Tiziana Casciaro, University of Toronto – Professional Networking

Networking with your colleagues can be an onerous task.

Tiziana Casciaro, a professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, is studying the nature of networking and the resultant feelings.

Tiziana Casciaro is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Her research concerns the social-psychological mechanisms responsible for the formation and evolution of social networks within and between organizations. She received her Ph.D. in organizational science and sociology from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Francesca Gino is a professor of business administration in the Negotiation, Organizations, & Markets Unit at the Harvard Business School. Her research focuses on individual decision making, negotiation, and ethics. She received her Ph.D. in economics and management from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies.

Maryam Kouchaki is an assistant professor of management and organizations at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Her research focuses on decision making and ethics. She received her Ph.D. in management from the David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah.

Professional Networking

Ever felt that networking is awkward, uncomfortable, or even yucky?

In three experimental studies of 540 working adults, and a survey of 165 lawyers at a large North American legal firm, Francesca Gino, Maryam Kouchaki and I found that networking can make people feel so morally impure that they feel physically dirty, and want to literally cleanse themselves—as in take a shower.

How dirty networking makes you feel depends on how much you can justify your networking to yourself as being motivated by a concern for others, instead of a selfish concern. People feel that actions motivated to benefit others are more morally worthy than actions motivated to benefit themselves, and professional, intentional networking used to benefit your career is harder to conceive as altruistic when compared to social networking to make new friends.

None of this discounts the proven value of professional networking. In the law firm we surveyed, we found that lawyers who felt dirtier about professional networking networked less frequently, and in turn had lower billable hours—a key measure of performance in a law firm.

Given that professional networking is often beneficial, how can people overcome these feelings of moral impurity? One way is to see networking as being about more than just yourself. Networking in support of a collective purpose feels more altruistic. Networking is also more palatable when you make an effort to understand what your counterpart might value, and find something you can contribute. Networking to give, and not just to take, feels a whole lot cleaner.