Over the past fifty or so years there has been a well examined decline in socialconnections and many other facets of American communities (Fischer 1982; Putnam2000; Freeman 2001; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Brashears 2006; Dunham-Jones &Williamson 2009). New urbanism has been proposed as a tool to reverse some of thissocial decline in communities. This study seeks to understand the possible socialconnective benefits of new urbanism in a number of ways. First, a new urbanistcommunity is compared to a similar adjacent community that also happens to betraditional suburban community. The study examines differences between the twocommunities in terms of social connections, social interactions, and communitysatisfaction. Second, the study examines individual design elements of new urbanism to understand their relationships with social interactions and social connections. This study also examines community cohesion in terms of diverse social interactions and bridging ties. Previous studies suggest that bridging ties are more likely to be formed between persons who are connected with weaker social bonds (Granovetter, 1973) as well as persons who interact through spontaneous rather than planned forms of social interaction (Molm, Collett, & Schaefer 2007). Lastly, this study seeks to understand if any of the new urbanist design strategies examined are related to bridging ties. The findings of this study suggested that new urbanist communities do have more social interactions, social connections, and community satisfaction than do traditional suburban communities. The findings also suggested that four new urbanist design strategies: porches, community meetings, and mixed-use zoning are positively related to social interactions and social connections. Moreover, findings suggested that persons connected by weaker social bonds are indeed more likely to have bridging ties, however, they did not support the idea that persons who have more spontaneous interactions will also be more likely to have bridging ties. Lastly, the findings indicated that of all the new urbanist design strategies, only the neighborhood business center was positively related to bridging ties. Conversely, a negative relationship was found between resident's who use their porches and bridging ties.

La littérature sur le stress au travail considère souvent que les personnes dépourvues de soutien social tendent à avoir un taux de stress plus élevé. Si cette vision est confirmée empiriquement, elle a toutefois une portée limitée : elle ne tient pas toujours compte de l’inégalité d’accès au soutien, inégalité qui affecte la perception de ce soutien. Pourquoi certains salariés ont plus de facilité à accéder au soutien social ? Qu’est-ce qui fait que l’aide est plus disponible et plus variée pour une personne plutôt que pour une autre ? Ces interrogations nous amènent à situer le soutien social perçu, et plus précisément le soutien des collègues perçu, dans un modèle théorique plus large nourri par la théorie des réseaux sociaux. A l’aide d’un modèle explicatif, l’objectif de notre recherche est d’étudier l’impact du positionnement de l’individu dans le réseau social sur le stress au travail perçu. Les hypothèses de recherche ont été testées en utilisant les techniques de régression en moindres carrés partiels pour estimer les équations structurelles. A partir de données de type « réseau complet » collectées auprès d’une entreprise de services de taille moyenne (N=343), nous avons montré que la force des liens favorise l’accès au soutien des collègues et, par conséquent, réduit le stress professionnel. Les résultats indiquent que le soutien des collègues est médiateur total dans cette relation, et que le lien direct entre la force des liens et le stress perçu n’est pas établi. De plus, nous avons confirmé l’ambivalence des bridging ties (liens vers des personnes de départements différents) : ils influencent négativement la perception du soutien social (qui réduit le stress), mais ont aussi un effet négatif direct sur le stress au travail. En soulignant le rôle des relations informelles comme antécédent au soutien social, nous avons contribué à fournir un outil analytique susceptible d’être mis en œuvre dans la sphère managériale. / The literature on workplace stress often considers that people who lack social support tend to have higher levels of perceived stress. This is empirically confirmed, but it is not always taken into account and offers limited scope. Indeed, why do some employees have more access to social support? What renders support more available and more varied from one person to the other? These questions allow us to situate perceived social support, and more accurately the perceived support of colleagues, in a larger theoretical model, enhanced by social network theory. Through an explanatory model, the objective of this research is to explore the role of the positioning of the individual in the social network on perceived workplace stress. Based on a “complete network” data in a medium-sized IT services company, we used partial least squares to test our hypothesis (N = 343). The strength of ties affects stress through social support, such that people with stronger ties perceive more support and ultimately exhibit less stress. However, the direct link between strength and stress is not established. Bridging ties (supportive ties to other departments) negatively influence social support (a situation which increases stress) but also have a direct negative effect on stress. By stressing the role of social relationships as an antecedent of social support and stress, our results offer new potential managerial actions within organizations