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TABLE 3.7
Ba Co.’s Distinctive Identities
Distinctiveness Meaning Examples
Distinctive Role 1. Ba Co. uses its extensive ties to impress different actors in the networks and establish an image that other actors can come to it for suggestions.
Interview (the president): “Uniforms and gifts belong to a business item of Bz Co. (a group-affiliated firm).
They (Bz Co.) are a very small company which struggles to survive. …In a meeting, he (the president of Bz Co.) sat beside me. …We had a chat. He told me his difficulties. I decided to help him. … This uniform was made by it (Bz Co.) and those gifts, which we granted to employees in our sports meet, were also designed by them (staffs in Bz Co.). …The product quality was good. …[Later,] I shared my
experience with friends [who were presidents or bosses of group-affiliated firms]. Now, Bz Co. sells uniforms and gifts to many group members. He (the president of Bz Co.) told me that he was thankful for me to distribute good words.”
Interview (the vice president, administration division): “We bought broadcast system from Bw Co. We were the first user in the group. …Last year, Bv Co. began to build a new mill. … They asked me whether they could visit our mill and knew whether the broadcast system performed a useful function, because they would like to buy the same system.”
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Year: 2003 Year: 2004
FIGURE 3.4: The Evolution of Transaction Network (2003-2007) (to be continued)
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Year: 2005 Year: 2006
FIGURE 3.4: The Evolution of Transaction Network (2003-2007) (to be continued)
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Year: 2007
FIGURE 3.4: The Evolution of Transaction Network (2003-2007)
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Summary
Figure 3.5 summarizes the interplay between social interactions and organizational identities in our study, showing graphically social interactions or networking strategies at each stage that led to a shift in organizational identities, which in turn led to new connections and finally changed the network picture
dramatically. In 2000, the group headquarters acquired a company and encountered a blast from group members because the newcomer’s behaviors and perceptions were far away from and even violated the salient and enduring essence of this group.
Moreover, the paucity of contacts and infrequent contacts turned the perceived identity conflicts into real hostility. (Identity 1) To break the deadlock, the president of this company used his friendships to create the willingness of the opposite side to interact with them; on the other hand, he began with a problem, which the group headquarters could give a satisfactory answer, to push his subordinates to interact with the opposite group. Through interacting with each other and working together toward a solution, technicians and managers of both sides gradually became friends. (Interaction 1)
These informal contacts gave the newcomer an opportunity to make a
comparison, to learn from the group headquarters, and to further change their usual practices (especially in production division) and their perceptions of the opposite group. (Identity 2) This shift in perceptions pushed the newcomer to review its old self-definitions, to seek a new possible definition, and to initiate a series of changes in the composition of connections. First, it cut off old links with some partners to abandon outdated images but built new links with group affiliates who could help it find possible self. Second, it actively build connections with varied group-affiliated firms to win their affection and to push them rethink “what does this newcomer stand
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for”. Third, it continued to build more formal and frequent connections with the group headquarters. The action let its members gain more opportunities to interact with individuals from varied departments or mills of the group headquarters. On the other hand, the formal and frequent connections also acted as a pipeline which the group headquarters could instill shared values or common characteristics into this newcomer. (Interaction 2)
Although this connection transition started from a desire that the newcomer would like to reconstruct who they are as an organization, the interplay between the newcomer and its partners, group members, turned it into a co-evolution process.
They learned from and influenced each other reciprocally and simultaneously.
Connections provide a venue for different groups to compare with, to imitate, and to influence each other. Clearly, similarities between their identities continued to mount. However, connections not merely bred homophily but also gave different parties an opportunity to find elements which were worthy of preservation, to explore hidden but good elements, and to further change those elements into distinctive characters of them. (Identity 3) Similarities between both sides imperceptibly blurred the line between “us” and “them” and helped this newcomer to win group members’ recognition which prolonged their relationships. Meanwhile, this newcomers’ distinctiveness made it become a role model within group and pushed potential partners to actively build connections with it. Gradually, this newcomer not only extricated conflicting parties from an identity conflict trap but also became a central actor. (Interaction 3)
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FIGURE 3.5: A Model of the Interplay between Social Interactions and
Organizational Identity
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CHAPTER 4. HYPOTHESES
In preceding chapter, I can know that Ba Co. took some actions to reach identity integration and identity differentiation. Integrating values muddled the line between Ba Co. and other group members and reduced the hostility between them.
Distinctive values attracted other group members to go to Ba Co. to gain some advices and helped Ba Co. to win sister affiliates’ recognition and respect. In the case study, I found that identity integration and identity differentiation helped Ba Co.
to resolve the conflicts between it and sister affiliates and to win sister affiliates’
acceptance and willingness to interact with it. This finding offers an answer to the question, “how can a firm get out of an identity conflict trap?”, contributes to identity literature, and has some implications for social network literature. In order to echo above case study, I collected more data to do empirical test and tried to develop some hypotheses in this chapter.
Traditional social network literature points out that firms which occupy central positions enjoy higher performance through drawing resources or information from multiple connections and making friends with central actors improves ties’
effectiveness (Ahuja, 2000; Baum, Calabrese, & Silverman, 2000; Gulati & Higgins, 2003; Podolny & Stuart, 1995; Stuart, 2000). Therefore, centrality plays an
important role in the process of pursuing higher performance and the behavior of central actors becomes a focus for research in past decades. However, recently, in an empirical data collected from 171 subsidiary units, over 40% participated in
knowledge sharing less than once a year and 13% acted as completely isolators in MNCs’ knowledge flow networks (Monteiro, Arvidsson, & Birkinshaw, 2008).
From this percentage distribution, I realize that peripheral actors and isolators constitute a major group in the network, but, surprisingly, most of previous studies
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concentrate on investigating the behavior and strategy of central actors and seldom care about peripheral actors (Monteiro, Arvidsson, & Birkinshaw, 2008). Very few network members can gain prominent positions in the beginning. Instead, most network members need to go through a trial-and-error process to find appropriate strategies and further enhance their positions. As a result, it is worth examining what is the strategy of peripheral actors to obtain relatively central positions.
Concerning the answer of the above question, while previous studies focus on how to use resources to build more ties or create ties with central actors (e.g., Powell, Koput, Smith-Doerr, 1996) to reach relatively central positions, Ba Co., a peripheral firm in the beginning, experienced a different way. Ba Co. not only developed some integrating values to gain sister affiliates’ willingness to prolong existing cooperative relationships but also poured some distinctive values into its identities to attract potential cooperative partners to actively build new ties with it. Using identity transformation to win more ties and gain a relatively central position is a way which never came into my mind before and was seldom mentioned in existing literature.
Firms who hold integrating values are assumed to share certain methods of perceiving and interpreting the world; such characteristics help firms to increase the likelihood of cooperation with others and reach the success of cooperation because congruent values facilitate communication between cooperative companions. On the other hand, firms who hold distinctive values are attractive to potential partners because partners can learn something from them. Those distinctiveness, creating the feeling that cooperating with us is a “good thing to be doing” (Evan, 1965), also help focal firms enjoy high average cooperation with other group members. Therefore, I propose that firms with high identity integration and high identity differentiation are more likely to have high average cooperation with other group members.
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