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  • December 2014
  • Article
  • Administrative Science Quarterly

The Contaminating Effects of Building Instrumental Ties: How Networking Can Make Us Feel Dirty

By: Tiziana Casciaro, Francesca Gino and Maryam Kouchaki
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Abstract

To create social ties to support their professional or personal goals, people actively engage in instrumental networking. Drawing from moral psychology research, we posit that this intentional behavior has unintended consequences for an individual's morality. Unlike personal networking in pursuit of emotional support or friendship, and unlike social ties that emerge spontaneously, instrumental networking in pursuit of professional goals can impinge on an individual's moral purity—a psychological state that results from viewing the self as clean from a moral standpoint—and thus make an individual feel dirty. We theorize that such feelings of dirtiness decrease the frequency of instrumental networking and, as a result, work performance. We also examine sources of variability in networking-induced feelings of dirtiness by proposing that the amount of power people have when they engage in instrumental networking influences how dirty this networking makes them feel. Three laboratory experiments and a survey study of lawyers in a large North American law firm provide support for our predictions. We call for a new direction in network research that investigates how network-related behaviors associated with building social capital influence individuals' psychological experiences and work outcomes.

Keywords

Networking; Morality; Dirtiness; Power; Networks; Moral Sensibility; Identity; Power and Influence

Citation

Casciaro, Tiziana, Francesca Gino, and Maryam Kouchaki. "The Contaminating Effects of Building Instrumental Ties: How Networking Can Make Us Feel Dirty." Administrative Science Quarterly 59, no. 4 (December 2014): 705–735.
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About The Author

Francesca Gino

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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More from the Authors
  • Mary Caroline Tillman at Egon Zehnder: Spotting Talent in the 21st Century By: Francesca Gino, Bradely R. Staats and Anne Marie Green
  • You Need Two Leadership Gears: Know When to Take Charge and When to Get Out of the Way By: Lindy Greer, Francesca Gino and Robert Sutton
  • Authentic First Impressions Relate to Interpersonal, Social, and Entrepreneurial Success By: David M. Markowitz, Maryam Kouchaki, Francesca Gino, Jeffrey T. Hancock and Ryan L. Boyd
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