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International Management Notes Introduction
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Notes of the International Management Seminar, on the introduction of social network analysis
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Social Networks and OrganizationsGaby Contreras M.Contreras@fm.ru.nl
Lecture #1 – Introduction to social network analysis, and relational thinking
Chapter 1,7, 10, 15
4, 8
About the course
Be able to identify and differentiate types of relations and networks
Be able to collect social network data
Be able to apply social network concepts to analyze networks
Be able to use Ucinet: download from google (tricky if have a mac), and analyze
networks
Be able to apply, compare and contrast different network theories and concepts to
study relevant economic and management problems
Exam: QCM avec 1 bonne réponse. Pas de questions sur comment utiliser UCINET
pour calculer. Questions might be about identifying the node with the highest
centrality, in a drawn network
The grading will have no negative points
If there is a need of a calculator, we will be notified before the exam
About social network analysis
Inter-personal network: the network that exist between people
Inter-organizational networks: the network that exist between organizations
Social media is one of the examples of social network. Social network can simply be,
people interacting with each other
One of the historical roots of social network analysis is in structural sociology, which,
in the name of parsimony, urges us to seek answers in opportunities and constraints
before turning to preferences
Defining a network
Social network analysis: study of network where network are a collection of nodes
and lines/edges (circles and links). The links connect any people
We want to look at the structure of the network and then to explain something
about it (who is the most powerful person in the network, the responsible one? who
is most likely to be the spreader of the covid in the network,…) what you will study
will depend on how the network is structured
What makes a network social?
It is social when we are referring to human interactions. So, Brussels Metro network
and computer network are not social network, because they don’t socially interact.
There are transfers of information, but there is no human element
,Social Networks and Organizations
Gaby Contreras M.Contreras@fm.ru.nl
Where it all kind of started
Social network comes from sociology: sociologists are talking over a coffee and at one
point, they realize they know a person in common and say: “the world is so small”.
Milgram ask himself if it is possible to measure the probability that any two people in
the world know each other. Taking the question further, he asks himself if two
people that don’t know each other, have a common friend. After that, he asks
himself to take it further: an equation chain.
He decides to make a study, picking random people in the world and asking them to
give a letter to a reaching destination in Wichita (USA). The goal is that the letter has
to be given to somebody that is likely to reach the destination the fastest, so that he
gives it to somebody so that the letter would reach the destination (Omaha,
Nebraska). Every time somebody gave the letter, they had to put their name, and tell
who they were giving the letter to. In some chain, it took 16 people to reach the
destination, sometimes it took only 3 people.
The result is that most of the chain took 6 people to reach the destination. That is
where the theory that says that on average, 2 random people are connected to a
chain of 6 steps, comes from
, Social Networks and Organizations
Gaby Contreras M.Contreras@fm.ru.nl
There were some gender differences: women mostly sent letters to other women
(56%) and men mostly sent letter to other men (58%). This showed that there were
also preferences, the people that you know are more similar in terms of gender
He also noticed that people were more likely to send letters to friends and
acquaintances than to family members => Milgram concluded that in the USA,
connections with friends last longer than connections with family members.
However, in other countries, the result could be different.
In network, genders create differences and culture creates differences. The context
influences the network
We note that everybody was not equally important: there was a guy in Boston (so
opposite side of the destination) that received almost 50% of the letters
o The social element may be even more important than geography, since
people didn’t care whether or not the people that they were sending the
letter were closer to the destination
o Some chains died only a few hundred meters from the target person’s house
We are connected to any people without even knowing. However, the social chain is
there, but the higher we go in the degree measurement, the more difficult it is to be
aware that we are connected to the random people.
With globalization and the such, is the world becoming any smaller?
Facebook researchers found out in 2016 that the Facebook world was connected in
three and a half degrees of separation
Why would we study social network?
To have a more successful business, since you can be helped by more friends or
benefit from the word-of-mouth marketing
Social network analysis can also help us study the spread of diseases. In 2009, the
first disease was searched by taking account to the interaction between people.
Before, the diseases were studied without taking transportation, interaction,
relationship into consideration. With covid, in 2020, we speak of social distancing to
prevent the virus from spreading because of social network
To explain the global financial crisis. We are the ones that are taking the risks, that
agree on giving loans to one another, so because of this, crisis can spread through a
network
To help find people in networks of terrorism: if you know who Saddam Hussein
speaks with, you can obtain information to know where he goes, who are the people
that he trusts, etc. so that makes it easier to catch terrorists
To understand voting behavior: Facebook made a button, where people could point
out that they voted. When people see that their friends on Facebook voted, they felt
more inclined to go voting. Because of this, there was an increase of voters. If you
belong to a network of friends, where the majority votes, you would be more
inclined to vote. The social norms of your network friends transpire to you
There are different levels in social network analysis
When you want to know about the interaction of two actors, you speak about dyads
=> two nodes/circles are connected with each other
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