101 Business Ideas That Will Change the Way You Work

IDEA #55

How social networks share knowledge

How knowledge-sharing in organisations is affected by social ties.

What you need to know

How close are you to your colleagues? Relationships between individuals in social networks have often been characterised as being either ‘strong social ties’ or ‘weak social ties’. In 1973 the sociologist Mark Granovetter argued that the strength or weakness of a tie is a determined by ‘a combination of the amount of time [spent in interaction], the emotional intensity, the intimacy, and the reciprocal services which characterise the tie [between individuals]’. Prior to Granovetter’s work, scholars believed ...