Topic of the thesis: Cooperation in the workplace: Disentangling the co-evolution of gossip and reputation in a comparative perspective.

Abstract: This project aims to study one of the topics that has most interested sociology: cohesion. Specifically, it seeks to understand how certain mechanisms associated with the maintenance or breakdown of collaboration, such as gossip and reputation, develop and co-evolve in the organizational context. Interest in these issues is recent and the literature suggests its deepening. A disciplinary division has hampered the existence of a common analytical framework, which is why two almost parallel research agendas are recognized. Sociology can help bring these together by its ability to integrate micro-behavioral foundations and macro-level dynamics. Furthermore, social network analysis provides theory and methods that are suitable for the study of relational phenomena such as these. One of the main difficulties that has been recognized in the literature is that cross-sectional measurements have prevented capturing the co-evolutionary nature of these concepts, and thus, failed to disentangle them. On the other hand, it has been recognized that these concepts are highly context-bounded. For this reason, organizations are an ideal space for its study, since they are a real-life environment in which formal and informal exchanges take place between interdependent actors who are expected to have common interests in cooperating with each other. Methodologically, it is proposed to apply longitudinal surveys in Italian and Chilean organizations, and to use stochastic actor-based models (SABM) to analyze the networks of gossip and reputation. The results are important in several fields, and especially for the study of organizations and sociology. On the first, it is expected that in addition to opening new paths of research, the findings will serve as a practical tool for those who manage or have high positions in organizations. Regarding the second, the investigation of these phenomena is related to others that have been of high interest to the discipline, and even to others that have aroused more recent interest in the literature, such as the conversation about important matters, victimization, and bullying in the workplace.

Research interests: Social networks – Agent-based modeling – Behavioural sociology.

Graduated from: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Degrees obtained: BA in Sociology – MA in Sociology.

E-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.