WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

Bin Chen, Feng Wang and Jianmin Song
(21.1%), academic network (10.2%), and socio-emotional network (0.31%).
The results demonstrate that a few key actors are able to bridge the relationships
among different subgroups in the career advice and friendship networks due to
their central positions in the network.
Reciprocity measures the extent to which network relationships are mutually
directed. For example, if both A and B consider each other as friend, their
friendship is reciprocal. When exchanges are reciprocated, network ties are
more reliable and stable. Among the four networks, the friendship network
tops the other three networks: 44% of friendship ties are reciprocal. The
academic network descends to the second place (41.6%), career advice network
ranks third (29.4%), and socio-emotional support network is last (20%). This
finding suggests that the academic and friendship networks are more mutually
beneficial than the career advice and socio-emotional support networks. It can
be attributed to the fact that seeking career advice and information, and socioemotional
support, by their nature, are usually unidirectional behaviors.
Multiple Network Relationships
It is possible for actors in social networks to have engaged in multiple
types of relationships. For instance, after studying together for some time, two
MPA students began to share job-related information and then became friends.
From time to time, friends are often turned to for emotional help or social
companionship. The presence of multiple exchange relationships is termed as
multiplexity, referring to a structural property of a dyadic relationship that occurs
when the two parties are involved in more than one relationship with each other
(Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Boorman & White, 1976). Multiplex relationships
are signs of strong relations and are associated with high trust and reliability since
both parties have the opportunity to interact and get to know each other in a
variety of contexts (Ibarra, 1995). We explored the extent to which the pattern of
interactions for one network aligns with that of interactions for another network
among Chinese MPA students’ academic and social networks.
In Figure 5, we graphically showed the multiplexity by combining the four
networks into one diagram. Yet the complexity of the diagram makes it difficult
to see the patterns of multiple exchange relationships. To further examine the
extent to which multiplexity was present among the same cohort of MPA students,
we applied quadratic assignment procedures (QAP) in UCINET to produce
Pearson correlation coefficients. QAP also developed standard errors to test for
the significance of association. Table 4 reports the result of our statistical analysis.
150 Journal of Public Affairs Education