| This dissertation examined how parental responsibilities impacted three organizational networks characteristics, network size, network ties, and network content across employees. The study was based on theory and research from sociology (i.e. social networks), careers, and the work-family literature. The study was designed to understand the potential moderators of the relationship between parental status and the three network characteristics. This dissertation sought to understand the relationship between the three network characteristics of interest and two career outcomes including career success and career management perceptions. The career success measures included in this study were salary, salary growth, promotions, and career satisfaction. The career management perception measures included in this study were career planning, career tactics, and career mobility preparedness. This study utilized network analysis and investigated the organizational networks of working adults with children in comparison to the networks of working adults without children. The goal of this dissertation was to understand the following research questions: Research Question: First, how do networks differ after the birth of a child for males vs. females? Secondly, how do networks differ between working adults with and without children? Thirdly, what constraints produce those differences? .;The study results suggest that network characteristic, network content, may vary across parental status, where working parents reported a higher percentage of their network content (i.e. topics of conversation) to be non-work and kin relevant topics. There were no significant interactions between parental status and the four moderators of interest, including gender, family involvement, job involvement, and role segmentation. However, significant main effects were found for both job involvement and role segmentation on network ties and network content. Finally, the results suggest that network size has a significant main effects on salary growth and career mobility preparedness, individual and peer-related career satisfaction. Network content was also significantly related to career tactics. |
