Men's and Women's Organizational Peer Relationships: A Comparison Janie Harden Fritz

A study of differences in men's and women's information, collegial, and specialorganizational peer relationships was conducted on a large, diverse sample(n = 666) in order to explore whether (1) work friendships tended to be same- orcross-sex and (2) whether same-sex work relationships had features and functions similar to nonwork same-sex relationships. Results were generally supportive of findings outside the organizational context for men's and women'srelationships, but several interesting patterns were noted across relationshiptypes that suggest different relational trajectories for men's and women's relationships. Specifically, the number of relationships claimed by men and womenwere similar, but women's collegial relationships were higher on several relational functions than men's, and women's special peer relationships werestronger than men's in several areas. This study shows that the work setting as acontext is, for friendship purposes, similar to nonwork contexts.