The Tradeoffs of Structural and Cultural Embeddedness, which will be soon be published in the American Sociological Review, looks at the relationship between success in a company and whether an employee changes their behavior in line with company culture or not. Those most likely to s\ucceed were the assimilated brokers and the integrated nonconformists, suggesting that the tightly knit networks helped those who went against the company culture grain as well as those who conformed to it.
Key Takeaways:
- A paper titled “Fitting in or Standing Out? The Tradeoffs of Structural and Cultural Embeddedness,” which will be soon be published in the American Sociological Review, looks at the relationship between success in a company and whether an employee changes their behavior in line with company culture or not.
- To figure out to what extent trying to fit in is tied to future success, the researchers created an algorithm that analyzed the language used in more than 10 million internal email messages exchanged over five years by 601 employees in a tech firm.
- Disembedded actors might be standouts and more likely to come up with an innovative idea, but without conforming to a group, those ideas were more likely to be dismissed or not trusted.
“Fitting in isn’t always a way to get ahead, but it’s necessary to be able to in order to work effectively with different teams across the entire organization.”
