This study identifies the societal institutional framework as the cause for the tie distribution issue — the sizes of ego-networks of social actors are unevenly distributed across social categories of these social actors. The analysis of 250 Chinese firms showed that managers employed by state-owned enterprises possess more governmental tie channels – conduits to get acquainted with government officials – than those employed by non-state-owned enterprises. Governmental tie channels completely mediated the relationship between ownership types and the number of government ties in the manager's social network.
