How individual performance increases combining different relational networks

In organizations, the best results are often achieved by so-called “brokers,” that is, managers and professionals who, within the corporate network, act as bridges: they connect people, skills, and different units, intercepting new ideas and hidden opportunities.

Yet those who occupy these key positions are also more exposed to stress, ambiguity, and isolation.

Research by three scholars from the Network Innovation Lab at SDA Bocconi, Marco Tortoriello, Giuseppe Soda, and Manuel Gomez-Solorzano, shows that being a broker is not enough, because informal relationships within companies are of different types. Alongside the “instrumental” network, oriented toward the exchange of work-related information, there is also an “expressive” network, based on friendship, built around mutual trust and strong interpersonal ties. The best results are achieved by those who, in addition to holding a brokerage position in the instrumental network, can simultaneously rely on a cohesive network of expressive interpersonal relationships.

When these two structures reinforce each other, individual performance increases significantly. Top performers not only have access to a wide range of information but can also rely on a “secure base” of trusting relationships to interpret it, evaluate it, and turn it into action.

Instrumental and expressive relationships

For more than thirty years, organizational research has shown that the exchange of information and knowledge in informal networks matters for individual performance. In particular, those who occupy brokerage positions—those who connect groups that are not directly linked—benefit from access to more diverse information and new ideas that facilitate the identification of emerging opportunities.

Much of this literature, however, has examined only one type of relationship at a time, almost always instrumental in nature (work advice, information exchange, operational collaboration), without considering the broader social context that exists within an organization. More recently, some studies have analyzed multiplexity, that is, the overlap of different types of relationships (instrumental and expressive) between the same individuals.

The question driving the work of Tortoriello, Soda, and Gomez-Solorzano is: What happens when instrumental and expressive relationships, instead of overlapping, lead the same person to interact with different contacts, resulting in different structural positions across different networks?

In other words, the research asks whether and how the position an individual occupies in the information network combines with the position they occupy in the network of trust, friendship, or emotional support, and what effects this combination has on individual performance.

Different positions, better results

The authors develop and test the concept of structural complementarity: the idea that performance improves when a person occupies structurally different but complementary positions in networks of a different nature.

The hypotheses confirmed by the research are that:

• In instrumental networks, openness matters—that is, the ability to bridge separate worlds (the ability to span so-called structural holes).
• In expressive networks, closure matters, particularly the presence of so-called “Simmelian” ties (from the studies of German sociologist George Simmel): strong, reciprocal relationships embedded in small, highly cohesive groups where everyone is connected to everyone else.

The authors test this theory in four very different organizational contexts: an HR function in a large consumer goods company; a luxury hotel; an R&D lab in the semiconductor sector; and a pharmaceutical R&D lab.

Overall, the study analyzes data from more than 890 individuals. Networks are mapped through detailed surveys; performance is measured through formal supervisor evaluations or, in the R&D contexts, through employees’ innovative capacity, measured in terms of the number of patents filed.

In all four contexts, the positive effect of brokerage in instrumental networks on performance increases significantly when the individual is simultaneously embedded in an expressive network dense with Simmelian ties.

The effect is stronger in environments with higher levels of uncertainty, such as R&D labs. In this case, an inventor who occupies a brokerage position in the instrumental network and has an expressive network dense with Simmelian ties generates twice as many patents as someone who is merely a broker in the instrumental network without benefiting from the boost provided by expressive ties.

Ties that help overcome resistance

The main conclusion is that without strong and stable trusting relationships, the broker, despite having access to potentially advantageous opportunities and options, risks being unable to translate them into concrete results.

This is because cohesive expressive networks perform at least three crucial functions:

• They help interpret: they offer a safe space to discuss ideas, clarify doubts, and evaluate alternatives without ulterior motives.
• They facilitate action: they make it easier to obtain initial support and coordinate efforts.
• They build legitimacy: they signal that those who connect different worlds are reliable, rooted, and supported, and for this reason their ideas encounter less resistance.

Promoting employee performance, therefore, means helping people build the right relational architecture, taking into account the nature of the ties involved. To improve individual performance based on informal relationships, there are no one-size-fits-all approaches. The results of this study instead suggest the importance of considering the different networks to which individuals belong, and of combining structural configurations of these ties that are neither additive nor substitutive, but complementary. Cross-functional roles, interdepartmental teams, and organizational rotations foster brokerage in instrumental relationships, but without relational contexts that simultaneously cultivate trust, stability, and deep relationships, these same roles can become draining for individuals and ineffective for performance.

Marco Tortoriello, Giuseppe Soda, Manuel Gomez-Solorzano, “The ties that nurture: Expressive Simmelian ties, instrumental brokerage, and individual performance.” Academy of Management Journal, In press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2024.0234.