Horizons of Observability and Limits of Informal Control in Organizations

There are various views on the relationship between the interpersonal communi-cation networks within organizations and informal social control. The relative merits ofsome ofthese viewpoints can be assessed byexamining the distribution of interpersonal observability incommunication networks. Inastudy ofsixcommuni-cation networks, it is demonstrated that there isa horizon to observability (a distance ina communication network beyond which persons are unlikely to be aware ofthe role performance ofother persons). Observability tends to be restricted topersons who are either in direct contact or who have at least one contact in common. It isshown, moreover, that the number ofcontacts shared bytwo persons isa pOWerful predictor of the probability that one person is aware of the role performance ofanother, according to asimple stochastic function. Based on this evidence, some viewpoints on informal control structures are more plausible than others. A theory ispresented that isconsistent with both the present evidence and current thinking on the relationship ofcommunication network structure and informal control. It ishoped that the theory will provide auseful starting point for future studies ofthis relationship. Most conceptions of social systems allow for gaps in the network of inter-personal relations within a system (i.e., places where face-to-face com-munications are absent), suggesting that these gaps do not necessarily impede the integration of a system. Socialnetwork analysis has developed various methods and concepts for describing the structure of such net-works. But these studies have been less effective in ferreting out the impli-cations of various structures for other substantively important phenomena. This paper addresses the relationship between communication network structure and informal social control. Informal control is defined as con-For their contributions to this paper I am indebted to members of the social network groups