Is Greed Good? An Ecological Analysis of Organization Membership

• In Event: 538 - Section on Mathematical Sociology Paper Session. Advancements in Mathematical Theory: Group Processes and Interaction

Abstract

How do organizations sustain a stable group of members in a world full of competing obligations and opportunities? Lewis Coser (1974) provided an answer to this question by arguing that organizations deploy “greedy” mechanisms to weaken or even cut off ties with institutions or persons that might demand time and energy from members. While monopolizing the social networks of members shields them from competing claims from outside, it also suppresses the opportunity to attract new recruits. We use McPherson’s ecological affiliation (1983) model to explore the dynamics of organizational membership as a competition process among organizations for scarce resource of human time. Diverging from this approach, we examine two strategies that organizations employ to harness resources, demand of time and energy and the rewiring of social networks. Both strategies can predict either growth or decline of membership size. In an agent based model, we model human time as finite vector of time slots allocated to organizational demands as well as other activities, and model transmission of organizational typical behavior in an urn-based influence model. Complementary to Coser’s theory of greedy institutions, we identify the moderate demanding spots in strategy space where organizations grows most quickly in membership size. We also examine the behavior of organization when they are surrounded by other greedy or lenient organizations.

Authors

• Yongren Shi, Cornell University

• Matthew E. Brashears, Cornell University

• Michael Genkin, Cornell University