Friendships of women and men at work

Interpersonal networks and quality of women and men’s close work friendships in three work settings were investigated to assess potential impact of gender socialization and organizational structure factors on patterns of interaction within same‐sex and opposite‐sex work friendships, and to examine whether friendship quality would predict salary and job satisfaction and if this would differ as a function of the sex of the employee or the friend. Findings indicate that homophilous ties are stronger than opposite sex ties, which support previous research on relationships in the work environment. Work context influenced the nature of relationships among women and men. In contrast to research on friendships outside the workplace, work friendships involving women were not consistently rated as more satisfying and ratings varied across work settings. Quality of close male friendships was more associated with career success and job satisfaction than quality of close female friendships.