On the 'missing link' between formal organization and informal social structure
| Autor: | Henrik Bentzen, Starling David Hunter, Jan Taug |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Informal organization
Organizational architecture lcsh:Management. Industrial management Strategy and Management media_common.quotation_subject Organizational network analysis Social network analysis Quadratic assignment procedure Formal structure Organization structure 0502 economics and business ddc:650 Sociology media_common Social network business.industry Organization design 05 social sciences Informal structure 050301 education Public relations Friendship Social structure lcsh:HD28-70 Formal organization Organizational structure Network analysis business 0503 education 050203 business & management |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Organization Design, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-20 (2020) |
| Popis: | Over the last 40 years, organizational scholars have repeatedly called for more research to reconcile formalist and social network approaches to the intra-organizational structure. The former has primarily been concerned with the reporting relationship which manifests as the chain of command while research on the informal social structure relegates the reporting relationship to a wide and varied range of instrumental and affective relationships such as advice-seeking, knowledge-sharing, trust, and friendship which span the boundaries that the chain of command defines. In this study, we employ thechain of command distance—the length along the chain of command of a path connecting a pair of organizational actors—as the basis for formulating and testing hypotheses about how the formal organization and the informal social structure influence one another. First, we argue that whereas the formal structure affords only one, often very lengthy, path between any pair of actors, thecombinationof formal and informal structures results in a greater number of significantly shorter paths between actors. Next, we consider one effect of the formal organization on the informal social structure. In particular, we argue that there is an inverse relationship between the chain of command distance and the likelihood of a social or informal connection forming between a pair of actors. We test our hypotheses with demographic data collected from a public sector provider of health, education, and welfare services in rural Norway. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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