The Management Department
Department
Seminar Series
Martin Kilduff
UCL
Tuesday, May 7th
2019
Room LE
CLUB at 10:00 am
Theme: “When
the Personality of Others Matters:
Self-Monitoring, Homophily, and
the Origins of Network Structure”
Abstract: We investigate whether and how the
personality of the coworkers with whom an individual interacts helps explain
the extent to which the individual comes to occupy advantageous positions in
social networks. We suggest that differences in self-monitoring personality
affect social structure beyond the reach of the individual. We test this
prediction in two studies. In Study 1, we use cross-sectional data on advice
relations in an organization to show that self-monitoring is associated with
network popularity and homophily: high self-monitors attract advice
requests mainly from highs, and low self-monitors from lows, although high
self-monitors receive more advice requests overall. In Study 2, we use
longitudinal data on advice relations within a cohort of young-professionals in
a post-graduate program, to show that high self-monitors come to occupy network
brokerage roles to the extent that they are sought for advice by other high
self-monitors. This happens, we suggest, because their high self-monitoring
contacts tend to remain unconnected from each other. At the same time, the
extent to which high self-monitors are sought for advice by low self-monitors
tends to explain the likelihood of the highs to remain embedded in closed
networks. This happens, we suggest, because their low self-monitoring contacts
are more likely to interact with each other.
