There are many reasons why relationships are started, maintained, and dissolved in the workplace. This study explores how network awareness (i.e., how well a person feels they know who is connected with whom), tertius iungens orientation (i.e., the behavioral tendency to join together people who would otherwise be disconnected), and affective identification (i.e., positive feelings associated with membership) relate to workplace communication for tie management. Using a sample of working adults in the U.S. (N = 304), this study leverages the changing others’ relationship (COR) framework and examines how these actor perceptions are associated with tie initiation, tie maintenance, and tie dissolution. Structural equation modeling showed that network awareness and tertius iungens orientation were both positively associated with tie initiation and maintenance, but unrelated to tie dissolution. In contrast, affective identification was negatively related to tie dissolution, but unrelated to initiation or maintenance. These results offer evidence regarding how actors exert agency within work networks, extending network theory, and presenting practical suggestions for fostering the benefits of brokering within organizational contexts.
AralS.Van AlstyneM. (2011). The diversity-bandwidth trade-off. American Journal of Sociology, 117(1), 90–171. https://doi.org/10.1086/661238
2.
BadawyR. L.StefanoneM. A.BroucerR. L. (2014, January). I’m not just wasting time online! Test of situational awareness: An exploratory study [Conference session]. Proceedings of the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 1566–1575). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2014.201
BrassD. J.KrackhardtD. (1999). The social capital of twenty-first-century leaders. In HuntJ. G.DodgeG. E.WongL. (Eds.), Out-of-the-box leadership: Transforming the twenty-first-century army and other top-performing organizations (pp. 179–194). Elsevier Science/JAI Press.
5.
BurtR. S. (1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Harvard University Press.
CormanS. R.ScottC. R. (1994). Perceived networks, activity foci, and observable communication in social collectives. Communication Theory, 4, 171–190. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.1994.tb00089.x
10.
DokkoG.KaneA. A.TortorielloM. (2014). One of us or one of my friends: How social identity and tie strength shape the creative generativity of boundary spanning ties. Organization Studies, 35(5), 703–726. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840613508397
11.
EndacottC. G.LeonardiP. M. (2022). Keep them apart or join them together? How identification processes orient toward network brokerage. Communication Research, 49, 61–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650220947316
12.
FangR.LandisB.ZhangZ.AndersonM. H.ShawJ. D.KilduffM. (2015). Integrating personality and social networks: A meta-analysis of personality, network position, and work outcomes in organizations. Organization Science, 26(4), 1243–1260. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2015.0972
GaertnerS. L.DovidioJ. F.AnastasioP. A.BachmanB. A.RustM. C. (1993). The common ingroup identity model: Recategorization and the reduction of intergroup bias. European Review of Social Psychology, 4, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779343000004
15.
GillathO.JohnsonD. K.SelcukE.TeelC. (2011). Comparing old and young adults as they cope with life transitions: The links between social network management skills and attachment style to depression. Clinical Gerontologist, 34, 251–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317115.2011.554345
16.
GillathO.KarantzasG.SelcukE. (2017). A net of friends: Investigating friendship by integrating attachment theory and social network analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 1546–1565. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217719731
17.
GrosserT. J.ObstfeldD.LabiancaG.BorgattiS. P. (2019). Measuring mediation and separation brokerage orientations: A further step toward studying the social network brokerage process. Academy of Management Discoveries, 5(2), 114–136. https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2017.0110
18.
HalevyN.HalaliE.ZlatevJ. J. (2019). Brokerage and brokering: An integrative review and organizing framework for third party influence. Academy of Management Annals, 13, 215–239. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0024
19.
HansenM. T. (1999). The search-transfer problem: The role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 82–111. https://doi.org/10.2307/2668032
20.
HargadonA.SuttonR. I. (1997). Technology brokering and innovation in a product development firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42(4), 716–749. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393655
21.
HaslamS. A.EllemersN. (2005). Social identity in industrial and organizational psychology: Concepts, controversies, and contributions. In HodgkinsonG. P.FordJ. K. (Eds.), International review of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 39–118). John Wiley & Sons.
22.
HayesA. F.CouttsJ. J. (2020). Use omega rather than Cronbach’s alpha for estimating reliability. But. . .. Communication Methods and Measures, 14(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2020.1718629
23.
HuL. T.BentlerP. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
24.
JanicikG. A.LarrickR. P. (2005). Social network schemas and the learning of incomplete networks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 348–364. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.2.348
25.
KauppilaO. P.BizziL.ObstfeldD. (2018). Connecting and creating: Tertius iungens, individual creativity, and strategic decision processes. Strategic Management Journal, 39, 697–719. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2728
26.
KauppilaO. P.BizziL.ObstfeldD. (2024). Opening new brokerage opportunities while closing existing ones: The Tertius Iungens as a source of network advantage. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 45(1), 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2753
27.
KelleyH. H.ThibautJ. W. (1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence. Wiley.
28.
KlineR. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (4th ed.). Guilford Press.
29.
KrackhardtD. (1999). The ties that torture: Simmelian tie analysis in organizations. In BacharachS. B.AndrewsS. B.KnokeD. (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations (pp. 183–210). JAI Press.
30.
KwonS.-W.RondiE.LevinD. Z.De MassisA.BrassD. J. (2020). Network brokerage: An integrative review and future research agenda. Journal of Management, 46, 1092–1120. https://doi.org/10.25384/SAGE.c.4975670.v1
31.
LeonardiP. M.MeyerS. R. (2015). Social media as social lubricant: How ambient awareness eases knowledge transfer. American Behavioral Scientist, 59, 10–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764214540509
32.
LevinD. Z.WalterJ.AppleyardM. M.CrossR. (2016). Relational enhancement: How the relational dimension of social capital unlocks the value of network-bridging ties. Group & Organization Management, 41, 415–457. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601115574429
33.
LevinD. Z.WalterJ.MurnighanJ. K. (2011). Dormant ties: The value of reconnecting. Organization Science, 22(4), 923–939. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1100.0576
MaelF.AshforthB. E. (1992). Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(2), 103–123. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030130202
36.
NakashimaN. A.HalaliE.HalevyN. (2017). Third parties promote cooperative norms in repeated interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 68, 212–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.06.007
37.
ObstfeldD. (2005). Social networks, the tertius iungens orientation, and involvement in innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50, 100–130. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2005.50.1.100
38.
ObstfeldD.BorgattiS. P.DavisJ. (2014). Brokerage as a process: Decoupling third party action from social network structure. In BrassD. J.LabiancaG.MehraA.HalginD. S.BorgattiS. P. (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives on organizational social networks (pp. 135–159). Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2014)0000040007
39.
PiercyC. W.BiselR. S.TreemJ. W. (2022). Agency in computer-mediated communication: Bots and U.S. political elections. In LipschultzJ. H.FrebergK.LuttrellR. (Eds.), The emerging media handbook of computer-mediated communication and social media (pp. 549–559). Emerald.
40.
PiercyC. W.LeeS. K. (2023). Reconsidering ‘ties’: The sociotechnical job search network. International Journal of Business Communication. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488420965680
41.
QuintaneE.CarnabuciG. (2016). How do brokers broker? Tertius gaudens, tertius iungens, and the temporality of structural holes. Organization Science, 27, 1343–1360. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2016.1091
42.
RajM.FastN. J.FisherO. (2017). Identity and professional networking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 772–784. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217697299
43.
ReagansR.McEvilyB. (2003). Network structure and knowledge transfer: The effects of cohesion and range. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48, 240–267. https://doi.org/10.2307/3556658
44.
RosseelY. (2012). Lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02
45.
SasovovaZ.MehraA.BorgattiS. P.SchippersM. C. (2010). Network churn: The effects of self-monitoring personality on brokerage dynamics. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55, 639–670. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2010.55.4.639
46.
SimmelG. (1950). Philosophische Kultur: Gesammelte Essais. G. Kiepenheuer.
47.
SodaG.TortorielloM.IorioA. (2018). Harvesting value from brokerage: Individual strategic orientation, structural holes, and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 61(3), 896–918. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0123
StefanoneM. A.IacobucciA.SvetievaE. (2016, January). Developing the network awareness construct: Evidence supporting the ability to understand social situations [Conference session]. Proceedings of the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 2028–2037). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2016.256
50.
SteinyD.Oinas-KukkonenH. (2007). Network awareness: Social network search, innovation and productivity in organizations. International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 4, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJNVO.2007.015723
TasselliS.KilduffM.MengesJ. I. (2015). The microfoundations of organizational social networks: A review and an agenda for future research. Journal of Management, 41(5), 1361–1387. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206315573996
53.
WolffH.-G.SpurkD. (2020). Developing and validating a short networking behavior scale (SNBS) from Wolff and Moser’s (2006) measure. Journal of Career Assessment, 28, 277–302. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072719844924
54.
YoonK.PiercyC. W.KimY. J.ZhuY. (2023). Boundary work and transactive memory systems in teams: Moderating effects of the visibility affordance. Management Communication Quarterly, 38(2), 359–385. https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189231192078
55.
Zakrzewska-BielawskaA. (2018). The relationship between managers’ network awareness and the relational strategic orientation of their firms: Findings from interviews with Polish managers. Sustainability, 10(2691). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10082691
