While the idea that contacts matter in finding a job is intuitively appealing, we still do not know-after decades of research-how and why strong ties benefit job seekers. To resolve this confusion, we need to theorize how specific characteristics of ties are related to the mechanisms that make job search through contacts effective. We have reasons to expect that, while a contact's motivation in...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Little is known about the possible effects of social resources on stroke survivors' level and change in cognitive outcomes. Understanding this association may help us identify strategies to improve stroke recovery and help elucidate the etiology of dementia. METHODS We examined the relationship of social ties and social support to cognitive function and cognitive change 6 mont...

In today’s globalized world, firms are increasingly seen shifting from the traditional innovation model 1 which relied on a firm’s internal R&D to the more porous open innovation paradigm which utilizes resources both internal and external to a firm to come up with innovations. However success in the open innovation paradigm is contingent upon some internal and external factors of a firm. This ...

Social networks often provide only a binary perspective on social ties: two individuals are either connected or not. While sometimes external information can be used to infer the strength of social ties, access to such information may be restricted or impractical. Sintos and Tsaparas (KDD 2014) first suggested to infer the strength of social ties from the topology of the network alone, by lever...

Recent research has shown that reconnecting long-lost, dormant ties can yield tremendous value, often more than active ties. Yet two key research questions remain unanswered: which of a person’s many dormant ties provide the most value, and which are advice seekers most inclined to choose as reconnection targets? In the current study, we asked executives to seek advice on an important work proj...

This research explores how strength of network ties, as fostered by the use of a social network site, Facebook, (a) influences alumni attitudes toward volunteering for and making charitable gifts to their alma mater, and (b) fortifies consistency between attitude and behavior. After exploratory interviews and participant observation, a survey of 3,085 alumni was conducted for hypothesis testing...

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between virtuality and social capital. Does virtuality decrease the strength of individuals’ social ties? Or does virtuality increase social capital by expanding the range of individuals’ social networks? To address these questions, first, we identify the properties of virtuality, whose definition still varies in a variety of research s...

We study the problem of counting the number of popular matchings in a given instance. McDermid and Irving gave a poly-time algorithm for counting the number of popular matchings when the preference lists are strictly ordered. We first consider the case of ties in preference lists. Nasre proved that the problem of counting the number of popular matching is #P-hard when there are ties. We give an...

We examine the communication patterns of millions of anonymized mobile phone users. Based on call records, we construct a communication network where vertices are subscribers and edge weights are defined as aggregated duration of calls, reflecting the strengths of social ties between callers. We observe a coupling between tie strengths and network topology: at the ”local” level, strong ties are...

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between virtuality and social capital. Does virtuality decrease the strength of individuals’ social ties? Or does virtuality increase social capital by expanding the range of individuals’ social networks? To address these questions, first, we identify the properties of virtuality, whose definition still varies in a variety of research s...