Where Do Social Ties Come From: Institutional Framework and Governmental Tie Distribution among Chinese Managers

This study identifies the societal institutional framework as the cause for the tie distribution issue - the sizes of ego-networks of social actors are unevenly distributed across social categories of these social actors. The analysis of 250 Chinese firms showed that managers employed by state-owned enterprises possess more governmental tie channels - conduits to get acquainted with government officials - than those employed by non-state-owned enterprises. Governmental tie channels completely mediated the relationship between ownership types and the number of government ties in the manager's social network. © 2010 The International Association for Chinese Management Research.