The ways that socialization happens in organizations are related to the social networks that are part of organizational members’ lives. An example of this is the case of information technology professionals working for large information technology-based organizations. From an organizational perspective, it was desirable to retain these professionals on long-term contracts in order to maintain a degree of stability. However, within the social networks of these professionals, the general view was that they owed no loyalty to the organization and that it was preferable to ‘follow the money’. In some respects, this ‘freelance’ view was entirely rational; in other respects,
it was a shared value of the network not entirely borne out by the evidence. Longer term commitment to the organization could yield rewards in relation to salary, status and security.