Circles of Trust: Rival Information in Social Networks

We analyze the diffusion of rival information in a social network. In our model, rational agents can share information sequentially, unconstrained by an exogenous protocol or timing. We show how to compute the set of eventually informed agents for any network, and show that it is essentially unique under altruistic preferences. The relationship between network structure and information diffusion is complex because the former shapes both the charity and confidentiality of potential senders and receivers

The Relationship Between Participation, Social Networks and Cooperation: How Social Networks Influence Voter Turnout through Mobilization and how both Networks and Turnout are Related to Cooperation.

This dissertation is organized around three papers that illustrate the codependence of cooperation, political participation and social networks. It takes advantage of a unique project, the 2010 Rural Social Network Study that comprehensively mapped the social relationships of residents in 32 small Honduran communities. These data are paired with survey questions and behavioral observations of subsamples in incentivized settings. The first paper, ``Cooperation and Popularity,'' reinforces the claim that cooperation and friendship share a strong positive relationship. Friendship and social networks may have evolutionary roots in cooperation, but this work is the first to demonstrate a relationship between the number of friends one has and the propensity to cooperate. Number of friendships predicts cooperation in a public goods game. Specifically, I find that individuals with more friends are more likely to cooperate in earlier rounds, and that a group's total amount of money earned increases with the aggregate number of friends of its members. The second paper, ``Habituated Cooperation and Voter Turnout,'' provides empirical support for the claim that voting is a cooperative act. Prior theoretical work argues for a link between cooperation and voter turnout. I demonstrate that there is a robust empirical relationship been those who cooperate in public goods games and self-reported voting. The final paper, ``Social Networks and Mobilization,'' demonstrates that mobilization occurs more commonly when strong affective relationships are present. This study is the first to demonstrate how one’s position within a social network can affect the ability to mobilize others for participation in a community meeting. Specifically, the greater the number of connections a person is away from a mobilizer, the less likely she is to attend a community meeting. I also show that as mobilizers are more central to the network, the percentage of those who attend the community meeting grows. Together these papers illustrate that cooperation, social networks, and participation are linked to one another thereby contributing to the understanding of the interrelationship between social, political, and economic dynamics in the political process. These findings could be used to augment political participation and community cooperation through social networks.PhDPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133345/1/dstaff_1.pd

Innovation, Learning and Cluster Dynamics

This chapter offers a theory and an analytical framework for the analysis of cluster dynamics, i.e. the innovative performance and evolution of clusters.It develops three types of embedding: institutional embedding, structural embedding (network structure), and relational embedding (type and strength of ties).The analysis is conducted from a perspective of both competence (learning) arising from relations and governance of relational risk, which includes risk of lock-in and risk of spillover.A basic proposition is that innovative clusters face the challenge of combining exploration and exploitation.Hypotheses are specified concerning differences between networks for exploration and exploitation, and concerning combinations and transitions between them.Arguments are presented that in some important respects go against the thesis of the strength of weak ties .Some empirical evidence is presented from recent studies.innovation;organizational learning;clusters;industrial districts;networks

Incentives, social learning and economic development : Experimental and quasi-experimental evidence from Uganda

Informational constraints hinder successful adoption and scaling of potentially beneficial agricultural technologies. Social learning in the form of farmer-to-farmer technology transfer can help to address informational constraints. Without incentives, however, the first individuals in the target population to receive the technology may not “automatically” share the knowledge with their neighbours. This thesis examined the effect of private material rewards and social recognition on the diffusion of agricultural technologies through social learning. Secondly, it assessed the role of social distance in influencing information exchange, and the subsequent impacts on knowledge exposure and technology adoption. Thirdly, the mechanisms through which social networks influence technology diffusion were examined. Fourthly, the thesis quantified the impacts of adopting climate smart agricultural (CSA) technologies on productivity, downside risk, food security, and resilience of livelihoods in the post-conflict northern Uganda. The main results are summarized as follows: (1) rewarding disseminating farmers (DFs) with social recognition increased their effort to train their covillagers; (2) social distance influenced information exchange between DFs and their covillagers, but the direction of influence was inconclusive; (3) information exchange links increased awareness, knowledge, and adoption of drought-tolerant maize varieties by covillagers; (4) incentives changed both the DFs and neighbours’ networks subsequently increasing knowledge diffusion and adoption by co-villagers; (5) Adoption of CSA technologies boosted productivity, reduced production risk, and increased food security, but did not reduce downside risks. The thesis discusses policy implications of the findings and provides recommendations for future research.</p

Density and strength of ties in innovation networks: a competence and governance view.

innovation, networks

The affective extension of ‘Family’ in the context of changing elite business networks

Drawing on 49 oral-history interviews with Scottish family business owner-managers, six key-informant interviews, and secondary sources, this interdisciplinary study analyses the decline of kinship-based connections and the emergence of new kinds of elite networks around the 1980s. As the socioeconomic context changed rapidly during this time, cooperation built primarily around literal family ties could not survive unaltered. Instead of finding unity through bio-legal family connections, elite networks now came to redefine their ‘family businesses’ in terms of affectively loaded ‘family values’ such as loyalty, care, commitment, and even ‘love’. Consciously nurturing ‘as-if-family’ emotional and ethical connections arose as a psychologically effective way to bring together network members who did not necessarily share pre-existing connections of bio-legal kinship. The social-psychological processes involved in this extension of the ‘family’ can be understood using theories of the moral sentiments first developed in the Scottish Enlightenment. These theories suggest that, when the context is amenable, family-like emotional bonds can be extended via sympathy to those to whom one is not literally related. As a result of this ‘progress of sentiments’, one now earns his/her place in a Scottish family business, not by inheriting or marrying into it, but by performing family-like behaviours motivated by shared ethics and affects