Paper presentation - "The Strength of Weak Ties" from Mark Granovetter, AJS 1973

1. Lecture XIII: Organizational Applications
Jonas Rolo

2.  Strength of tie as a linear combination
◦ F = Frequency of Contact
◦ E = Emotional intensity
◦ I = Intimacy
◦ R = Reciprocal services
TSij=β1F+ β2E+ β3I+ β4R
 Granovetter leaves exact functional form and
weighting “postponed for future empirical
work”
 Absent Weak Strong

3.  Probability of tie between B and C is positively related
with tie strength of A-B and A-C.
◦ Frequency of Interaction (Homan)
 More frequent interaction = more friendship B
◦ Similarity (Precker, Newcomb and others)
 Stronger tie = similarity between persons
A C
◦ Cognitive balance (Heider, Newcomb)
 C and B want congruence of feelings with A
 If A-B and A-C are strong ties then by transitivity B
and C have a weak tie at least. The Triad A-B, A-C
with absent tie B-C is not to be expected.

4.  Bridge – The only path between two points.
 Triad is absent -> a bridges cannot be a strong
tie. All bridges are weak ties.
 Bridges create more and shorter paths. Weak ties
are more important than strong ties in
transmission of information.
 Strength of Weak Ties is to speed up information
diffusion and access:
◦ Shorter distances = faster penetration or access
◦ Less redundancy = wider reach or search

5.  More diversified and faster access to information
or resources.
 More widespread and faster diffusion of
information or influence.
 Better social mobility – access to more and
diversified job opportunities.
 Author’s study: Most job referrals come through
those who we see rarely: old school friends,
former co-workers, etc.

6.  Faster Change
◦ An individual’s uptake of a new technique depends on how many
of those around him have “bought in”.
◦ Quickly adopted techniques must be rapidly spread to many
cliques in order to be adopted.
 People with bridging weak ties are critical to spreading the
new ideas over the structural holes – Knowledge brokers.
 Outside weak ties grants access to less redundant Social
Capital.
 Coordination - Without weak links, organizations exist as
a set of strongly connected, but disjoint cliques
◦ No one suitable to act as a leader for all

7.  Looking only to the strength of ties ignores
important issues involving their content – Meta
network (knowledge, specializations, hierarchy).
 How can "negative" ties be handled?
 Should tie strength be developed as a continuous
variable?
 What is the developmental sequence of network
structure over time?

8.  Linked In – Open Networkers have networks with
thousands of direct connections
 Barack Obama used the strength of weak ties on
Facebook and LinkedIn to win from Hilary Clinton.
 Academic hiring – School reluctant to hire own PhD’s
– prevents intellectual inbreeding.
 User leader innovation – user does not know the
technology but knows the use (weak ties links them
for transfer of knowledge).

9. Thanks for your attention