New hires often seek professional advice from colleagues of the same nationality or background as a means of settling into a new environment. But this reliance on compatriots can work against you
“Birds of a feather flock together” is often used to described the concept of “homophily”, a term coined by sociologists Robert Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld at Columbia University. It describes how people tend to associate with those who share similar characteristics with them, ranging from ethnicity to gender, religion etc. This commonly observed behaviour has been the subject of extensive studies, but for INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Martin Gargiulo, one aspect of homophily has not been adequately addressed: how it affects work performance.
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