Informal Networks and Organizational Crises: An Experimental Simulation
Abstract
This paper argues that organizations with a particular social network structure are more effective than most organizations in responding to crises. Further, it is argued that the effective structure does not occur naturally, but must be designed consciously and carefully. A theory is developed based on well-founded principles of social science, most notably work on formal structure, conflict, friendships, and organizational crises. The paper concludes with an experimental test of one of the four propositions deduced from the theory. Six trials of the experiment found significant support for this proposition.
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Assortativity is overly sensitive to initial structural changes when separation is weak, but loses sensitivity as structural separation becomes strong.
“Similarly, Hohmann et al. [18] showed that assortativity is overly sensitive to initial structural changes when separation is weak, but loses sensitivity as structural separation becomes strong.”
From DSP: A Statistically-Principled Structural Polarization Measure (2026) · cites this paper as [18]
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“network science measure known as the E/I index [36] and Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD) [37].”
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DSP: A Statistically-Principled Structural Polarization Measure
Preti, G., Riondato, M., Gionis, A., & De Francisci Morales, G. (2026) · Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining · doi:10.1145/3773966.3777942
- Authors
- Krackhardt, D., & Stern, R. N.
- Affiliations
- Cornell University (US)
- ORCID
- Krackhardt, David
- Venue
- Social Psychology Quarterly
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1988-06
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 123
- ISSN
- 0190-2725 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2059837179
- Cited by
- 1,256
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 43 · 2025: 68 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 58 · 2022: 66 · 2021: 88 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 68 · 2018: 74 · 2017: 51 · 2016: 54 · 2015: 55 · 2014: 65 · 2013: 64 · 2012: 55
- FWCI
- 10.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Social Psychology Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Capital and Networks
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Team Dynamics and Performance
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
- Keywords
- informal networks, organizational crisis, social network structure, crisis response, organizational design, formal structure, conflict, friendship
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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