Recently, I’ve been having conversations about the teaching, or lack of a social network analysis course in business schools both in the graduate and undergraduate levels. I really don’t think enough is being done or that there is an active effort to bring about this powerful science to the hands of future business executives, managers, and professionals.

First of all a simple search on indeed.com for the keywords social network analysis reveals several thousand jobs available in a variety of areas. It’s true that the job set is very diverse covering everything from intelligence analysis to marketing, and it’s true that most job are not solely focused [...]

Gandal et al. (2009) performed an interesting study regarding knowledge creation and its effects on change through the use of an organizational network analysis.  Through the use of an organizational network analysis, they were able to discern the type of network structure necessary for successful change management and identify behaviors of information gate keepers that stifle progress. In this particular case, the researchers concluded that gatekeepers or brokers of knowledge in a given network are still considered to be central to that network’s function, even when an abundant resource such as the internet is freely available, to provide all members of the [...]

One of the most important applications of network science is the ability to apply it to organizations-a specialty of mine. A while ago I wrote a (pretty long) white paper to help explain the importance and immense value that organizational network analysis provides to managing change within organizations.

Traditional change management theories’ purpose is to provide sustainable change for organizations that puts them in a better position for some goal like growth, expansion, or creating a better product.

But, once theory is applied to real world situations, it generally fails in being able to accomplish successful and effective [...]

So this is a continuation of the social network analysis and organizational network analysis series I posted yesterday. This time we’ll talk about the general applications of SNA/ONA. And yes, we’ll stay with the basics for now. I plan on writing up some more advanced lessons later.

In this post we’ll talk about the uses of SNA/ONA. Feel free to refer to the fundamentals of SNA/ONA article to get you started on the very basic concepts before reading this one.

So, in short, organizational network analysis (we’ll use ONA and SNA interchangeably) has been used for many different applications. One particular article I read a while ago concentrates on the uses of social [...]

Organizational network analysis has been an important part of my life and career for a number of years now. I wrote my first Master’s thesis on it, and continue to use the method in most if not all of my consulting engagements. It’s a powerful tool.

But so many people don’t have a foundation to help them begin studying it on their own so I thought I’d provide them with a small posting with basic explanations and a few references, to help them begin their network journey.

First let’s provide an overview of the discipline.The large majority of social sciences, including human resources, carry within them an assumption that actors [...]