Yes. The most cited paper of all time in the field of sociology is Granovetter's 1973 paper entitled "The Strength of Weak Ties" [1]
The basic reasoning is that humans can only form limited number of strong ties, and the strong ties are already strongly connected/correlated to each other so limited new information enters.
Whereas with weak ties, the connection pool is more decorrelated, so more new information can flow through. It's not just the size of the pool -- though that's part of it -- but that the pool is more unrelated so there are more sources of independent information.
This is why it's more likely for people to find a spouse, hear about a job opportunity, etc. through weak ties rather than strong ones.
If you hire or refer a close friend and then you become coworkers, the nature of the work relationship could negatively affect the friendship, and people may not want to risk that if it's a friendship that they really value.
If they're just an acquaintance it's not such a big deal.
