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Network Research Design


An overview of what we are trying to do in network research and how to design a study that will answer your research question.

 

Topics

  • Types of network studies (exemplars of different kinds)

  • Research questions

  • Types of explanations

  • Full network versus ego network designs

  • Sampling & bounding issues

  • Cases and variables

  • Statistical issues

  • Sources of network data

  • Longitudinal

Slides

Handouts

See also

  

Readings

  • Borgatti, S.P. and Molina, J-L. 2003. Ethical and strategic issues in organizational network analysis. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. 39(3): 337-350. [pdf]
  • Borgatti, S.P. 2005. Centrality and network flow. Social Networks. 27(1): 55-71. [pdf]
  • Leavitt, H.J. 1951. Some effects of certain communication patterns on group performance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46: 38-50. [pdf]
  • Padgett, J.F., Ansell, C.K., 1993. Robust action and the rise of the Medici, 1400–1434. American Journal of Sociology 98, 1259–1319. [^pdf]
  • Uzzi, B. 1996.The sources and consequences of embeddedness for the economic performance of organizations: the network effect. American Sociological Review61: 674-698 [pdf] (focus on the qualitative bit)

Bibliography

General

  • Borgatti, S.P. and Foster, P. 2003. The network paradigm in organizational research: A review and typology. Journal of Management. 29(6): 991-1013 [pdf]

    •

  • David Knoke and James H. Kuklinski. Network Analysis. Sage

    •

  • Doreian, Patrick. “Causality in Social Network Analysis.” Sociological Methods and Research, 2001, 30, 1, Aug, 81-114.[^pdf] (read pages 82-86)

  • Joseph Galaskiewicz and Stanley Wasserman, “Social Network Analysis: Concepts, Methodology, and Directions for the 1990s.” Sociological Methods & Research 22 (1993): 3-22.

  • R.L. Breiger, pp. 505-07 of “The Analysis of Social Networks,” in Melissa Hardy and Alan Bryman (eds.), Handbook of Data Analysis (London: Sage, 2004).

Survey Research exemplars

  • Fischer, Claude. To Dwell Among Friends.

Participant Observation / Ethnography exemplars

  • Hawthorne Bank Wiring Room study

    • Roethlisberger, F., and W. Dickson. 1939. Management and the worker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Homans G. (1950). The human group. New York: Harcourt-Brace.

    • Elton Mayo (1949), Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, Routledge

  • William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum University of Chicago Press

  • Mitchell, J. Clyde. 1981. "Ethnography and Analysis: A Test of Some Procedures." 4(3):8-9.

  • Sampson

Historical exemplars

  • Florentine families study by Padgett and Ansell

    • Kent D. (1978). The rise of the Medici: Faction in Florence, 1426-1434. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [this is where some of the data were drawn from]

    • Padgett, J.F., Ansell, C.K., 1993. Robust action and the rise of the Medici, 1400–1434. American Journal of Sociology 98, 1259–1319. [^pdf]

    • Padgett, J. 1994. Marriage and Elite Structures in Renaissance Florence: 1282–1500 (1994) updated with graphs. Unpublished paper [pdf]

Experimental exemplars

  • Bavelas-Leavitt experiments

    • Bavelas, Alex 1948 “A mathematical model for small group structures.” Human Organization 7: 16-30.

    • Bavelas, Alex 1950 “Communication patterns in task oriented groups.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 22: 271-282.

    • Leavitt, H.J. 1951. Some effects of certain communication patterns on group performance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46: 38-50. [pdf]

  • Experimental exchange networks

    • Cook, K. S., R. M. Emerson, M. R. Gillmore, and T. Yamagishi. 1983. "The Distribution of Power in Exchange Networks: Theory and Experimental Evidence." American Journal of Sociology :275-305. [^pdf]

    • Markovsky, Barry, David Willer, and Travis Patton 1988 "Power relations in exchange networks." American Sociological Review, 53: 220 236. [^pdf]

  • Krackhardt, D. & Stern, R.1988. Informal networks and organizational crises. Social Psychology Quarterly 51(2): 123-140.  [pdf]

Simulation exemplars

  • Krackhardt, D. 1997. "Organizational Viscosity and the Diffusion of Controversial Innovations," Journal of Mathematical Sociology. 22:177-199. [pdf]

  • Borgatti, S.P. 2005. Centrality and network flow. Social Networks. 27(1): 55-71. [pdf]
     

     

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