Not All Bridging Ties Are Equal: Network Imprinting and Firm Growth in the Nashville Legal Industry, 1933–1978

In this paper we focus on the temporal and historical conditions under which bridging ties from the past affect current organizational outcomes. Whereas previous research has shown that bridging ties have high decay rates and short-term effects, we explore the possibility that bridging ties may produce benefits over an extended period of time. In particular, we contrast the conventional view of bridging ties having rapidly decaying effects with two alternative network dynamics suggesting “accumulating” and “imprinting” effects. We propose that bridging ties have accumulating effects as a result of learning and redeployment of cumulated knowledge. We also predict that bridging ties exhibit an imprinted effect whereby the founding conditions surrounding the formation of some, but not all, ties yield long-lasting network benefits. We test our theory in the context of Nashville's legal industry, studying the formation and evolution of the professional network of lawyers' coemployment ties between 1933 and 1978. Consistent with our theory, we find that bridging ties produce network benefits over an extended period of time and trace back to the point of tie formation. Surprisingly, we also find that the imprinted effect is more robust than the rapidly decaying effect of bridging ties.