Informal Networks Improve Knowledge Retrieval

Organizations with more informal connections (relationships outside the formal hierarchy) produced higher-quality knowledge retrieval outcomes. The agent needed to contact fewer people, found fewer dead ends, and achieved better final descriptions.

Formal hierarchy tells you who reports to whom. Informal network tells you who actually talks to whom. Knowledge follows the second path more than the first.

This aligns with Blau’s social exchange theory: reciprocity and trust in informal relationships facilitate knowledge transfer in ways that formal structures can’t mandate.

Design implication: systems that surface informal connections (who collaborates with whom, who asks whom questions) may be more valuable for knowledge retrieval than org charts.

Related: 05-atom—knowledge-epidemic-model