| This study examines three types of informal networks found in work organizations and how their relationship with formal networks affects individuals in the workplace. I focus upon three types of informal networks, identified by their content and structure, found in work organizations: friendship, trust, and strategic information. In contrast to previous work that conceptualizes trust as a characteristic of friendship networks, I find that trust and friendship networks are not the same and one is not a subset of the other. Analyses confirm predictions that trust and friendship networks in the workplace are theoretically and empirically different based on properties such as size, homophily, tie closeness, and tie duration.;Drawing upon theories of social identification, internalization, and social comparison, I argue that both the content and coupling or overlap of individual member networks affect individual outcomes such as identification with organizations, organizational internalization, and work-related satisfaction. Data from a survey of employees in five, small, start-up organizations were collected during 1997 and early 1998. Tight coupling between informal friendship networks and formal authority networks is found to have a strong positive effect on individual organizational identification. Tight coupling between informal trust and formal authority networks is also found to have a strong positive affect on both individual organizational identification and individual internalization of organizational values. However, informal strategic information networks and formal workgroup networks are found to be only loosely coupled and have no significant effect on job satisfaction. Tight coupling of friendship networks and formal authority networks is found to be more important in determining job satisfaction. I discuss the implications of these results for networks theory and research and for individual outcomes in the workplace. |
