In trying to assess the validity of formal definitions of positional analysis it is necessary to ... more In trying to assess the validity of formal definitions of positional analysis it is necessary to have certain standard test data. The mathematical literature contains a large collection of important graphs specifically constructed as counter-examples to conjectures. We show that one of these graphs is useful in understanding the workings of certain positional analysis techniques. 1.
Borgaöi, S. 1998. EHcitatìon techniques for cultural domain analysis. In 3. Schensul & M. LeC... more Borgaöi, S. 1998. EHcitatìon techniques for cultural domain analysis. In 3. Schensul & M. LeCompte (Eds ) The Ethnographer's Toolkit, Vol. 3. Walnut Creek. CA- Altimira Press. Chapter 1 Elicitation Techniques for Cultural Domain ...
This chapter contains sections titled: Seeking Information from People, Qualitative Phase: Method... more This chapter contains sections titled: Seeking Information from People, Qualitative Phase: Methods, Qualitative Results, Quantitative Phase: Methods, Quantitative Results, Discussion and Conclusion, Acknowledgments, References
This volume is an important complement to Wasserman and Faust\u27s Social Network Analysis: Metho... more This volume is an important complement to Wasserman and Faust\u27s Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications (Cambridge, 1995). The authors, leading methodologists, present the most significant developments in quantitative models and methods for analyzing social network data that appeared in the 1990s. They review recent advances in network measurement, network sampling, analysis of centrality, positional analysis or blockmodelling, analysis of diffusion through networks, analysis of affiliation or two-mode networks, the theory of random graphs, and dependence graphs
All sociological/anthropological research (network or otherwise) in organizations (particularly c... more All sociological/anthropological research (network or otherwise) in organizations (particularly corporations) is complicated by the need to obtain consent not only from the potential respondent but from the organization itself. Whereas in ordinary research there are essentially two parties that must come to agreement-the researcher and the respondent-in the organizational research there are three. In addition, the fact of organizational hierarchy means that the employee's participation in the research entails considerably more risk than in other situations. At the same time, social network research involves special challenges due to the lack of anonymity at the questionnaire level and the sensitivity of some of the questions. This paper seeks to lay out some of the issues and to propose a set of standard guidelines for ethical research on networks in organizations. It is hoped that developing a set of standard guidelines and forms will help Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to allow network research. Examples of proposed forms are included as appendices.
In this paper, we look at the betweenness centrality of ego in an ego network. We discuss the iss... more In this paper, we look at the betweenness centrality of ego in an ego network. We discuss the issue of normalization and develop an efficient and simple algorithm for calculating the betweenness score. We then examine the relationship between the ego betweenness and the betweenness of the actor in the whole network. Whereas, we can show that there is no theoretical link between the two we undertake a simulation study, which indicates that the local ego betweenness is highly correlated with the betweenness of the actor in the complete network.
Social networks are not just patterns of interaction and sentiment in the real world; they are al... more Social networks are not just patterns of interaction and sentiment in the real world; they are also cognitive (re)constructions of social relations, some real, some imagined. Focusing on networks as mental entities, our essay describes a new method that relies on stylized network images to gather quantitative data on how people "see" specific aspects of their social worlds. We discuss the logic of our approach, present several examples of "visual network scales," discuss some preliminary findings, and identify some of the problems and prospects in this nasc AU:2 ent line of work on the phenomenology of social networks.
In this article, the authors explore the use of graph layout algorithms for visualizing proximity... more In this article, the authors explore the use of graph layout algorithms for visualizing proximity matrices such as those obtained in cultural domain analysis. Traditionally, multidimensional scaling has been used for this ...
is meant to remind us that the field of social network analysis is marked by shared connections, ... more is meant to remind us that the field of social network analysis is marked by shared connections, intellectual and social, and the role that Lin and Sue, his wife and partner, played in creating them. Lin's friends, students and colleagues tell us their stories of Lin and through them we learn about Lin the man, the professor, the scientist, the dean, the mentor, the editor, the teacher, the friend, and the networker.
Virtually all of the extensive previous research investigating the effect of information systems ... more Virtually all of the extensive previous research investigating the effect of information systems proficiency on performance has been conducted at the individual level. Little research has investigated the relationship between IS proficiency and performance at the group level. In this paper, we argue that IS proficiency at the group level may be more than the simple sum or average of the IS proficiency of individual group members. Rather, effective group-level IS proficiency may also be a function of how a group's IS proficiency is distributed across its members. Relying on concepts associated with social network analysis (SNA), we introduce the concept of centrality-IS proficiency alignment. We argue that groups will perform better if their more proficient members are highly central in the group's communication and workflows network. Data from 468 employees in 32 workgroups show that centrality-IS proficiency alignment is significantly and positively related to performance across multiple systems examined individually and with the portfolio of systems examined as a whole. This approach effectively integrates the structural and resource perspectives of SNA, providing a roadmap so that others may follow a similar approach to address broader questions of group-level user-system interactions in the IS literature and more general questions of central resource alignment in the broader organizational literature.
Recent years have witnessed the rapid proliferation and widespread adoption of a new class of inf... more Recent years have witnessed the rapid proliferation and widespread adoption of a new class of information technologies, commonly known as social media. Researchers often rely on social network analysis (SNA) in attempting to understand these technologies, often without considering how the novel capabilities of social media platforms might affect the underlying theories of SNA, which were developed primarily through studies of offline social networks. This article outlines several key differences between traditional offline social networks and online social media networks by juxtaposing an established typology of social network research with a well-regarded definition of social media platforms that articulates four key features. The results show that at four major points of intersection, social media has considerable theoretical implications for SNA. In exploring these points of intersection, this study outlines a series of theoretically distinctive research questions for SNA in social media contexts. These points of intersection offer considerable opportunities for researchers to investigate the theoretical implications introduced by social media and lay the groundwork for a robust social media agenda potentially spanning multiple disciplines.
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '13, 2013
ABSTRACT Project affiliation networks (i.e., individuals connected through common project team me... more ABSTRACT Project affiliation networks (i.e., individuals connected through common project team memberships) create fruitful junctures to understand how individuals are connected to others in their social contexts, especially in distributed organizations. Advances in technology-mediated environments further help individuals develop connections with their colleagues who may or may not be collocated. This embeddedness creates inertial pressures on individuals and constrains them to conform to firm norms and thus stay with the firm. In this paper, we examine whether ties to those who quit the firm can trump the feeling of connection to the firm and thus motivate subsequent quit decisions. We argue that individuals with a greater number of defectors in their project affiliation networks are more likely than others to leave the firm and the influence on those focal individuals will be higher when they are collocated and occupy similar professional roles as the affiliated defectors. We analyze complete project affiliation data linking 728 geographically distributed employees at a multi-national high technology firm across five years to test these arguments. During this time 183 employees voluntarily left the firm. The findings support our arguments and suggest that project affiliation networks in such settings occasion social comparisons among employees and serve as conduits for the diffusion of their career mobility decisions. We discuss the implications of our work for managing voluntary turnover in knowledge intensive distributed organizations.
General methodology is developed here to deal with the association between a a binary variable an... more General methodology is developed here to deal with the association between a a binary variable and network connections with or without confounding covariates. Also the case when the network is observed at several time periods is treated. As an application we consider the diffusion of organic farming in the province of North Karelia in Finland. It turns out that organic farms are more clustered than would be expected under pure random allocation. The neighborhood effect remains when adjusting for the production lines of the farms. The spatio-temporal analysis shows that new adopters are more often found within the neighborhoods of each others and of earlier adopters.
In trying to assess the validity of formal definitions of positional analysis it is necessary to ... more In trying to assess the validity of formal definitions of positional analysis it is necessary to have certain standard test data. The mathematical literature contains a large collection of important graphs specifically constructed as counter-examples to conjectures. We show that one of these graphs is useful in understanding the workings of certain positional analysis techniques. 1.
Borgaöi, S. 1998. EHcitatìon techniques for cultural domain analysis. In 3. Schensul & M. LeC... more Borgaöi, S. 1998. EHcitatìon techniques for cultural domain analysis. In 3. Schensul & M. LeCompte (Eds ) The Ethnographer's Toolkit, Vol. 3. Walnut Creek. CA- Altimira Press. Chapter 1 Elicitation Techniques for Cultural Domain ...
This chapter contains sections titled: Seeking Information from People, Qualitative Phase: Method... more This chapter contains sections titled: Seeking Information from People, Qualitative Phase: Methods, Qualitative Results, Quantitative Phase: Methods, Quantitative Results, Discussion and Conclusion, Acknowledgments, References
This volume is an important complement to Wasserman and Faust\u27s Social Network Analysis: Metho... more This volume is an important complement to Wasserman and Faust\u27s Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications (Cambridge, 1995). The authors, leading methodologists, present the most significant developments in quantitative models and methods for analyzing social network data that appeared in the 1990s. They review recent advances in network measurement, network sampling, analysis of centrality, positional analysis or blockmodelling, analysis of diffusion through networks, analysis of affiliation or two-mode networks, the theory of random graphs, and dependence graphs
All sociological/anthropological research (network or otherwise) in organizations (particularly c... more All sociological/anthropological research (network or otherwise) in organizations (particularly corporations) is complicated by the need to obtain consent not only from the potential respondent but from the organization itself. Whereas in ordinary research there are essentially two parties that must come to agreement-the researcher and the respondent-in the organizational research there are three. In addition, the fact of organizational hierarchy means that the employee's participation in the research entails considerably more risk than in other situations. At the same time, social network research involves special challenges due to the lack of anonymity at the questionnaire level and the sensitivity of some of the questions. This paper seeks to lay out some of the issues and to propose a set of standard guidelines for ethical research on networks in organizations. It is hoped that developing a set of standard guidelines and forms will help Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to allow network research. Examples of proposed forms are included as appendices.
In this paper, we look at the betweenness centrality of ego in an ego network. We discuss the iss... more In this paper, we look at the betweenness centrality of ego in an ego network. We discuss the issue of normalization and develop an efficient and simple algorithm for calculating the betweenness score. We then examine the relationship between the ego betweenness and the betweenness of the actor in the whole network. Whereas, we can show that there is no theoretical link between the two we undertake a simulation study, which indicates that the local ego betweenness is highly correlated with the betweenness of the actor in the complete network.
Social networks are not just patterns of interaction and sentiment in the real world; they are al... more Social networks are not just patterns of interaction and sentiment in the real world; they are also cognitive (re)constructions of social relations, some real, some imagined. Focusing on networks as mental entities, our essay describes a new method that relies on stylized network images to gather quantitative data on how people "see" specific aspects of their social worlds. We discuss the logic of our approach, present several examples of "visual network scales," discuss some preliminary findings, and identify some of the problems and prospects in this nasc AU:2 ent line of work on the phenomenology of social networks.
In this article, the authors explore the use of graph layout algorithms for visualizing proximity... more In this article, the authors explore the use of graph layout algorithms for visualizing proximity matrices such as those obtained in cultural domain analysis. Traditionally, multidimensional scaling has been used for this ...
is meant to remind us that the field of social network analysis is marked by shared connections, ... more is meant to remind us that the field of social network analysis is marked by shared connections, intellectual and social, and the role that Lin and Sue, his wife and partner, played in creating them. Lin's friends, students and colleagues tell us their stories of Lin and through them we learn about Lin the man, the professor, the scientist, the dean, the mentor, the editor, the teacher, the friend, and the networker.
Virtually all of the extensive previous research investigating the effect of information systems ... more Virtually all of the extensive previous research investigating the effect of information systems proficiency on performance has been conducted at the individual level. Little research has investigated the relationship between IS proficiency and performance at the group level. In this paper, we argue that IS proficiency at the group level may be more than the simple sum or average of the IS proficiency of individual group members. Rather, effective group-level IS proficiency may also be a function of how a group's IS proficiency is distributed across its members. Relying on concepts associated with social network analysis (SNA), we introduce the concept of centrality-IS proficiency alignment. We argue that groups will perform better if their more proficient members are highly central in the group's communication and workflows network. Data from 468 employees in 32 workgroups show that centrality-IS proficiency alignment is significantly and positively related to performance across multiple systems examined individually and with the portfolio of systems examined as a whole. This approach effectively integrates the structural and resource perspectives of SNA, providing a roadmap so that others may follow a similar approach to address broader questions of group-level user-system interactions in the IS literature and more general questions of central resource alignment in the broader organizational literature.
Recent years have witnessed the rapid proliferation and widespread adoption of a new class of inf... more Recent years have witnessed the rapid proliferation and widespread adoption of a new class of information technologies, commonly known as social media. Researchers often rely on social network analysis (SNA) in attempting to understand these technologies, often without considering how the novel capabilities of social media platforms might affect the underlying theories of SNA, which were developed primarily through studies of offline social networks. This article outlines several key differences between traditional offline social networks and online social media networks by juxtaposing an established typology of social network research with a well-regarded definition of social media platforms that articulates four key features. The results show that at four major points of intersection, social media has considerable theoretical implications for SNA. In exploring these points of intersection, this study outlines a series of theoretically distinctive research questions for SNA in social media contexts. These points of intersection offer considerable opportunities for researchers to investigate the theoretical implications introduced by social media and lay the groundwork for a robust social media agenda potentially spanning multiple disciplines.
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '13, 2013
ABSTRACT Project affiliation networks (i.e., individuals connected through common project team me... more ABSTRACT Project affiliation networks (i.e., individuals connected through common project team memberships) create fruitful junctures to understand how individuals are connected to others in their social contexts, especially in distributed organizations. Advances in technology-mediated environments further help individuals develop connections with their colleagues who may or may not be collocated. This embeddedness creates inertial pressures on individuals and constrains them to conform to firm norms and thus stay with the firm. In this paper, we examine whether ties to those who quit the firm can trump the feeling of connection to the firm and thus motivate subsequent quit decisions. We argue that individuals with a greater number of defectors in their project affiliation networks are more likely than others to leave the firm and the influence on those focal individuals will be higher when they are collocated and occupy similar professional roles as the affiliated defectors. We analyze complete project affiliation data linking 728 geographically distributed employees at a multi-national high technology firm across five years to test these arguments. During this time 183 employees voluntarily left the firm. The findings support our arguments and suggest that project affiliation networks in such settings occasion social comparisons among employees and serve as conduits for the diffusion of their career mobility decisions. We discuss the implications of our work for managing voluntary turnover in knowledge intensive distributed organizations.
General methodology is developed here to deal with the association between a a binary variable an... more General methodology is developed here to deal with the association between a a binary variable and network connections with or without confounding covariates. Also the case when the network is observed at several time periods is treated. As an application we consider the diffusion of organic farming in the province of North Karelia in Finland. It turns out that organic farms are more clustered than would be expected under pure random allocation. The neighborhood effect remains when adjusting for the production lines of the farms. The spatio-temporal analysis shows that new adopters are more often found within the neighborhoods of each others and of earlier adopters.
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Papers by Steve Borgatti