Computational Approaches for Analyzing Latent Social Structures in Open Source Organizing

Open source software represents a novel form of organizing that leaves digital trace data for organizational researchers to analyze using computational methods. Computational social science has emerged as an important approach to understanding patterns that represent latent social structures in sociological, organizational, and technical phenomena. Within the context of open and digitalized collaboration the clearest manifestation of computational social science has been social network analysis. While social network analysis is a powerful approach for understanding social phenomena in terms of their latent relational social structure, the network lens does not capture the entirety of social structures. Procedural social structures undergirding recurrent patterns of action form another important element of latent social structure. Analyzing such structures requires alternative methods able to deal with history-dependent patterning of activities. Therefore, we investigate the concepts of latent relational and procedural structures, and discuss computational approaches for analyzing patterns and interdependencies among such structures

Enabling Knowledge Broker Analysis through Actor Clusters in Organizational Structures in Enterprise Social Media

Knowledge brokers serve as facilitators of knowledge sharing. The extant literature calls for nuanced analyses of different organizational structures as the spaces knowledge brokers operate in. Our interest lies in formal, semiformal, and informal organizational network structures and in how knowledge brokers are positioned in them. In this paper, we outline a collaborative analysis method, with researchers from different disciplines working together in data sprints. The benefit of this process is that it enables analyzing large organizational networks with deep insights. Amplifying social network analysis with field knowledge offers a deeper understanding of the connections in the network. This paper describes the analysis process and proposes interdisciplinary data processing techniques. We applied the proposed method using an extensive empirical data set that includes intraorganizational social media interactions between employees in a global organization. Our analysis transforms enterprise social media data into a network model that describes an organization’s social structure

Deriving social relations among organizational units from process models

For companies to sustain competitive advantages, it is required to redesign and improve business processes continuously by monitoring and analyzing process enactment results. Furthermore, organizational structures must be redesigned according to the changes in business processes. However, there are few scientific approaches to redesigning organizational structures. This paper presents a method for deriving and analyzing organizational relations from process models using social network analysis. Process models contain information on who performs which processes or activities, along with the assignment of organizational units such as departments and roles to related activities. To derive social relations among organizational units from process models, three types of metrics are formally defined: transfer of work metrics, subcontracting metrics, and cooperation metrics. By applying these metrics, various relations among organizational units can be derived and analyzed, which can suggest how organizational structure must be redesigned. To verify the method, the proposed metrics are applied to standard process models of the semiconductor and electronic industry in Korea

The creation of process redesigns by selecting, transforming and replacing process parts

For companies to sustain competitive advantages, it is required to redesign and improve business processes continuously by monitoring and analyzing process enactment results. Furthermore, organizational structures must be redesigned according to the changes in business processes. However, there are few scientific approaches to redesigning organizational structures. This paper presents a method for deriving and analyzing organizational relations from process models using social network analysis. Process models contain information on who performs which processes or activities, along with the assignment of organizational units such as departments and roles to related activities. To derive social relations among organizational units from process models, three types of metrics are formally defined: transfer of work metrics, subcontracting metrics, and cooperation metrics. By applying these metrics, various relations among organizational units can be derived and analyzed, which can suggest how organizational structure must be redesigned. To verify the method, the proposed metrics are applied to standard process models of the semiconductor and electronic industry in Korea

Planning and Leveraging Event Portfolios: Towards a Holistic Theory

This conceptual paper seeks to advance the discourse on the leveraging and legacies of events by examining the planning, management, and leveraging of event portfolios. This examination shifts the common focus from analyzing single events towards multiple events and purposes that can enable cross-leveraging among different events in pursuit of attainment and magnification of specific ends. The following frameworks are proposed: (1) event portfolio planning and leveraging, and (2) analyzing events networks and inter-organizational linkages. These frameworks are intended to provide, at this infancy stage of event portfolios research, a solid ground for building theory on the management of different types and scales of events within the context of a portfolio aimed to obtain, optimize and sustain tourism, as well as broader community benefits

In Search of the Market: Lessons from Analyzing Agricultural Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Studies of the transition process remind us of Stiglitz's comparison between pathology and the economic analysis of institutions (1989): asking what went wrong and what did not is the essence of understanding the functioning of social systems. Thus, carefully conducted empirical studies of the transition process itself may yield elucidative results applicable not only to theory but also to institutional policy changes in transition. This paper presents the key findings of KATO, a comprehensive research project focussing on the transition process of agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe. From 1997 to 2000, the project empirically examined processes of liberalization and market development, privatization and property rights changes, as well as restructuring and path dependencies in three Central and Eastern Europe countries: Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. Conclusions on three analytical levels are drawn: (1) the empirical design for analyzing rapidly changing and evolving institutions in transition economies, (2) the suitability of different theoretical approaches for understanding transition, and (3) policy recommendations targeting better governance and an improved institutional framework.Agricultural and Food Policy,