19,229 research outputs found
The Dynamics of Multi-Modal Networks
The widespread study of networks in diverse domains, including social, technological, and scientific settings, has increased the interest in statistical and machine learning techniques for network analysis. Many of these networks are complex, involving more than one kind of entity, and multiple relationship types, both changing over time. While there have been many network analysis methods proposed for problems such as network evolution, community detection, information diffusion and opinion leader identification, the majority of these methods assume a single entity type, a single edge type and often no temporal dynamics. One of the main shortcomings of these traditional techniques is their inadequacy for capturing higher-order dependencies often present in real, complex networks.
To address these shortcomings, I focus on analysis and inference in dynamic, multi-modal, multi-relational networks, containing multiple entity types (such as people, social groups, organizations, locations, etc.), and different relationship types (such as friendship, membership, affiliation, etc.). An example from social network theory is a network describing users, organizations and interest groups, where users have different types of ties among each other, such as friendship, family ties, etc., as well as affiliation and membership links with organizations and interest groups. By considering the complex structure of these networks rather than limiting the analysis to a single entity or relationship type, I show how we can build richer predictive models that provide better understanding of the network dynamics, and thus result in better quality predictions.
In the first part of my dissertation, I address the problems of network evolution and clustering. For network evolution, I describe methods for modeling the interactions between different modalities, and propose a co-evolution model for social and affiliation networks. I then move to the problem of network clustering, where I propose a novel algorithm for clustering multi-modal, multi-relational data. The second part of my dissertation focuses on the temporal dynamics of interactions in complex networks, from both user-level and network-level perspectives. For the user-centric approach, I analyze the dynamics of user relationships with other entity types, proposing a measure of the "loyalty" a user shows for a given group or topic, based on her temporal interaction pattern. I then move to macroscopic-level approaches for analyzing the dynamic processes that occur on a network scale. I propose a new differential adaptive diffusion model for incorporating diversity and trust in the process of information diffusion on multi-modal, multi-relational networks. I also discuss the implications of the proposed diffusion model on designing new strategies for viral marketing and influential detection. I validate all the proposed methods on several real-world networks from multiple domains
Loyalty in Online Communities
Loyalty is an essential component of multi-community engagement. When users
have the choice to engage with a variety of different communities, they often
become loyal to just one, focusing on that community at the expense of others.
However, it is unclear how loyalty is manifested in user behavior, or whether
loyalty is encouraged by certain community characteristics.
In this paper we operationalize loyalty as a user-community relation: users
loyal to a community consistently prefer it over all others; loyal communities
retain their loyal users over time. By exploring this relation using a large
dataset of discussion communities from Reddit, we reveal that loyalty is
manifested in remarkably consistent behaviors across a wide spectrum of
communities. Loyal users employ language that signals collective identity and
engage with more esoteric, less popular content, indicating they may play a
curational role in surfacing new material. Loyal communities have denser
user-user interaction networks and lower rates of triadic closure, suggesting
that community-level loyalty is associated with more cohesive interactions and
less fragmentation into subgroups. We exploit these general patterns to predict
future rates of loyalty. Our results show that a user's propensity to become
loyal is apparent from their first interactions with a community, suggesting
that some users are intrinsically loyal from the very beginning.Comment: Extended version of a paper appearing in the Proceedings of ICWSM
2017 (with the same title); please cite the official ICWSM versio
Essays on political elites and violence in changing political orders of Middle East and Africa
This research project addresses the question of how political elites’ behaviour varies when competition among them is heightened. Focusing on changing political orders across Africa and the Middle East, it seeks to understand how political elites facing internal and external challenges manipulate local power structures for political survival purposes, resulting in distinct political trajectories. The thesis argues that local political and conflict environments are conditional on the nature of competition among elites. Volatile political transitions, intense popular unrest, and militarised environments all create distinct incentives and constraints which shape political orders, and determine the inclusion or exclusion of select elites in the resulting political settlement.
Using a mixed-method research design which combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the thesis consists of five essays exploring select topics and three in-depth case studies. The essays address two cross-cutting themes. First, they show how elites reconfigure institutional structures to cement alliances and survive internal or external challenges when power is being contested after a change in the leadership, or when facing popular mobilisation. Bargaining occurs through ministerial appointments or purges which aim to consolidate political settlements and secure power holders from rivals. Examples from Tunisia and recent episodes of leadership changes from across Africa are presented together with original datasets of ministerial appointments. Second, the essays illustrate how patterns of violence within states are indicative of the fragmented nature of the political environment of the political competition therein taking place. Findings from Libya and Yemen are presented to demonstrate that localised fragmentation produce subnational geographies of conflict which reflect the strategies and the mobilisation capacity of armed groups and elite actors
Employment relations in Chile : evidence of HRM practices
This paper presents empirical evidence about HRM practices in Chilean organisations with the aims of providing an overview of employment relations and adding to limited existing literature. Research was conducted in a sample of 2000 Chilean workers in the Metropolitan Region. The paper argues that HRM practices in Chilean organisations illustrate the normative perspective of modern HRM discourse, where managers understand the nature of employment relationships to be the control of workers. While HRM processes are articulated under a discourse of worker emancipation, in reality, discursive practices perpetuate patterns of subordination that have historically shaped employment relations in Chile
Customer Engagement in Sport: An updated review and research agenda
Customer engagement (CE) is an emerging perspective that provides a holistic view of the ways in which customers’ interactive experiences with organizations create value for both the parties. Central to this, is the need to develop an understanding of why a customer would choose to invest their resources (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) with an organization, to be able to better facilitate this engagement and properly value the outcomes from it. Sport, with its inherently strong interactions for both participants and fans, would seem an ideal setting to study CE. To date, however, the CE work in sport domains has largely followed established paths. Given CE’s potential to unify many disparate areas of sport research, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the CE work to date and highlights several ways sport can leverage and advance this work through both academic research and management practice
Categorizing engagement behavior in sport brand communities – an empirical study informed by social practice theory
This study ventures into uncharted territory by focusing exclusively
on digital platforms to scrutinize engagement practices within
sport clubs and their pivotal role in nurturing vibrant brand communities.
By employing a multifaceted methodological framework
that blends netnography, document analysis, and semi-structured
interviews, it delves into the nuanced ways clubs employ digital
strategies to foster active participation and cultivate a sense of
belonging among community members. A novel aspect of this
research is its consideration of digital engagement platforms as
the social context, analyzing how the surrounding social environment
influences and enhances digital engagement practices.
Furthermore, the study breaks new ground by extending its analysis
beyond dyadic relationships to explore the network effects on
engagement practices. Therefore, it offers a comprehensive understanding
of how these dynamics contribute to the development
and sustainability of sport brand communities. The findings reveal
the critical importance of diverse engagement practices in fostering
meaningful interactions that strengthen a sport brand community
fabric. This research enriches the field by presenting actionable
insights for sport clubs to refine their digital engagement strategies
in the context of broader social networks and effects. This paper
makes a significant contribution to the literature by illuminating the
complex interplay between digital engagement, social context, and
network dynamics in the cultivation of sport brand communities
Autonomy of International Bureaucracies: On the Actor-Level Autonomy in the WTO Secretariat
Masteroppgave offentlig politikk og ledelse- Universitetet i Agder, 2014The research question in this study addresses actor-level autonomy as enacted by civil
servants within an international bureaucracy, namely the WTO Secretariat. The objective is to
identify underlying mechanisms arguably responsible for inciting patterns of behaviour
among civil servants.
This study is premised on the assumption that autonomy may be studied by examining
behavioural patterns of the incumbents and that such behavioural patterns largely are a
consequence of mechanisms of pre-socialization, re-socialization and organizational
affiliation. The study consists of two main parts. The first part is descriptive and addresses
actor-level autonomy, whereas the second part is explanatory and seeks to identify the driving
forces behind the emergence of supranational, departmental and epistemic behavioural
dynamics.
The main conclusions drawn from this study is that the WTO Secretariat may reinforce and
shape behavioural patterns in particular, and that these are related to the emergence of actorlevel
autonomy. Furthermore, the Secretariat is invested with the power to influence the
outcomes of global policies through various formal and informal channels. Additionally, the
study finds that pre-socialization is largely responsible for evoking supranational behavioural
logics, and that re-socialization primarily impacts on departmental and epistemic behavioural
dynamics, whereas organizational affiliation is unequivocally linked to departmental
behavioural logics
A leap of faith: *Scale, critical realism and *emergence in the geography of religion
This dissertation explores the role of scale in human geography through a study involving a critical realist investigation of the geography of religious adherence. Using the contributions of a critical realist framework of stratification, emergence, and pluralistic methodologies, religious adherence is studied at the scales of the individual adherent, the church, and within local associations of churches. Analysis was performed through a study of two denominational congregations and an independent congregation in Harrison County, West Virginia and used a combination of surveys and in-depth interviews with religious adherents, pastors and local denominational leaders. The conceptual framework of this dissertation stands in contrast to traditional studies of the geography of religious adherence which rely on the quantification of denominationally collected attendance statistics aggregated to the scale of county boundaries and displayed as choropleth maps. Importantly, the traditional approach lacks the capacity to jump scale and is only valuable for making general assumptions at regional or national scales. Furthermore, these studies are embedded with the scaled problems associated with ecological fallacy and the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem.;This study demonstrates that the geography of religious adherence in Harrison County is emergent and irreducible. Emergent congregational and denominational powers and properties are facilitated through scaled structures and hierarchies, with mechanisms rooted in, but not reducible to, the scale of the adherent. Because questions pertaining to adherents, churches and church hierarchies are unique to the powers and mechanisms functioning at each stratum, methodological pluralism is required to understand a robust geography of religion. In contrast to traditional GOR studies, a critical realist approach has the capacity to reveal the scaled linkages and complex processes that operate between adherents, congregations and denominations. By incorporating ecclesiastical emergence into GOR, religionists gain a valuable tool to examine the substantial ways in which religion impacts social, economic and environmental life. This study also makes contributions to the broader debate about scale in human geography by suggesting that a framework of emergence provides a valuable contribution and addition to acknowledging and understanding the complex dimensions of scale
Hold your horses : temporal multiplexity and conflict moderation in the “Palio di Siena” (1743-2010)
The paper elaborates the concept of temporal multiplexity, defined as the overlaying of ties of different duration, such as transient employment and enduring organizational ties. This concept is instrumental in resolving long-standing challenges in network research, such as capturing the interplay between different levels of analysis or time horizons. This is made possible by longitudinal network and mobility data (1743–2010) from the Palio di Siena—the famous horse race in Siena, Italy. The outcome of interest is Palio-related collective violence. The analysis shows that relationally loaded organizational ties of rivalry or friendship increase the likelihood of incidents, whereas mobility along the same lines reduces it. The results support sociological arguments that symmetrical social space of friendship or rivalry is conducive to conflict. Mobility is a factor of moderation—by connecting employers within the actor and transferring relational content between them, it creates misalignment between the assumption of a role and fulfillment of its expectations. Mobility relaxes the relational constraints of jockeys, reducing their compliance with bellicose demands. The uncertainty resulting from mobility may have a collective benefit that is ignored by employers: the moderation of conflict
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