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Purpose: This study examines how parental divorce impacts the social support network dynamics of adult children. Research has explored long-term consequences of divorce and the impact of biographical disruption on network dynamics. Despite the long-term impact of parental divorce on social networks, these literatures have not been integrated.

Design/methodology/approach: Using survey data from 21- to 30 and 50- to 70-year-old adults in the San Francisco Bay area through the University of California Social Networks Study, or UCNets, the author explores hypotheses related to biographical disruption and characteristics of social support networks.

Findings: The impact of parental divorce is varied. Parental divorce is unrelated to total number of network ties but is significantly related to number of confidant network ties and marginally related to practical help network ties. Parental divorce is associated with higher overlap across network dimensions, or multiplexity, but this association is stronger for younger compared to older adults.

Research limitations/implications: This study is limited to compositional network dynamics. Future research should explore the impact of parental divorce on clusters of social support and their relationship to network multiplexity in addition to constrained versus preferential multiplexity. These findings are limited to perception of social support in networks, as questions vary by recall period and behavior.

Originality/value: This chapter extends research on long-term consequences of parental divorce and extends biographical disruption models in social networks to processes in family structure, highlighting how age effects shape how parental divorce impacts support strategies, perceptions, and experience at the network level in early compared to later adulthood.

The purpose of this chapter is to contextualize mixed findings in the self-complexity literature. Self-complexity (when individuals' identity meanings do not overlap) theoretically buffers negative outcomes associated with distressing experiences, like identity non-verification (perceptions that others see individuals differently than individuals see themselves). However, research on self-complexity overlooks the social context in which these processes occur. Here, the author argues that multiplexity (when individuals are connected in two or more role relationships) provides meaningful context that influences whether self-complexity functions as a buffer. This leads to two competing arguments: (1) multiplexity enhances the self-complexity buffering effect and (2) multiplexity undermines the self-complexity buffering effect.

Using egocentric network survey data from 314 US adults, the author ran four regression models (two for the friend identity, two for the coworker identity). These models test whether self-complexity moderates the effect of non-verification on distress when individuals do (or do not) have multiplex ties in which they are close friends with their coworkers.

Multiplex ties amplify the buffering effect of self-complexity when non-verification occurs in the coworker identity, but multiplex ties weaken the buffering effect of self-complexity when non-verification occurs in the friend identity.

This work supports the idea that the benefits associated with self-complexity are conditional on social context as well as identity context. Future research should consider these realities when examining how identity and buffering processes relate to wellbeing.

This work integrates social network analysis and identity theory to reconcile mixed findings in the literature on self-complexity.

For over four decades, IB scholars have been conceptualizing and empirically examining the organizational structure of the multinational corporation (MNC) without really placing relationships at the center of attention. It therefore remains unclear what characterizes those relationships beyond subunits’ roles, motivation, or control mechanisms. Relationship as a term has often been used but rarely defined in the IB literature on intra-firm networks. We develop arguments that position such relationships as the focal unit of analysis. We extend current IB literature to examine in detail the nature and dynamics of relationships in MNCs by borrowing insights from Industrial Marketing and Purchasing research, which focuses on the relational nature and dynamics of interactions between actors. We offer a theoretical framework and develop a conceptual model that brings to the fore the multiplexity and temporality of relationships in MNCs. We also argue that intra-MNC network relationships can be seen as an evolving process and advocate for shifting away from variance-based and typological views toward a process view for examining relationships. Theoretically, understanding what characterizes the nature of MNC intra-firm relationships and what processes contribute to structuring them provides important insights into the global configuration of the MNC and the required organizational design mechanisms needed for MNC existence and resilience. The study is timely and practically relevant in the sense that considering intra-firm relationships deserves even more attention in the current global economic environment when accessing external resources becomes costly and/or inefficient.

Organizations are embedded in multiple interdependent networks comprising different types of relationships, which are managed by different functional units inside each organization. We define tie transfer across networks as the influence of relationships in one network on relationships in another. We argue that the probability of tie transfer will depend on the differences in context in which relationships are formed in two networks, on the past dynamics of relationships in a network into which the tie transfer takes place and on the relative salience of different networks. Our paper develops these conjectures into a relational multiplexity perspective.

How is moral legitimacy established in pluralist contexts where multiple moral frameworks co-exist and compete? Situations of moral multiplexity complicate not only whether an organization or practice is legitimate but also which criteria should be used to establish moral legitimacy. We argue that moral legitimacy can be thought of as the property of a dynamic dialogical process in which relations between moral schemes are constantly (re-)negotiated through dynamic exchange with audiences. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s ‘orders of worth’ framework, we propose a process model of how three types of truces may be negotiated: transcendence, compromise, antagonism. While each can create moral legitimacy in pluralistic contexts, legitimacy is not a binary variable but varying in degrees of scope and certainty.

A multiplex relation occurs when actors share different roles, actions, or affiliations that overlap in a relationship, such as co-workers who are also friends outside of work. Although multiplex relations are as varied as they are pervasive and often problematic, we know surprisingly little about when, under what circumstances, and exactly how overlapping ties affect social relations. Do they strengthen or weaken relationships? When do relationships become multiplex? How do they affect networks at large? In this chapter, we review notable studies that exist on this topic and suggest key questions and issues for future research. Our goal in particular is to suggest how exchange theory could contribute to these efforts.

While social network support has been found to be critical for persons with schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders, these persons are at risk for having smaller, less functional networks than non-clinical populations. Multi-purpose or multiplex network ties are especially beneficial because they are known to be associated with positive outcomes. This study examined which types of factors were related to network multiplexity over a ten-year period in a sample of 234 persons with severe mental illness, three-fourths of whom had schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. We asked whether clinical characteristics, the nature of the sheltered-care social environments in which subjects were living at baseline, and the number of residential care episodes predicted network multiplexity at follow-up. Using three different conceptualizations of network multiplexity as outcomes, we found that, in general, a prior history of long-term institutionalization, social environments rated higher on practical orientation, and fewer residential care episodes over the study period predicted networks deficient in tie multiplexity. Contrary to expectations, psychopathology was related to only one of the multiplexity outcomes.

Little is known, about the role played by start-ups in open innovation networks. Start-ups – due to their nature of new and emerging companies – can largely benefit from the knowledge that can flow intentionally or unintentionally from external partners during open innovation practices. When open innovation networks are not set among peers on both sides the authors expect to have more unintended knowledge flows. Such knowledge “leaks” – as the authors named them – in open innovation networks are totally unexplored in literature. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to focus “whether and how knowledge leaks occur in open innovation networks with start-ups”.

The research design of this study relies on social network analysis methods and techniques to disentangle the role of start-ups in open innovation networks – in a major Italian aerospace cluster – vis-à-vis the three types of knowledge considered in this study. Then the authors confirmed knowledge leaks to occur through a multiplexity analysis. In the second stage of the research, the authors decided to strengthen the results, making them more vivid and thorough, relying on four case studies.

The paper sheds light on a totally unexplored phenomenon, theorizing on the role of start-ups in open innovation networks and suggesting intriguing implications both for theory and managers on whether and how knowledge leaks occur.

The main limitations arise from the specific research context, in fact the study has been conducted in an aerospace cluster. So future studies might consider to explore knowledge leaks in non-cluster settings and in low tech industries.

The results have practical implications both for policy makers and for managers. First of all, the research confirms how open innovation often originates from a combination of different knowledge types acquired through the collaboration with heterogeneous players, start-ups included. Hence, managers may design open innovation strategies balancing their portfolio of collaborations to maximize the absorption of relevant knowledge and start-uppers may consider to engage in open innovation practices to accelerate knowledge absorption. Nevertheless, the study warns managers against the risk of knowledge leaks, especially in cases like start-ups where the eagerness to participate or the prestige associated with participating in open innovation networks with key players may hamper the control over knowledge leaks.

This opens up for possible interventions for policy makers too. First of all, policy makers may consider incorporating the concept of knowledge leaks in their campaign in favour of open innovation. Second, the study may help policy makers in designing programmes for knowledge transfer partnerships amongst the various players of a cluster in a more conscious way, especially warning new to business companies, like start-ups, about possible leaks. Finally, there is also the need of developing professional figures like consultants capable of supporting start-ups in their open innovation practices.

Findings reported in the paper confirm multiplexity and heteromorphism in knowledge exchanges and shed the light on a completely unexplored field (i.e. open innovation and start-ups), focussing on knowledge leaks. Relevant implications for policy makers and managers are included in the study.

This study investigated how college students’ pace of life and perceptions of communication technologies shape the choices they make when engaging in mediated communication with their parents.

We conducted 21 interviews to explore how students’ understandings of various communication technologies, the rules and patterns of technology use in their families, and the circumstances surrounding their use of technologies while at college influence the number and type of media they use to communicate with their parents.

We found that perceived busyness and generational differences played a large role in limiting technologies used, with environmental factors, the purpose of communication, and complexity of message also contributing to technology choices.

This study extends media multiplexity theory by investigating media choice and relational tie strength in an intergenerational context.

While guanxi is by far the most prominent network construct in international business research, the literature on other informal network constructs (wasta, sifarish, svyazi, yongo, etc.) is emerging. Though guanxi research suggests that the influence of informal networks in business may recede with increasing levels of economic growth and institutional effectiveness, this hypothesis remains to be tested in different contexts using varied network constructs in order to come to general conclusions. Assuming that informal networks are culturally rather than institutionally driven, we elaborate on the developmental dynamics of informal networks in Korea, namely yongo and inmaek, arguing that yongo persists and adjusts to changes in the sociocultural environment. While we define traditional yongo based on three in-group ties (family, university, and regional ties), today we see workplace-related ties and networks becoming an increasingly important yongo base, which we call yongo 2.0. Societal trends reflected in the so-called spoon-class theory and N-po generation debate mirror the ambivalence of traditional yongo and the reliance on yongo 2.0. Hence, we assume that yongo will not recede but remain an important in-group tie that foreign business expatriates need to understand and learn to access in order to manage business effectively and integrate into society.