Investigation of the dynamic relationship between communication and shared interpretations: A networks approach

Abstract

This investigation of the relationship between social influence and shared meaning in organizations examined the dynamic implications of social influence theory and the theory of contagion to investigate how organizational members influence each others' interpretations about work-related issues. A dynamic computational model of the reciprocal effects implied by these theories was developed, and specific hypotheses were derived from the computational simulation under both relational and positional network link models. While the empirical data was limited, the analysis indicated that the hypotheses will be supported by an analysis with a complete set of empirical data. The data analysis also had implications for studying contrasts between the two network link models.