1. Getting Connected: The Inaugural Seminar of the Laboratory for Applied Network Research Valentina Kuskova May 20, 2014 NRU HSE International Laboratory for Applied Network Research http://anr.hse.ru

2. The Lab: Introductions Who we are What we do – Projects – Papers / Conference Presentations – Education – Personal and Professional Development – Involvement in the Community Basic responsibilities and rules of conduct Special events and other admin issues

3. Getting Connected What is a network? – Example: how did some of you learn of this lab? – A network is simply “a set of relations between objects which could be people, organizations, nations; brain cells, electrical transformers. – “Network” is not the same as “networking.” Transformers do not “network.” Therefore, we are mostly concerned with social networks and their information flows.

4. Getting Connected Cont’d Networks are information maps Networks can be hierarchical (leaders vs. followers) – Twitter, anyone? Networks are conduits – Flows can be wanted (obvious) or unwanted (e.g., power grid failures, obesity) Networks can be studied at all levels

5. Our first article: “Social Network Analysis for Organizations” Authors: Noel M. Tichy, Michael L. Tushman and Charles Fombrun Journal: Academy of Management Review Year of publication: 1979 Summary: First introduction of SNA into organizational research Question: why bring SNA into organizational research?

6. Article Summary Organizations are social groupings with relatively stable patterns of interaction over time Such interactions can happen on three levels: – Macro – Micro – Meso Social network perspective is capable of capturing all such interactions on multiple levels

7. Definition of Networks Mitchell, 1969: "a specific set of linkages among a defined set of persons, with the additional property that the characteristics of these linkages as a whole may be used to interpret the social behavior of the persons involved”

8. Social Network Approach Social networks approach views organizations as system of objects joined by a variety of relationships – Network analysis is concerned with the structure and patterning of these relationships and seeks to identify both their causes and consequences. Individual level Organizational level Interorganizational level

9. Social Network Origins SNA originated from three different research streams: – Sociology – Anthropology – Role theory

10. SNA Basic Concepts Please see the article for details! (although we will come back to these concepts over and over) In general, three sets of properties of networks are of particular interest: – Transactional content – Nature of links – Structural characteristics

11. Transactional content What is exchanged when two actors are linked? Four types of transactional contents can be distinguished: – (1) exchange of affect (liking, friendship), – (2) exchange of influence or power, – (3) exchange of information, and – (4) exchange of goods or services. Social networks can be developed for each content type.

12. Nature of the links The linkages between pairs of individuals can be described in terms o several characteristics: – Intensity: the strength of the relation as indicated by the degree to which individuals honor obligations or forego personal costs to carry out obligations or by the number of contacts in a unit of time – Reciprocity: the degree to which individuals report the same (or similar) intensities with each other for a content area.

13. Nature Cont’d – Clarity of expectations: the degree to which individuals agree about appropriate behavior in their relations to one another. – Multiplexity: individuals have multiple roles, such as worker, husband, community member, and group member. Multiplexity identifies the degree to which a pair is linked by multiple roles. The more role requirements linking one person to another, the stronger the linkage.

14. Structural Characteristics Structural characteristics can be divided into four levels: – External network: in what ways is the focal unit linked with external domains? – Total internal network: given a set of actors that make up the network, in what ways are they linked? – Clusters within the network: areas of the network where actors are more closely linked to each other than they are to the rest of the network – Individuals as special nodes within the network: not all individuals are equally important in social networks.

15. Data collection and analysis Article presents a summary of data collection and analysis methods, but we’ll skip them for now: – First, we are 35 years away from those methods – Second, we’ll be studying them all, and more, a great detail later

16. Example of SNA in Organizations: a Case Data from Aston study (Pugh, Hickson, Hinnings, & Turner, 1969) Theory: Contingency theory of organizations – Mechanic organization – Organic organization

17. Results

18. Future Research Agenda Network analysis represents an underutilized framework for analyzing and conceptualizing organizations. Research agenda for studies based on network analysis includes: – Interorganizational relationships – Organizations and their boundaries – Career patterns and succession – Career change – Design configuration – Power and political processes