Does Competition Always Undermine solidarity? Cohesion and Integration of Support Networks among Business Partners

This study aims to understand the consequences of competition between collaborating partners on the emergence of solidarity relations. Previous research has suggested that peers engaging in successful economic exchanges, e.g. professional collaboration between independent workers, can develop expectations of social support that eventually give rise to mutual solidarity (Bianchi et al. 2017; see also Molm et al. 2007, 2009; Kuwabara 2011). This can occur via the formation of trust based on experiences of successful cooperation, which in turn fosters confidence in receiving social support. Yet, this mechanism may hinge upon the beneficial condition of absence of competition among partners, i.e., a complication that previous research has not yet explored theoretically. Here, we modelled a network of independent economic agents with a mix of incentives for competition and cooperation. Potential collaboration partners often compete over highest-skilled or most attractive partners, due to the unequal distribution of cognitive or material resources in a network. To understand if heterogeneity between actors may influence the structure of solidarity relations, we developed a computational model that derives the dynamics of network structure from interdependent actions of economic agents. We conducted experiments that vary heterogeneity of the distribution of both resource endowment and need for support between agents. To look at network dynamics, we are drawing on an adaptation of the computational modelling component of Snijders’ Stochastic Actor-Based Model (1996; see also Snijders & Steglich 2015). Our model includes a multiplex network of interdependent dynamics of three types of networks, including relations of collaboration, trust and social support expectations. Our computational experiments allowed us to study effects of heterogeneity on the connectivity and integration of the emergent social support networks. Preliminary results show that competition in collaboration is detrimental for the connectivity of the emergent social support network if resource heterogeneity is sufficiently high. Moreover, the emergent networks are highly segregated along differences in resource levels. This gives rise to a core-periphery structure in which resource rich actors find the most attractive partners to relate to. However, once heterogeneity in need for support is added, the effect of resource heterogeneity is neutralized by a ‘double-edge’ effect of heterogeneity on social support relations. Resource poor but needy actors establish mutual help relations due to their stronger social activity in search for attractive partners, which makes them less peripheral in the emergent network than without heterogeneity in neediness. Finally, in our model resource inequality can also generate networks where the level of integration between high- and low-resource agents is similar to what is produced in absence of competition.