were formed from strong tie relationships, while systematic differences were found among the types of advice sought from advice relationships resulting from strong ties, business ties and weak ties. The preference of software executives for rich communication media supports the importance of establishing trust in advice sharing relationships. [source]


Social Capital and Social Influence on the Board of Directors

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 1 2009
William B. Stevenson
abstract It is often assumed that directors with human capital such as prior management experience or independence from the company are the most influential board members. By contrast, in a survey of all the board members in 14 companies we found that ties to others in a network of strong ties among those who meet outside of board meetings were more important predictors of social influence than human capital or ties across boards. These ties within the board represent the social capital of members in the form of prior relationships with other directors, ties to others on the board, and membership in cliques within the board's network of ties. These results support a social capital perspective on influence that emphasizes relationships with others on the board as important factors in the social dynamics of board decision-making. [source]


The Organizational Life of an Idea: Integrating Social Network, Creativity and Decision-Making Perspectives*

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 6 2007
Bob Kijkuit
abstract Existing theories on the influence of social networks on creativity focus on idea generation. Conversely, the new product development literature concentrates more on the selection of ideas and projects. In this paper we bridge this gap by developing a dynamic framework for the role of social networks from idea generation to selection. We apply findings from creativity and behavioural decision-making literature and present an in-depth understanding of the sociological processes in the front-end of the new product development process. Our framework builds on the importance of mutual understanding, sensemaking and consensus formation. The propositions focus on both network structure and content and highlight the need to have strong ties and prior related knowledge, to incorporate decision makers, and to move over time from a large, non-redundant and heterogeneous to a smaller and more cohesive network structure. We conclude with a discussion on empirical validation of the framework and possible extensions. [source]


Maintaining Abstinence in a Northern Plains Tribe

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2006
Marjorie Bezdek
In this article, we examine how American Indian individuals with a history of alcohol dependence have been able to maintain their abstinence despite strong pressures to return to drinking. This work builds on close collaboration with individual tribal members who have resolved their problems with alcohol and community-based service providers to develop open-ended qualitative interviews. Using these, we explored how former drinkers respond to the twin challenges raised by their former drinking associates and strong feelings that emerge when alcohol is no longer an option for coping with life's difficulties. The resolution of these challenges is central to abstinence, given the strong ties between drinking and sociality in some American Indian communities (including the one where this study was conducted) and underscores the ways in which alternate relations to alcohol can be established even within a heavy drinking cultural context. Interviews were conducted with 133 individuals from a northern plains tribe who were identified in a previous epidemiological study as having a lifetime history of alcohol dependence. Inquiry into the processes involved in the meaningful constitution of abstinence for these men and women highlights the role of religion and spirituality for some, but by no means all of these individuals and, more broadly, the emergence of what Bea Medicine has characterized as "new ways of coping," which force us to expand on leading conceptualizations of coping in the literature on problems with alcohol. [source]


Up and Down with the Agrarian Question: Issue Attention and Land Reform in Contemporary Brazil

POLITICS & POLICY, Issue 4 2008
Gabriel Ondetti
The two most recent Brazilian presidents have both surprised observers with their land reform programs but for very different reasons. Despite presiding over a center-right government with strong ties to large landowners and a state-shrinking economic program, Fernando Henrique Cardoso implemented easily the largest rural land redistribution in Brazilian history. As the leader of a leftist party and a historic champion of radical land reform, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seemed to have sterling pro-land reform credentials. Yet Lula's program has, by some key measures, fallen well short of Cardoso's. This article attempts to explain these two anomalous outcomes. Drawing on Downs' concept of the "issue-attention cycle," it argues that the trajectory of land reform under Cardoso and Lula largely reflects the impact of a variable rarely cited in analyses of Brazilian politics: public issue saliency. This argument holds implications for both the future of land reform in Brazil and our broader understanding of the Brazilian political system. [source]


Social Networks and Collective Action

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2009
David A. Siegel
Despite growing attention to the role of social context in determining political participation, the effect of the structure of social networks remains little examined. This article introduces a model of interdependent decision making within social networks, in which individuals have heterogeneous motivations to participate, and networks are defined via a qualitative typology mirroring common empirical contexts. The analysis finds that some metrics for networks' influence,size, the prevalence of weak ties, the presence of elites,have a more complex interaction with network structure and individual motivations than has been previously acknowledged. For example, in some contexts additional network ties decrease participation. This presents the potential for selection bias in empirical studies. The model offers a fuller characterization of the role of network structure and predicts expected levels of participation across network types and distributions of motivations as a function of network size, weak and strong ties, and elite influence. [source]


Causal relationship between Internet use and social capital in Japan

ASIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2008
Kakuko Miyata
Based on longitudinal data collected from a random sample panel survey, the present study found that different types of Internet usage are differentially related to social networks. The more social ties people have, the more likely they are to use personal computer (PC) email, and the use of PC email increases social ties. The results also show that the more supportive ties people have, the more they tend to use mobile phone email; however, it does not prove the use of mobile phone email increases supportive ties. However, participation in an online community is not related social networks. These findings suggest that PC email may increase the size of personal social networks, whereas mobile phone email is useful in maintaining existing strong ties which provide social support. [source]


Social Networks, Identification and Participation in an Environmental Movement: Low-medium Cost Activism within the British Columbia Wilderness Preservation Movement,

CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 4 2002
David B. Tindall
Cet article examine comment la structure des réseaux personnels (ou égocentriques) est liée à la participation continue des individus dans un mouvement social (le British Columbia Wilderness Preservation Movement). Les résultats présentés dans ce texte suggèrent que la communication, le recrutement continu et l'identification influent sur le rapport entre la structure des réseaux et le niveau de participation dans le mouvement. Différents aspects de la structure du réseau personnel ont différents effets sur ces processus de médiation. Finalement, dans le contexte d'un activisme comportant des risques/coûts faibles ou moyens, les liens faibles sont plus importants pour faciliter la participation que ne le sont les liens forts. This article examines how the structure of egocentric (or personal) networks is related to the ongoing participation of individuals in a social movement (the British Columbia Wilderness Preservation Movement). The results presented in this paper suggest that: communication, ongoing recruitment, and identification mediate the relationship between ego-network structure and level of movement participation. Different aspects of personal network structure have differential effects on these intervening processes. Finally, under conditions of low-medium risk/cost activism, weak ties are more important to facilitating participation than are strong ties. [source]


The navigability of strong ties: Small worlds, tie strength, and network topology

COMPLEXITY, Issue 1 2002
Douglas R. White
First page of article [source]