Interorganizational homophily and social capital network positions in Malaysian civil society

ABSTRACT

The interorganizational relationship communication literature has identified homophily – the tendency for actors to form ties with similar others – as a mechanism predictive of tie formation among organizations in civil society networks. This study examined the connection between homophily and network structures equated with different types of social capital and perceptions of influence. Using survey data gathered from a network of Malaysian civil society organizations (n = 90), exponential random graph models and autologistic actor attribute models were used to test the association between homophily characteristics and the networked social capital positions of bridging, bonding, and gatekeeping. Results showed that bonders and brokers tended to be influenced by homophily, whereas gatekeepers were influenced by heterophily and homophily. Homophily was also associated with the likelihood of CSOs rating each other as more influential on government reform.

KEYWORDS:

• Networks
• homophily
• social capital
• civil society
• ERGM
• ALAAM

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives in Malaysia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We currently use brokerage, closure, and gatekeeping metrics as the DV. The use of a DV that is derived from the same network limits what type of endogenous structures we can use because it would introduce serious tautology concerns (e.g., using popularity to predict brokers or clustering to predict bonders). Nevertheless, we include two forms of reciprocity that should be theoretically non-tautologous.

2 Online supplement link: https://osf.io/kfvhg/?view_only=56227fdf6b694bfd8d82f9c5573117a0

3 Because the “absdiff” was used for age as a continuous variable, a negative coefficient means that the less difference in age, the more likely each CSO was likely to perceive each other as more influential. The same can be interpreted for the ALAAMs.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives in Malaysia.