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Research Impact: How Seemingly Innocuous Social Cues in a CEO Survey Can Lead to Change in Board of Director Network Ties

University of British Columbia, Canadamarc-david.seidel{at}sauder.ubc.ca

James D. Westphal

University of Texas at Austin, USAjames.westphal{at}mccombs.utexas.edu

This study extends earlier research suggesting that board network ties may reflect the strategic and/or political concerns of top managers by considering how the managerial objectives that drive the formation and maintenance of board interlock ties may be subject to social influence. The particular form of social influence examined in this study derives from the social network research process itself. Specifically, we draw from research on social information processing and the framing of information to suggest how the administration of social network surveys can influence managers’ perceptions about their relationship to directors and the potential benefits to be derived from director network ties, thus affecting their subsequent selection of board members in ways that change the firm’s board interlock ties.We also consider how this social influence effect may diffuse beyond the actual survey respondents to create a more pervasive influence on the actions of managers at other firms in the board interlock network. We test our theoretical argument with an original quasiexperiment in which CEOs are randomly assigned to different versions of a survey questionnaire that have the potential to prime different schemata about the possible benefits to be derived from board network ties. Beyond addressing the potential for social influence in the formation and maintenance of board network ties, our study also addresses the potential for unintended reactive measurement effects in social network research, wherein network surveys influence the very ties that they are designed to measure.

Key Words: boards of directors • interlocks • network methodology • research impact • social networks

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