More Formally: Rediscovering the Missing Link between Formal Organization and Informal Social Structure

Despite the importance of the interplay between formal organization and informal social structures, we are unaware of a cumulative body of knowledge devoted to advancing our understanding of the relationship between these two elemental features of organizations. Rather, we suspect that our knowledge in this area is dispersed across a wide range of studies, situated in a number of distinct literatures, and dedicated to addressing a varied set of questions that are not clearly intended to inform our understanding of the co-existence and co-evolution of formal-informal organizational linkages. Thus, our purpose in this paper is to take a step towards consolidating scholarly understanding of the interplay between formal organization and informal social structures in organizations.