PI: Linda D. Molm Co-PI: Scott V. Savage University of Arizona
This project tests whether two types of social exchanges (reciprocal and negotiated) differentially affect the likelihood of actors exiting a social network in order to join a new social network and whether structural inequalities affect such choices. Reciprocal exchanges involve an actor deciding to initiate an exchange by providing benefits to another without knowing whether the other will reciprocate. Negotiated exchanges involve actors bargaining over the terms of an exchange. An experiment will be conducted to test whether exchanging in a social network characterized by reciprocal exchanges compared to negotiated exchanges make actors less likely to leave their existing networks for an uncertain alternative social network.
Broader Impacts This research has the potential to generate results that are of valuable to organizations. Turnover can be costly for employers, and many employers actively try to improve employee retention rates. If the two types of interaction studied differentially affect whether people choose to leave their existing social networks in order to interact with people in a new social network, there will be evidence to suggest that one way managers might improve employee retention is by implementing policies and structures that advocate one form of exchange or interaction over the other.
Interacting with people in a social network occasionally means not interacting with people in other social networks. As a result, people sometimes have to choose whether they want to remain in an existing social network or leave it to interact with people in other social networks. The question motivating this research is: what affects this choice? My dissertation research investigates whether two types of social interaction (reciprocal exchange and negotiated exchange) differentially affect the likelihood of actors exiting a social network when given the opportunity to join a new social network. Reciprocal exchanges involve an actor deciding to initiate an exchange by providing benefits to another without knowing whether the other will reciprocate. Negotiated exchanges involve actors bargaining over the terms of an exchange. To test a theoretical argument about why reciprocal exchange should result in an increased propensity to stay with one’s social network, I conducted an experiment in the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011. This laboratory experiment relied on a 2x2x2 factorial design, manipulating the form of exchange, the power of subjects, and the information subjects have about the opportunity to exit. Preliminary findings from the experiment reveal that indeed actors who interact via reciprocal exchange are more likely to remain in their social networks than actors who have been interacting with others via negotiated exchange. The experiment also reveals that power and the amount of information people have about the benefits they can receive from the alternative network affect the choice to stay. Given these findings, I conducted a second experiment. This experiment tested whether legitimizing the act of staying affected the choice to stay for people interacting via reciprocal exchange. The experiment manipulated the amount of information subjects had about the alternative network and the legitimacy of the stay option. Preliminary results indicate that legitimizing the choice to stay matters, but only under certain information conditions. Results from these two experiments are potentially valuable to organizations. Turnover can be costly for employers, and many employers actively try to improve employee retention rates. Given that the two types of interaction differentially affect the choice to leave one’s social network, there is reason to believe that managers might improve employee retention by implementing policies and structures that advocate reciprocal exchange.
