3,328 research outputs found
Visual network storytelling
We love networks! Networks are powerful conceptual tools, encapsulating in a single item
multiple affordances for computation (networks as graphs), visualization (networks as maps) and
manipulation of data (networks as interfaces). In the field of mathematics, graph theory has been
around since Euler’s walk on Königsberg’s bridges (Euler 1736). But it is not until the end of the
last century that networks acquired a multidisciplinary popularity. Graph computation is certainly
powerful, but it is also very demanding and for many years its advantages remained the privilege
of scholars with solid mathematical fundamentals.
In the last few decades, however, networks acquired a new set of affordances and reached a
larger audience, thanks to the growing availability of tools to design them. Drawn on paper or
screen, networks became easier to handle and obtained properties that calculation could not
express. Far from being merely aesthetic, the graphical representation of networks has an intrinsic
hermeneutic value. Networks can become maps and be read as such.
Combining the computation power of graphs with the visual expressivity of maps and the
interactivity of computer interface, networks can be used in Exploratory Data Analysis (Tukey,
1977). Navigating through data becomes so fluid that zooming in on a single data-point and out
to a landscape of a million traces is just a click away.
Increasingly specialized software has been designed to support the exploration of network
data. Tools like Pajek (vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/pajek), NetDraw (sites.google.com/site/
netdrawsoftware), Ucinet (www.analytictech.com/ucinet), Guess (graphexploration.cond.org)
and more recently Gephi (gephi.org) have progressively smoothed out the difficulties of graph
mathematics, turning a complex mathematical formalism into a more user-friendly point-and-click
interface (1)
.
If visual exploration of networks can output to confirmatory statistics, what about sharing one
network exploration with others?
We developed Manylines (https://github.com/medialab/manylines), a tool allowing you to share
the visual analysis of a network with a wide audience by publishing it on the web. With Manylines,
you can not only easily publish a network on the web but also share its exploration by describing
the network’s visual key findings. Through a set of examples, we will illustrate how the narrative
opportunities of Manylines can contribute to the enunciation of a visual grammar of networks.
(1) A simple look at the URLs of the subsequent tools reveals the efforts deployed to make network-manipulation
tools user-friendly and thereby available to a larger public
A Connected World: Social Networks and Organizations
This Element synthesizes the current state of research on organizational social networks from its early foundations to contemporary debates. It highlights the characteristics that make the social network perspective distinctive in the organizational research landscape, including its emphasis on structure and outcomes. It covers the main theoretical developments and summarizes the research design questions that organizational researchers face when collecting and analyzing network data. Then, it discusses current debates ranging from agency and structure to network volatility and personality. Finally, the Element envisages future research directions on the role of brokerage for individuals and communities, network cognition, and the importance of past ties. Overall, the Element provides an innovative angle for understanding organizational social networks, engaging in empirical network research, and nurturing further theoretical development on the role of social interactions and connectedness in modern organizations
EUSN 2021 Book of Abstracts, Fifth European Conference on Social Networks
Book of abstract of the fifth European conference on Social Networks EUSN 202
Obstacles and Challenges affecting the move towards Universal Healthcare Coverage in Nigeria
There is increasing pressure for low and middle-income countries to move towards achieving universal healthcare coverage (UHC). According to WHO (2013), UHC guarantees the right to affordable health care for every individual, without financial hardship. The Director-General to the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan (WHO, 2010 p. 1), says UHC “is the single most powerful concept that public health has to offer”.In recent years, UHC has come onto the policy agenda, but Nigeria has been criticised for its slow progress. This study investigates why and how the UHC policy is developed by focusing on the roles and interactions of policy actors, their policy setting, and ‘how’ their actions influence the policy process and outcome of UHC so far in Nigeria. It will provide evidence of Nigeria’s policy process that will enhance the understanding of the politics of such health care policy implementation processes, which is fundamental to the success of policy networks of UHC in low- and middle-income settings.This is an empirical study using a mixed method approach involving quantitative and qualitative research components. The study combines the social network analysis (the quantitative component) with a more general policy process framework (the qualitative component). Data collected between March 2016 and February 2017 involved face-to-face structured interviews, face-to-face semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis to identify members of relevant policy networks and describe the pattern of relationships and influence within the UHC discourse.The SNA analysis displayed a full structural network taxonomy of the UHC policy process and identified key members of the UHC discourse into four key institutions and organisations- such as the power actors, peripheral actors, gatekeepers or brokers, isolated actors, and policy actors connected to the power actors.The theoretical policy process framework highlights five key gaps that exist as challenges and obstacles which impedes the implementation process of UHC Nigeria. These challenges and obstacles include, changing political climate, concerns about system capacity and finance, poor coordination between federal and state levels, corruption and problems with the private sector – HMOs. These challenges and obstacles limit the government’s ability to provide social and financial risk protection and access to quality health services to vulnerable Nigerian communities.Drawing on the theoretical framework and intervention, this thesis concludes that the political, policy, financial and organizational constraints of the health system limit UHC Nigeria implementation progress. Addressing the reasons why these issues ensue would be helpful in taking strategic steps towards achieving financial protection and access to basic health services through UHC for many Nigerians
A Connected World. Social Networks and Organizations
This is the submitted version. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this recordThis Element synthesizes the current state of research on organizational social networks from its early foundations to contemporary debates. It highlights the characteristics that make the social network perspective distinctive in the organizational research landscape, including its emphasis on structure and outcomes. It covers the main theoretical developments and summarizes the research design questions that organizational researchers face when collecting and analyzing network data. Then, it discusses current debates ranging from agency and structure to network volatility and personality. Finally, the Element envisages future research directions on the role of brokerage for individuals and communities, network cognition, and the importance of past ties. Overall, the Element provides an innovative angle for understanding organizational social networks, engaging in empirical network research, and nurturing further theoretical development on the role of social interactions and connectedness in modern organizations
The social capital applied to cross-border cooperation in the cross-border regions of Alentejo-Algarve-Andalucía and southern Finland-Estonia
The cross-border cooperation (CBC) has been subject of study since eighties, and there is a wide empirical research since the implementation of first community initiatives like Interreg, receiving much of attention from the institutional realm. However, in last decade there has been an interest in the study of CBC from different disciplines which try to deliver the reaiity of day to day in border regions and the cross-border cooperation focused in the study of identities, border citizens’ perspective and informal border relations.
At the same time, the study of social capital (SC) has emerged in the last decades and is applied to diverse fields of interest. Among them the cross-border cooperation is a new and interesting area of research. The SC refers to the study of social relations and aspects like trust that facilitate the collective action. Social capita! can be approached in its cognitive (trust, norms), and/or structural (networks) dimension with the development of the social network analysis, an empirical mathematic method that explains systematically how with the investment on networks or relations social actors are capable to obtain benefits or to pursuit a certain collective action.
In this context, this thesis tries to unify the institutional and more formal approach of CBC with a more social and informal based on SC theories and application of network analysis to offer a new approach to the study of CBC.
The main goal is to study the construction of the cross-border social capital emerged from the institutional cross- border cooperation, focused on experts and institutions participating in EU cross-border cooperation; and to compare how is developed this cross-border social capita! in two different cross-border regions: Alentejo-Algarve- Andalucla and Southern Finland-Estonia.
The methodology is qualitative-quantitative, using first a semi-structured interviews with a questionnaire and a module of social network analysis applied to 45 experts on CBC; second, the network analysis of the secondary data of approved projects of the interreg A programme 2007-2013 in each cross-border region.
This research aims to contribute to the lack of research from sociology and social capital on cross-border cooperation. From another prism of analysis results will try to shed some light into the reaiity of day to day CBC in these two different and distant cross-border regions within the European Union.La cooperación transfronteriza (CTF) ha sido objeto de estudio desde los ochenta, y hay una amplia investigación desde el desarrollo de los primeros programas Interreg, recibiendo gran interés sobre todo en el marco institucional. Sin embargo, en las ultimo décadas ha habido un gran interés en el estudio de la CTF desde distintas disciplinas que tratan de abordar la realidad del día a día en la regiones fronterizas y ia cooperación transfronteriza centrada más en el estudio de identidades, 1a visión de ios ciudadanos y las relaciones fronterizas informales.
Al mismo tiempo, el estudio del capital social (CS) ha surgido en las últimas décadas y ha sido aplicado a distintos campos de interés. Entre ellos, la cooperación transfronteriza es un campo nuevo e interesante de investigación. El CS insta al estudio de relaciones sociales y aspectos como la confianza, que facilitan la acción colectiva. El CS puede ser abordado en su dimensión cognitiva (confianza, normas) y/o estructural (redes) con el desarrollo del análisis de redes sociales, un método empírico matemático que explica sistemáticamente como con la inversión en redes o relaciones sociales los actores sociales son capaces de obtener beneficios o alcanzar una determinada acción colectiva.
En este contexto esta tesis intenta unificar el estudio de la cooperación transfronteriza más institucional y formal con e! estudio social e informal basado en teorías del capital social y el uso del análisis de redes sociales. Para ofrecer un nuevo enfoque a la investigación de la CTF.
El principal objetivo es abordar la construcción del capital social transfronterizo que surge de la cooperación transfronteriza institucional a través de los expertos y las instituciones que participan en la cooperación transfronteriza de la UE, y comparar como se desarrolla este capital social transfronterizo en dos regiones transfronterizas distintas: Alentejo-Algarve-Andalucía y Sur de Finlandla-Estonia. La metodología usada es cuantitativa-cualitativa, basada primero en entrevistas semiestructuradas con un cuestionario y un módulo de análisis de redes aplicado a 45 expertos en CTF; segundo, el análisis de redes de datos secundarios de los proyectos aprobados en los programas Interreg 2007-2013 en cada reglón transfronteriza.
Esta investigación persigue contribuir a la falta de investigación desde la sociología y el capital social en el ámbito de la cooperación transfronteriza. Desde otro prisma de análisis los resultados intentaran ofrecen alguna luz sobre la realidad de CTF en el día a día en estas dos regiones distintas y distantes dentro de la UE
The role of social and human capital in assessing firm value: A longitudinal study of UK firms
This study examines the role of board social and human capital in assessing the market value of firms in the UK context. As the world economy has shifted from manufacturing to service and knowledge-based economies, attributes such as knowledge, expertise, skills, ability and reputation are increasingly fundamental to the success of business enterprises. There is a growing consensus that these attributes are an increasingly valuable form of capital, asset or resource, despite their intangibility. In accounting, there are a number of problems arising from the accountability of non-physical, non-financial capital. Firstly, some forms of capital and certain assets are neither recognised nor presented in the statement of financial position. Secondly, some accounting practices relating to intangible assets are very conservative, resulting in undervalued assets and overstated liabilities. Consequently, there is an increasing gap between the book value and market value of firms. This gap restricts the relevance of information presented in financial statements and suggests that there is something missing in financial statements. This is the research problem being addressed in this study.
While prior literature demonstrates that it has proven difficult to operationalise intangible forms of capital, there has been significant empirical attention and theoretical development in social and human forms. This thesis aims to contribute to accounting theory and practice by exploring the impact that board social and human capital have on firm market value. In light of extant research, it is hypothesised that social and human capital possessed at board level are positively related to the market value of firms. This study employs the Ohlson’s (1995) residual income valuation model to test the impact of social and human capital using a sample of UK firms listed on the FTSE All Share index for a period of 10 years (2001-2010). Social and human capital measures are derived from interlocking directorate ties and detailed biographic information of board directors. This study benefits from Pajek and Ucinet network packages to generate network maps and calculate positional metrics such as centrality and structural hole measures.University of Exeter Business Schoo
INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL NETWORKS FOR INNOVATIONS AND SUSTAINABILITY
The present Thesis is structured as a collection of three essays linked by one core idea: contributing to research knowledge on inter-organizational network dynamics in the context of innovation and the promotion of sustainability.
In this Thesis, the author takes a systemic perspective and analyses the interactions between diverse groups of stakeholders, aiming to identify and interpret the logic underlying the formation of inter-organizational partnerships to promote innovation and sustainability. The dynamics of inter-organizational networks are influenced by several internal and external factors, such as strategic cooperation with stakeholders, structural changes (such as an R&I policy change), and exogenous shocks (such as COVID-19). The present work’s value is developing research inputs and providing empirical ground and methodological support for innovation management framed by inter-organizational networks and mission-oriented public policy evolution. The present work is divided into three main chapters, and their abstracts are presented below. Finally, the Thesis ends with conclusions that summarize the outputs of the empirical works.
CHAPTER 1
An appropriate starting point to comprehend the inter-organizational networks for sustainability is to deepen the research knowledge on stakeholders’ role in sustainable innovation and disentangle the antecedents, management, and potential sustainable innovation outcomes.
Using the Scopus database, we collected papers that represent works carried out in the field of sustainable innovation and stakeholders’ involvement in organizational practices for these innovations. Based on the data process selection method, we carry out a literature review of the 59 selected papers. This literature review aims to describe the sustainable innovation phenomena and offer a comprehensive overview of the knowledge produced on the theme to practitioners and policymakers
So, this chapter presents an interpretative framework of extant literature and discuss the following questions related to the inter-organizational resource-management of sustainable innovation: (a) with whom to work; (b) when to work; (c) how to work together; (d) what challenges should organizations learn to face. Theoretical and practical business implications of the proposed framework are discussed.
CHAPTER 2
This chapter aims to analyze the inter-organizational R&I collaboration network dynamics at a mesoscopic level as a consequence of an external environment change. In particular, the study’s empirical setting is the policy change that occurred when passing from the EU 7th Framework program (FP7) to the HORIZON 2020 program (H2020). This change’s effect on the patterns of evolution of the inter-organizational networks between financed actors is stressed. In such R&I context, inter-organizational networks play a particularly critical role as innovation catalysts.
Using a dataset of more than 22,228 unique projects in FP7 and 22,153 in H2020, we constructed two collaboration networks. We apply network analysis as a research instrument to identify and measure the fundamental structural properties of networks. At the mesoscopic level, the resulting communities for both networks have been analyzed and compared. Results show that under a policy change, the Horizon 2020 network becomes more assortative than the FP7 network. Preferential attachment (reach-club phenomenon) between leading R&I institutions is demonstrated within the system. The network is supported by the sporadic participation of (many) new actors. Also, the work outcomes demonstrate three different architectures of inter-organizational connections that can define network dynamics: (i) persistent stability or knowledge concentration, (ii) expansion of clusters or knowledge spread, and (iii) merging effect or knowledge aggregation. With these results, we contribute to organizational and network theories by detecting and identifying structural patterns for innovation links in such a complex system as the EU framework program stressing the policy’s impact on them as a dynamics booster.
CHAPTER 3
The last chapter examines the impact of an exogenous shock on an inter-organizational R&I network. We concentrate on healthcare public-private partnerships and investigate the history dependencies within them and how an exogenous shock such as COVID-19 fosters an evolution of the complex R&I network. In total, data of 2087 funded projects (FP7, HORIZON 2020, and Innovative Medicines Initiative) are involved in this study to understand the evolution process(es) these types of networks manifest under emergency conditions. The results demonstrate that the present crisis’s urgency shifts the healthcare sector to test new working paths. Two opposite behaviors of the actors in these networks are observable: (i) highly innovative partnerships and (ii) strong lock-in effects. Additionally, we state that non-EU countries demonstrated strong cooperation and co-creation openness under this exogenous shock. Furthermore, the urgency conditions in COVID-19 push policymakers to demonstrate vital flexibility and adaptability of the EU R&I call to the societal needs.
Finally, it is possible to underline that network analysis is a powerful research tool for developing new knowledge regarding R&I cooperation evolution under external factors. Accordingly, this work provides a theoretical and an empirical framework for managing the inter-organizational innovation network based on a dynamic complex system theory perspective (Simon 1996; Sawyer, 2005). In particular, it is possible to mention the newly developed insight capable of describing the network’s dynamics through the meso and micro levels of analysis.The present Thesis is structured as a collection of three essays linked by one core idea: contributing to research knowledge on inter-organizational network dynamics in the context of innovation and the promotion of sustainability.
In this Thesis, the author takes a systemic perspective and analyses the interactions between diverse groups of stakeholders, aiming to identify and interpret the logic underlying the formation of inter-organizational partnerships to promote innovation and sustainability. The dynamics of inter-organizational networks are influenced by several internal and external factors, such as strategic cooperation with stakeholders, structural changes (such as an R&I policy change), and exogenous shocks (such as COVID-19). The present work’s value is developing research inputs and providing empirical ground and methodological support for innovation management framed by inter-organizational networks and mission-oriented public policy evolution. The present work is divided into three main chapters, and their abstracts are presented below. Finally, the Thesis ends with conclusions that summarize the outputs of the empirical works.
CHAPTER 1
An appropriate starting point to comprehend the inter-organizational networks for sustainability is to deepen the research knowledge on stakeholders’ role in sustainable innovation and disentangle the antecedents, management, and potential sustainable innovation outcomes.
Using the Scopus database, we collected papers that represent works carried out in the field of sustainable innovation and stakeholders’ involvement in organizational practices for these innovations. Based on the data process selection method, we carry out a literature review of the 59 selected papers. This literature review aims to describe the sustainable innovation phenomena and offer a comprehensive overview of the knowledge produced on the theme to practitioners and policymakers
So, this chapter presents an interpretative framework of extant literature and discuss the following questions related to the inter-organizational resource-management of sustainable innovation: (a) with whom to work; (b) when to work; (c) how to work together; (d) what challenges should organizations learn to face. Theoretical and practical business implications of the proposed framework are discussed.
CHAPTER 2
This chapter aims to analyze the inter-organizational R&I collaboration network dynamics at a mesoscopic level as a consequence of an external environment change. In particular, the study’s empirical setting is the policy change that occurred when passing from the EU 7th Framework program (FP7) to the HORIZON 2020 program (H2020). This change’s effect on the patterns of evolution of the inter-organizational networks between financed actors is stressed. In such R&I context, inter-organizational networks play a particularly critical role as innovation catalysts.
Using a dataset of more than 22,228 unique projects in FP7 and 22,153 in H2020, we constructed two collaboration networks. We apply network analysis as a research instrument to identify and measure the fundamental structural properties of networks. At the mesoscopic level, the resulting communities for both networks have been analyzed and compared. Results show that under a policy change, the Horizon 2020 network becomes more assortative than the FP7 network. Preferential attachment (reach-club phenomenon) between leading R&I institutions is demonstrated within the system. The network is supported by the sporadic participation of (many) new actors. Also, the work outcomes demonstrate three different architectures of inter-organizational connections that can define network dynamics: (i) persistent stability or knowledge concentration, (ii) expansion of clusters or knowledge spread, and (iii) merging effect or knowledge aggregation. With these results, we contribute to organizational and network theories by detecting and identifying structural patterns for innovation links in such a complex system as the EU framework program stressing the policy’s impact on them as a dynamics booster.
CHAPTER 3
The last chapter examines the impact of an exogenous shock on an inter-organizational R&I network. We concentrate on healthcare public-private partnerships and investigate the history dependencies within them and how an exogenous shock such as COVID-19 fosters an evolution of the complex R&I network. In total, data of 2087 funded projects (FP7, HORIZON 2020, and Innovative Medicines Initiative) are involved in this study to understand the evolution process(es) these types of networks manifest under emergency conditions. The results demonstrate that the present crisis’s urgency shifts the healthcare sector to test new working paths. Two opposite behaviors of the actors in these networks are observable: (i) highly innovative partnerships and (ii) strong lock-in effects. Additionally, we state that non-EU countries demonstrated strong cooperation and co-creation openness under this exogenous shock. Furthermore, the urgency conditions in COVID-19 push policymakers to demonstrate vital flexibility and adaptability of the EU R&I call to the societal needs.
Finally, it is possible to underline that network analysis is a powerful research tool for developing new knowledge regarding R&I cooperation evolution under external factors. Accordingly, this work provides a theoretical and an empirical framework for managing the inter-organizational innovation network based on a dynamic complex system theory perspective (Simon 1996; Sawyer, 2005). In particular, it is possible to mention the newly developed insight capable of describing the network’s dynamics through the meso and micro levels of analysis
Advances in the sociology of trust and cooperation: theory, experiments, and field studies
The problem of cooperation and social order is one of the core issues in the social sciences. The key question is how humans, groups, institutions, and countries can avoid or overcome the collective good dilemmas that could lead to a Hobbesian war of all against all. Using the general set of social dilemmas as a paradigmatic example, rigorous formal analysis can stimulate scientific progress in several ways. The book, consisting of original articles, provides state of the art examples of research along these lines: theoretical, experimental, and field studies on trust and cooperation. The theoretical work covers articles on trust and control, reputation formation, and paradigmatic articles on the benefits and caveats of abstracting reality into models. The experimental articles treat lab based tests of models of trust and reputation, and the effects of the social and institutional embeddedness on behavior in cooperative interactions and possibly emerging inequalities. The field studies test these models in applied settings such as cooperation between organizations, informal care, and different kinds of collaboration networks. The book will be exemplary for rigorous sociology and social sciences more in general in a variety of ways: There is a focus on effects of social conditions, in particular different forms of social and institutional embeddedness, on social outcomes. Theorizing about and testing of effects of social contexts on individual and group outcomes is one of the main aims of sociological research. Modelling efforts include formal explications of micro-macro links that are typically easily overlooked when argumentation is intuitive and impressionistic Extensive attention is paid to unintended effects of intentional behavior, another feature that is a direct consequence of formal theoretical modelling and in-depth data-analyses of the social processe
A LONGITUDINAL STATISTICAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL ITIGATION AND ALLIANCES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1970-2001
This dissertation investigates the structural dynamics of the inter-organizational (litigation, alliance) relations in the environmental movement sector (EMS) in the United States, 1970-2001. Particularly, it focuses on the litigative and alliance ties between the environmental organizations (EORGs) including both environmental movement organizations (EMOs) and environmental government agencies (EGAs), and explaining the processes by which the contemporary inter-EORG structure has emerged over time. The methods used in analysis include (balance, structural) partitioning, p-star logit, and categorical data analysis in statistical network analysis. The data analyzed were collected from various sources including LexisNexis and Guide Star and include both organizational attributes and relations. To explicate the dynamic processes by which the contemporary inter-EORG structure has emerged, this dissertation investigates the formation of dyadic, triadic, and network structure with regard to litigative and alliance ties, respectively. Selected fundamental models of network dynamics (transitive dominance, strategic actor, and social balance) help explain the empirical inter-organizational (litigation, alliance) relations in later chapters. The theoretical and empirical findings help better understand the structural and dynamic issues in the study of the environment, social movement, complex organizations, and network evolution
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