Sunbelt XXXI International Network for Social Network ... - INSNA

Discovering Jewish NetworksKadushin, CharlesFriendship networksEgo‐centered Networks, Ethnic Identify NetworksWED.PM1For a minority such as Jews, their social networks are critical in maintaining their identities and formal affiliations. Nevertheless, survey network questionsabout Jews have been limited to “How many of your best (or close friends) are Jewish?” Instead, we introduce the methods of the General Social Survey (GSS)to investigate the network of the key friends and relatives of young Jews in a long term panel study. This approach, new to Jewish studies, will show the extentto which Jews and non‐Jews are linked in the interpersonal environment of respondents; the settings in which they met; the extent to which friends andrelatives are known to one another and the influence of this network, if any, on the Jewish interests and practices of the respondents. The GSS method will becompared with the more traditional method of asking what proportion of your friends are Jewish.Discretion Within The Constraints Of Opportunity: The Structure Of Homophily In A Formal OrganizationKleinbaum, Adam M.; Stuart, Toby E.; Tushman, Michael L.Social Networks and DemographicsCommunication, Homophily, Gender, Structure, Email InvitationWED.PM1The principle of homophily is perhaps the most robust empirical regularity describing the structure of social relations. While we know that homophily resultsfrom both individual preference and uneven opportunity, there is little empirical research describing how these two mechanisms interact to affect thestructure of intra‐organizational networks. We argue that formal organizational structure and geography delimit opportunities for interaction, but that withinthe constraints of business units and offices, actors have discretion to choose their interaction partners. We test these arguments using a unique dataset oforganizational communication, consisting of millions of e‐mails exchanged among thousands of employees in a large IT firm. Consistent with this theory,results show a significant difference‐in‐differences between the interaction rates between same‐sex dyads within business units and within offices thanbetween them. Furthermore, we find that these main effects are driven by men, but that women communicate differently: they seek out interactions withother women outside their own business unit or office through functional channels. These findings have important implications for research on homophily,gender and formal and informal structure in organizations.