Tag: Organizations

Investigating the Temporal Dynamics of Interorganizational Exchange: Patient Transfers Among Italian Hospitals

Previous research on interaction behavior among organizations has typically aggregated those behaviors over time as a network of organizational relationships. This paper instead studies structural-temporal patterns in organizational exchange. Applying this lens to a community of Italian hospitals during 2003–7, the authors observe two mechanisms of interorganizational reciprocation: organizational embedding and resource dependence, and show how these two mechanisms operate on distinct time horizons and operate differently in competitive and non-competitive contexts. Results shed light on the evolution of generalized exchange or status hierarchies at the population level.

Kitts, James A., Lomi, Alessandro, Mascia, Daniele, Pallotti, Francesca, and Eric Quintane. “Investigating the Temporal Dynamics of Interorganizational Exchange: Patient Transfers Among Italian Hospitals.” American Journal of Sociology. 123(3): 850-910, 2017.

Greed and Fear in Network Reciprocity: Implications for Cooperation among Organizations

This paper depicts the evolution of cooperation on regular lattices, with strategies propagating locally by relative fitness. The underlying dilemma arises from two distinct dimensions—the gains for exploiting cooperative partners (Greed) and the cost of cooperating with exploitative partners (Fear). This paper uses computational experiments to show that embedding interaction in networks generally leads Greed and Fear to have divergent, interactive, and highly nonlinear effects on cooperation at the macro level, even when individuals respond identically to Greed and Fear. We then replicate our experiments on inter-organizational network data derived from links through shared directors among 2,400 large US corporations.

Kitts, James A., Leal, Diego F., Jones, Thomas M., Felps, Will, and Shawn L. Berman. “Greed and Fear in Network Reciprocity: Implications for Cooperation among Organizations”   PLoS ONE 11(2), 2016.

Paradise Lost? Age Dependence in the Mortality of American Communes

Theorists agree that the risk of folding changes as organizations age, but there is little consensus as to the general form or generative processes of age-dependent mortality. This paper investigates four such processes (maturation, senescence, legitimation, and obsolescence), which have been taken as competing accounts. Using two analytical levers – elaborating on time shapes of these processes and distinguishing aging of organizations from aging of their templates (designs) – this paper differentiates these four processes and tests them jointly. Analysis of mortality rates for American communes from 1609 to 1965 strongly supports the proposed effects of maturation and senescence at the organization level and legitimation at the level of organizational templates. Results give weaker evidence that obsolescence of templates influenced mortality and that environmental drift exacerbated obsolescence.

Kitts, James A. “Paradise Lost? Age Dependence in the Mortality of American Communes” Social Forces. 87(3): 1193-1222, March 2009.

Egocentric Bias or Information Management? Selective Disclosure and the Social Roots of Norm Misperception

This paper examines systematic biases in group members’ inferences about collective support for group norms. While theories of “looking glass perception” suggest a tendency to project our own preferences onto others, this paper shows that observed biases may simply reflect flows of information through social networks. Members conceal their counter-normative behavior and divulge it disproportionately within confidence relations. This predicts structured inference, where members’ inferences depend on their social ties, and also pluralistic ignorance, where members generally overestimate collective support for existing norms. These predictions are evaluated in a field study of perceived normative consensus in five vegetarian housing cooperatives. Results fail to support the intrinsic bias argument, but demonstrate these forms of information bias. Also, by locating this structural effect only in large groups that facilitate private conversation, findings highlight the mechanism of selective disclosure. This source of normative inertia may account for the puzzling stability of broadly unpopular norms in groups.

Kitts, James A. “Egocentric Bias or Information Management? Selective Disclosure and the Social Roots of Norm Misperception.” Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(3): 222-237, September 2003.

Mobilizing in Black Boxes: Social Networks and Social Movement Organizations

Recent research has focused on the role of social networks in facilitating individuals’ participation in protest and social movement organizations. This paper elaborates three currents of microstructural explanation, based on information, identity, and exchange. In evaluating these perspectives, the paper compares their robustness to multivalence, the tendency for social ties to inhibit as well as promote participation. Considering two dimensions of multivalence – the value of the social tie and the direction of social pressure – this paper discusses problems of measurement and interpretation in network analysis of movement participation.

Kitts, James A. “Mobilizing in Black Boxes: Social Networks and Social Movement Organizations” 
Mobilization: An International Journal, 5(2): 241-257, October 2000.

Analyzing Communal Life Spans: A Dynamic Structural Approach

Social scientists have used two lenses to analyze the births and deaths of communes. A structural lens examines the effects of organizational structure on collective longevity. A contextual lens examines variation in populations of communes over time, measuring relationships between utopian “waves” and broader social and economic cycles. This paper discusses contributions and limitations of both perspectives and proposes a synthesis, which examines the effects of both structure and context on the viability of communes.

Kitts, James A. “Analyzing Communal Life Spans: A Dynamic Structural Approach” Communal Societies, 20: 13-25, Fall 2000.

Not in Our Backyard: Solidarity, Social Networks,and the Ecology of Environmental Mobilization

This paper explores the role of social networks in channeling individuals’ involvement in local activism. A case study of a grassroots environmental group examines variation in members’ levels of involvement, using three levels of explanation: individual attributes, strong and weak ties between members, and memberships in other organizations. After demonstrating that high- and low-level members are very similar in personal attributes, it focuses on social ties and organizational affiliations. As expected, the data suggest that an individual’s level of involvement is increased by strong ties to other members, structural similarity to other high-level members, and fewer ties to non-members. Extramovement organizational affiliations are often assumed to diminish actors’ structural availability, though empirical research in differential recruitment has generally revealed a positive effect on participation in social movements. This study addresses a microstructural explanation for the variation between competition and mutualism in a local multiorganizational field, as it shows how organizational goals condition the effect of outside affiliations on level of participation.

Kitts, James A.  “Not in Our Backyard: Solidarity, Social Networks, and the Ecology of Environmental Mobilization.” Sociological Inquiry, 69(4): 551-574, Fall 1999.