How Formal and Informal Structures Influence Tie Formation

This paper considers how changes in formal structure and the embeddedness of an employee's informal relationships influence tie formation. Informal patterns of transitivity will operate to make new relationships more likely between employees who are heavily embedded -- in that they have many contacts in common. At the same time, formal changes that move employees across formal groups are likely to encourage new relationships. Employees placed in the same group have more opportunity to interact and greater incentives to form relationships to efficiently carry out their role and to establish their new organizational identities. When formal changes separate employees into different groups, separated employees have new opportunities to form boundary spanning relationships with members of their old formal group, drawing on their knowledge of that old organization and common experiences created by past formal group membership. I argue that formal and informal structure will act as substitutes as the more valuab...