Hardwiring Weak Ties: Interorganizational Computer-Mediated Communication, Occupational Communities, and Organizational Change

Abstract

Interorganizational computer-mediated communication (ICMC) is expanding rapidly through the Internet and other elements of infrastructure. ICMC can be expected to evolve into the mainstream of existing communications infrastructure, but this evolution is not occurring uniformly across organizations. ICMC infrastructure appears to be most strongly supported, at least in this early stage, among organizations dependent on the maintenance of external weak social ties among employees who are members of professional, dispersed occupational communities. This can be seen in the experience of research-oriented organizations. Two strong forces—the professionalism of key occupational communities seeking autonomy, and a persistent desire by organizations to reduce fixed costs and organizational size—are posited as encouraging growth of ICMC infrastructure. Such growth might provide an important “bootstrapping mechanism” of long-predicted shifts from hierarchical to market forms of organization, at least in professionalized sectors of the economy.