Valentina Assenova, Emilie Feldman, Lori Rosenkopf, Management, The Wharton School
Abstract: We apply a strategic multiplexity perspective to analyze how the simultaneous consideration of multiple types of ties in a network can sharpen our understanding of innovation diffusion in that network. While prior research suggests that multiplex ties increase information flow and thereby facilitate innovation uptake in networks, this prediction may not hold when conflicts exist among some of these ties. Accordingly, we evaluate how conflicts among actors’ multiplex ties may reduce innovation uptake in the context of a field experiment where privately informed agents were asked to share microfinance information with their contacts. We find that microfinance uptake is lower when agents also had financial lending ties to non-relatives that could be compromised by sharing information about a new microfinance opportunity.