1 Social Networks Assignment 1: University-Industry Collaboration and Social Networks U. Matzat

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 2 Course design Aim: knowledge about concepts in network theory, and being able to apply them, in particular in a context of innovation and alliances 1. Intro 2. Network theory and background 3. Network methods 4. Small world networks 5. Business alliances as one example of network strategy 6. Assignment 1: analyzing university-company networks (ego-centered networks) 7. Assignment 2: …

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 3 A Recap: Two Approaches to Network Analysis Complete Networks  The relations of all actors are taking into account  Existing data (archival)  Case study (f.i. a family or this class)  Where is the boundary of the network? Ego centered network  Network from the perspective of the actor  Extension of traditional survey instruments  Random sampling possible  Statistical analysis possible

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 4 The Assignment: We analyze what are the barriers hindering collaboration between university researchers and companies from being (more) successful? With “collaboration” we mean a working arrangement between at least one university researcher and one or more employees of a commercial firm with the intention to develop further an idea or a preliminary product of university researchers so that it can be brought to the market.

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 5 The Assignment Think of ways in which the ego-centerd network of the researcher may influence the success of collaboration with a company Derive two hypotheses. Make use of ideas of Burt's (2001) theory of structural holes or of Coleman's (1988) closure theory.

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 6 The Assignment Test those hypotheses using the dataset we provide.  SPSS data set “collaboration_2005.sav”:  File contains 150 cases (rows)  information about the researcher, his/her university position, his/her faculty, his/her ego-centered network data, and characteristics of the collaboration.

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 7 The report Structure and content of the report must resemble a scientific article  Introduction  Brief discussion of the topic: university-industry collaboration and social networks.  Theory  Present a theoretical framework and derive two hypotheses.  Method  Describe the data, measurements, and statistical methods.  Results  Describe the networks in detail (e.g., size, density) depending on your theory  Present the results of the analysis, by means of table/picture, and a verbal clarification of the table/picture.  Discussion/Conclusion  What do the results say about your theory? Would it make sense to run other analyses? How could one improve this study? What did we learn?

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 8 Logistics DEADLINE: Monday, November 3, 11:00 am WORD-ATTACHMENT (.docx) BOX Uwe Matzat and Chris Snijders I am available for questions: IPO 1.32/

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A150 9 Problem – Theory- Empirical Research 1.) The problem we work on is: The success of collaboration (variable v56- v59b) 2.) Formulate a (ego-centered) social network theory that explains why some researchers have more success in their collaboration with firms than others. 3.) Test the two hypotheses that were developed in the theory section and present the results.

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A The data set Information about collaborations of 150 Twente University researchers of different disciplines position of the researcher

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A In general collaboration with a commercial company is strongly appealing to me.

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A Faculty of the researcher

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A To what extent do you consider the collaboration with the business firm to be successful?

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A To what extent are the goals of the collaboration achieved?

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A If there would be a possibility to cooperate with this business firm in the future, would you then do this again?

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A With hindsight: to what extent has the business firm tried to “take your technology and run”?

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A With hindsight: to what extent has the business firm succeeded in “taking your technology and run”?

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A Methods of data analysis multiple linear regression analysis dependent variables: v56-v59b think about how to combine a selection of them into one single indicator – depending on your theory select independent variables: a) network characteristics b) control variables

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A The data preparation You only have to work with SPSS! However, you definitely have to transform the given data set, for example by creating new variables with the “compute” command within SPSS. So a considerable amount of work consists of data recoding and data transformation to compute the appropriate network characteristics that you think are important. Have a look at the hints for measuring network characteristics on the course website (in the zip file). Don’t take the SPSS commands literally.

TU/e - Innovation in networks and alliance management/Network Society, 0ZM05/0EM15/0A To Do: Have a look at the data Understand how to calculate the network characteristics Re-read the stuff about social network theories Try it out! Send the report to me (and Chris Snijders as a ‘backup’) until Nov 3