It’s the Strength of the Ties: How Multiplex Social Networks Among Frontline Employees Drive Service Performance

Abstract

The service marketing literature has focused its efforts on individual influencing factors and dyadic relationships to explain frontline employees' customer service behaviour and performance. This paper argues and demonstrates that this scope is too limited, as service employee behaviour and performance is not independent from the broader set of relationships surrounding them. We introduce a social network perspective to the analysis of service performance and distinguish between weaker simple ties and stronger multiplex ties consisting of advice and friendship relations in the studied branch networks of a major Australian bank. We find that it is the density of multiplex ties that predicts the performance-relevant value of social networks in a service setting. This effect is moderated by branch network size so that for larger branches the existence of dense multiplex ties increases performance more strongly than for smaller branches.

The Lead Igniter: A Longitudinal Examination of Influence and Energy Through Networks, Efficacy, and Climate

“…Combining energy/energizers and influence/influencers relationships reflects greater tie strength and offers the potential for productive organizational action than either of the ties by themselves. These strong multiplex ties allow for the deeper exchange of beliefs, resources, information, and ultimately action (Granovetter, 1973; Guenther, Guenther, Bell, & Robins, 2016). Although most leadership work examines one relationship or the other, we propose that multiplex relations offer another lens into action and potentially reflect a more nuanced understanding of organizational relationships and the work of educational leaders than uniplex ties, such as instrumental work relation (e.g., expertise-seeking) or expressive relation (e.g., friendship), alone.…”

Going Beyond Uniplex Ties: Aan Analysis of Multiple Network Ties on Job Satisfaction

“…Such research studies are rare and often ignored due to its complex prorogation and interdependence. Additionally, the individuals connected by diversified multiplex ties carry detailed knowledge and are intimately stronger than uniplex ties (Guenther, Guenther, Bell, & Robins, 2016). However, this study takes a step forward to explore multiple relational ties by confining positive and negative ties within the same network relationship.…”