Forgotten Third Parties: Analyzing the Contingent Association Between Unshared Third Parties, Knowledge Overlap, and Knowledge Transfer Relationships with Outsiders

Abstract

Third parties play a prominent role in network-based explanations for successful knowledge transfer. Third parties can either be shared or unshared. Shared third parties signal insider status and have a predictable positive effect on knowledge transfer. Unshared third parties, however, signal outsider status and are believed to undermine knowledge transfer. Surprisingly, unshared third parties have been ignored in empirical analysis, and so we do not know if or know how much unshared third parties contribute to the process. Using knowledge transfer data from an online technical forum, we illustrate how unshared third parties affect the rate at which individuals initiate and sustain knowledge transfer relationships. Empirical results indicate that unshared third parties undermine knowledge sharing and they also indicate that the magnitude of the negative unshared third party effect declines the more unshared third parties overlap in what they know. Our results provide a more complete view of how third parties contribute to knowledge sharing. The results also advance our understanding of network-based dynamics defined more broadly. By documenting how knowledge overlap among unshared third parties moderates their negative influence, our results show when the benefits provided by third parties and by bridges (i.e., relationships with outsiders) will be opposed versus when both can be enjoyed.3

Instrumental and affective ties within the laboratory: The impact of informal cliques on innovative productivity

“…While this is just a fictional example, there is concrete empirical evidence that when certain network structures emerge, individuals in organizations experience time and effort constraints when dealing with informal connections. For example, Reagans, Vir Singh, and Krishnan () studying knowledge workers in an IT services firm found evidence that unshared third parties hinder knowledge transfer. They argue that unshared third parties create conflicting demands on the focal actor that end up stifling the knowledge transfer process.…”

Knowledge transfer in organizations: The roles of members, tasks, tools, and networks

“…Occupying such a position provides access to a wide array of information. In addition, researchers have examined how the extent to which third party ties are shared affects transfer (e.g., see Reagans, Singh, & Krishnan, 2015) and how social networks affect the development of transactive memory systems (Lee, Bachrach, & Lewis, 2014;Argote, Aven, & Kush, 2015).…”

Expanding organisational knowledge online: the role of bridging members in knowledge expansion in online groups

“…Using this window of 30 consecutive days is based on the assumption that transferring knowledge from one group to another must be done within a given timespan, because the relevance of the shared knowledge declines over time (Reagans et al, 2015). In line with the literature on deriving social network measurements from trace data which states that the choices in relation to time sensitivity of the accumulation of data are crucial to the inference of a network structure (Howison et al, 2011), we made the decision for the 30day cut-off point.…”