Short- and long-term stability in organizational networks: Temporal structures of project teams

Abstract

Network research focuses on patterns of stable relationships, where stability represents the unfolding of social processes over long time frames. We argue that social interactions exhibit important regularities in different time frames (short and long term), reflecting distinct social processes. We illustrate the value of this distinction through a comparative case study of technology-mediated communication, within two project teams in a digital marketing agency. We examine how the embedding of interpersonal interactions in processes of reciprocity and closure over different time horizons enables the emergence of cohesion in the face of constant compositional changes. We propose that the tim..