Knowledge at Wharton Ripple Effect: Why Women's Networks Are Stronger During Crisis | Tiantian Yang
Mar 3, 2026
Tian Tian Yang, assistant professor of management and sociology at Wharton who studies workplace social networks, talks about how people protect professional ties during disruption. She explores differences in network maintenance versus formation. She digs into gendered responses in mergers and acquisitions and uses healthcare referral networks to illustrate trust, reciprocity, and trade-offs in turbulent times.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Gender Homophily Intensifies During Restructuring
- During mergers and acquisitions gender homophily intensifies and men and women respond differently to disruption.
- Men expand networks by forming new ties with other men, while Tian Tian Yang found women deepen existing ties with other women, creating denser, stronger networks.
Women's Dense Networks Yield Short-Term Advantages
- Women's inward focus during turbulent times produces stronger reciprocity and more career-relevant resources in the short term.
- In the hospital referral data women referred more patients to each other, so their denser networks delivered tangible short-term advantages.
Network Maintenance Matters As Much As Formation
- Network maintenance differs from network formation and affects who benefits from networks.
- Tian Tian Yang emphasizes maintenance: if relationships decay, even well-formed networks can lose value, and women may excel at maintaining ties in some contexts like mergers or remote interactions.