The effects of multiple team membership on networking online and offline: using multilevel multiple membership modeling

ABSTRACT

When organizations use multiple team membership (MTM) to enhance efficient use of resources, workers in multiple teams develop networks that expand across team boundaries and are linked to teams at a higher level. On such complexity in multilevel networked organizations, we investigate how MTM and team characteristics shape individual-level networks both online and offline. We explain and use the relatively new approach of multilevel multimember modeling (MMMM) to consider how the diversity of teams is related to individual behaviors and networks. Studying a large trans-Canadian network of scholars making and studying digital media, we find that MTM and diversity in teams have a positive impact on the development of diverse ego networks online (email) rather than offline (in person). We also discuss the broader implications of MMMM for understanding the ways in which networked organizations operate.

KEYWORDS:

• Email network
• networked organization
• multilevel multiple membership model
• multiple team membership

Acknowledgements

We greatly appreciate the collaborators in the NAVEL team: Dimitrina Dimitrova, Anatoliy Gruzd, Tsahi Hayat, and Eleni Stroulia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Guang Ying Mo is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Dr Mo’s research examines how network organizations influence creation of innovations. She studies the relationships between diversity in scholarly networks, collaborative ties across disciplinary boundaries, and innovative outcomes [email: [email protected]].

Sociologist Barry Wellman studies the intersection of social networks, communication networks, and computer networks. A member of the Royal Society of Canada, Wellman co-directs the NetLab Network based in Toronto and is the co-author of Networked: The new social operating system [email: [email protected]].

Additional information

Funding

The GRAND NCE, led by Kelly Booth, funded and facilitated our research, but provided no scholarly interference.