Overcoming Network Overload and Redundancy in Interorganizational Networks: The Roles of Potential and Latent Ties
基于Granovetter的强弱联系理论，提出潜在联系和隐性联系概念，通过欧洲赛车运动产业的纵向实证研究，揭示企业如何通过搜索潜在联系和重新激活隐性联系来解决网络冗余和过载问题。
This paper builds on Granovetter's distinction between strong and weak ties [ Granovetter, M. S. 1973 . The strength of weak ties. Amer. J. Sociol. 78(6) 1360–1380] in order to respond to recent calls for a more dynamic and processual understanding of networks. The concepts of potential and latent tie are deductively identified, and their implications for understanding how and why networks emerge, evolve, and change are explored. A longitudinal empirical study conducted with companies operating in the European motorsport industry reveals that firms take strategic actions to search for potential ties and reactivate latent ties in order to solve problems of network redundancy and overload. Examples are given, and their characteristics are examined to provide theoretical elaboration of the relationship between the types of tie and network evolution. These conceptual and empirical insights move understanding of the managerial challenge of building effective networks beyond static structural contingency models of optimal network forms to highlight the processes and capabilities of dynamic relationship building and network development. In so doing, this paper highlights the interrelationship between search and redundancy and the scope for strategic action alongside path dependence and structural influences on network processes.