Using Network Analysis for Understanding How Decisions are Made

2011 ◽  
pp. 950-957
Author(s):  
Frédéric Adam
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Decision Aids ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
Traditional Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
High Level

Network analysis, a body of research that concentrates on the social networks that connect actors in society, has been found to have many applications in areas where researchers struggle to understand the complex workings of organisations (Nohria, 1992). Social network analysis (SNA) acknowledges that individuals are characterised just as much by their relationships with one another (which is often neglected in traditional research) as by their specific attributes (Knoke & Kuklinski, 1982) and that, beyond individuals, society itself is made of networks (Kilduff & Tsai, 2003). It is the study of the relationships between actors and between clusters of actors in organisations and in society that has been labeled network analysis. These high level observations about network analysis indicate that this orientation has great potential for the study of how managers, groups of managers, and organisations make decisions, following processes that unfold over long periods of time and that are sometimes very hard to fully comprehend without reference to a network approach. This article proposes to investigate the potential application of network analysis to the study of individual and organizational decision making and to leverage its strengths for the design and development of better decision aids.

scholarly journals Using social network analysis to identify stakeholders’ influence on energy efficiency of housing

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 184797901771262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherif Zedan ◽  
Wendy Miller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Informed Decision Making ◽  
The Social

Energy-efficient housing is a product that integrates various stakeholders’ tasks throughout the different stages of its life cycle. The relationships between these stakeholders impact on the degree of knowledge sharing and informed decision-making and can potentially enhance or lower the energy efficiency of the product – the house. This article uses a social network analysis (SNA) approach to visualize the social networks of the stakeholders of a number of owner-occupied housing case studies in Australia. The aim is to analyse, contrast and quantify the degrees of connectivity and centrality of the housing stakeholders to identify which groups have more connectivity in the stakeholders’ network of energy-efficiency housing and consequently more potential to influence the energy efficiency outcomes and which practices are more likely to enhance transparency and information sharing that is essential for producing energy-efficient housing.

The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Computational Social Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Diverse Field ◽  
The Rich

Social networks fundamentally shape our lives. Networks channel the ways that information, emotions, and diseases flow through populations. Networks reflect differences in power and status in settings ranging from small peer groups to international relations across the globe. Network tools even provide insights into the ways that concepts, ideas and other socially generated contents shape culture and meaning. As such, the rich and diverse field of social network analysis has emerged as a central tool across the social sciences. This Handbook provides an overview of the theory, methods, and substantive contributions of this field. The thirty-three chapters move through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. The Handbook includes chapters on data collection and visualization, theoretical innovations, links between networks and computational social science, and how social network analysis has contributed substantively across numerous fields. As networks are everywhere in social life, the field is inherently interdisciplinary and this Handbook includes contributions from leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science among others.

scholarly journals Social Network Analysis Visualization

2015 ◽  
pp. 257-270
Author(s):  
Mohana Shanmugam ◽  
Yusmadi Yah Jusoh ◽  
Rozi Nor Haizan Nor ◽  
Marzanah A. Jabar
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Online Social Network ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
The Social ◽  
Network Studies ◽  
Academic Study

The social network surge has become a mainstream subject of academic study in a myriad of disciplines. This chapter posits the social network literature by highlighting the terminologies of social networks and details the types of tools and methodologies used in prior studies. The list is supplemented by identifying the research gaps for future research of interest to both academics and practitioners. Additionally, the case of Facebook is used to study the elements of a social network analysis. This chapter also highlights past validated models with regards to social networks which are deemed significant for online social network studies. Furthermore, this chapter seeks to enlighten our knowledge on social network analysis and tap into the social network capabilities.

scholarly journals Ego-Centric Social Network Analysis in Marketing of Fish From Cage Culture System In Simalungun District, Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 105-113
Author(s):  
Feriel Amelia Sembiring ◽  
Fikarwin Zuska ◽  
Bengkel Ginting ◽  
Rizabuana Ismail ◽  
Henry Sitorus
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Culture System ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
Cage Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Relationship

Aquaculture of Cage Culture is one of the main activities carried out by the community in the village of Haranggaol to fulfill their economic needs. This cultivation business establishes a relationship between traders and cages in terms of marketing their crops. There are 3 egocentric actors in the Haranggaol area. They are collectors (entrepreneurs/farmers who own capital), namely the Rohakinian group, the Siharo group, and the Paimaham group. Through these three egocentric actors, a social network is formed with several alters. Based on the qualitative approach with use Ucinet software, the mapping of their social networks can be seen as follows: alter actors connected to the Rohakinian group are 12 farmers in the group and 2 farmers outside the group with a density of 0.033. There are 27 alter actors connected to the Siharo group, 21 from the group and 6 from outside the group with a density of 0.014. There are 27 alter actors connected to the Paimaham group, namely 36 farmers from their groups and 10 farmers outside the group with a density of 0.005. The social networks that occur between these actors are intertwined due to the existence of kinship relationships, family or close friends who know each other among them. The relationship between family, family or close friends built with mutual trust make this network integrated.

Entanglement, Materiality and the Social Organisation of Construction Workers in Classical Athens

2018 ◽  
pp. 512-528
Author(s):  
Diane Harris Cline
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Building Program

This chapter views the “Periclean Building Program” through the lens of Actor Network Theory, in order to explore the ways in which the construction of these buildings transformed Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC. It begins by applying some Actor Network Theory concepts to the process that was involved in getting approval for the building program as described by Thucydides and Plutarch in his Life of Pericles. Actor Network Theory blends entanglement (human-material thing interdependence) with network thinking, so it allows us to reframe our views to include social networks when we think about the political debate and social tensions in Athens that arose from Pericles’s proposal to construct the Parthenon and Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis, the Telesterion at Eleusis, the Odeon at the base of the South slope of the Acropolis, and the long wall to Peiraeus. Social Network Analysis can model the social networks, and the clusters within them, that existed in mid-fifth century Athens. By using Social Network Analysis we can then show how the construction work itself transformed a fractious city into a harmonious one through sustained, collective efforts that engaged large numbers of lower class citizens, all responding to each other’s needs in a chaine operatoire..

Social Network Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-184
Author(s):  
Yuh-Wen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Multiple Criteria Decision Making ◽  
Multiple Objective ◽  
Self Organizing Map ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time

Social network analysis (SNA) is an attractive problem for a long time when social communities were popular since 2010. Scholars like to explore the meaning behind the numerous interactions generated at these social media sites. The primary and essential issue of SNA is to monitor, estimate, and engage the potential influencers who are most relevant and active to network. If we can analyze the social network this way, business enterprises could use minimal efforts to sustain the activity of influential users, improve sales, and enhance their reputations. In this chapter, a research framework based on multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) is proposed. The authors will show how scholars could use dynamic self-organizing map (SOM) based on multiple-objective evolving algorithm (MOEA) and static weighted influence non-linear gauge system (WINGS) to analyze a social network. Finally, comparisons are made between the innovative approaches and the methods in tradition.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
The Other ◽  
Traditional Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Realm ◽  
The Impact

The traditional research approaches common in different disciplines of social sciences centered around one half of the social realm: the actors. The other half are the relations established by these actors and forming the basis of “social.” The social structure shaped by these relations, the position of the actor within this structure, and the impact of this position on the actor are mostly excluded by the traditional research methods. In this chapter, the authors introduce social network analysis and how it complements the other methods.

scholarly journals Social Network Analysis of Dementia Wards in Psychiatric Hospitals to Explore the Advancement of Personhood in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 505-517
Author(s):  
Carlo Lazzari ◽  
Yasuhiro Kotera ◽  
Hywel Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Psychiatric Hospitals ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Hospital Managers ◽  
The Social

Background: Little is known on investigating how healthcare teams in dementia wards act for promoting personhood in persons with Alzheimer’s disease (PWA). Objective: The current research aimed to identify the social networks of dementia health carers promoting the personhood of PWA in acute or long-term dementia wards in public and private psychiatric hospitals. Methods: We used a mixed-method research approach. Ethnographic observations and two-mode Social Network Analysis (SNA) captured the role and social networks of healthcare professionals promoting PWA personhood, using SocNetv version 2.4. The social network graphs illustrated how professionals participated in PWA care by computing the degree of centrality (%DC) for each professional; higher values indicated more statistical significance of a professional role compared to others in the provision of personhood care. The categories of personhood were biological, individual, and sociologic. Nurses, doctors, ward managers, hospital managers, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, care coordinators, physiotherapists, healthcare assistants, and family members were observed if they were promoting PWA personhood. Method: We used a mixed-method research approach. Ethnographic observations and two-mode Social Network Analysis (SNA) captured the role and social networks of healthcare professionals promoting PWA personhood, using SocNetv version 2.4. The social network graphs illustrated how professionals participated in PWA care by computing the degree of centrality (%DC) for each professional; higher values indicated more statistical significance of a professional role compared to others in the provision of personhood care. The categories of personhood were biological, individual, and sociologic. Nurses, doctors, ward managers, hospital managers, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, care coordinators, physiotherapists, healthcare assistants, and family members were observed if they were promoting PWA personhood. Results: The highest %DC in SNA in biological personhood was held by the ward nurses (36%), followed by the ward doctors (20%) and ward managers (20%). All professional roles were involved in 16% of cases in the promotion of individual personhood, while the hospital managers had the highest %DC (33%) followed by the ward managers and nurses (27%) in the sociologic personhood. Conclusion: All professional roles were deemed to promote PWA personhood in dementia wards, although some limitation exists according to the context of the assessment.

scholarly journals Twitter Networks’ Centrality Measures of the Association of Health Journalist (ANIS): the Case of Vaccines - Introduction and Theoretical Framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Miguel Martín Cárdaba ◽  
Rafael Carrasco Polaino ◽  
Ubaldo Cuesta Cambra
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Centrality Measures ◽  
The Social ◽  
One Year

The popularization of Internet and the rise of social networks have offered an unbeatable opportunity for anti-vaccines, especially active communicators, to spread their message more effectively causing a significant impact on public opinion. A great amount of research has been carried out to understand the behavior that anti-vaccine communities show on social networks. However, it seems equally relevant to study the behavior that communities and communicators “pro vaccines” perform in these networks. Therefore, the objective of this research has been to study how members of the Spanish Association of Health Journalist (ANIS) communicate and use the social network Twitter. More specifically, the different interactions made by ANIS partners were analyzed through the so-called “centrality measures of social network analysis” (SNA), to check the configuration of the user network and detect those most relevant by their indexes of centrality, intermediation or mentions received. The research monitored 142 twitter accounts for one year analyzing 254 twits and their 2.671 interactions. The research concluded that the network of ANIS partners on Twitter regarding vaccines has little cohesion and has several components not connected to each other, in addition to the fact that there are users outside the association that show greater relevance than the partners themselves. We also concluded that there are an important lack of planning and direction in the communication strategy of ANIS on Twitter, which limits the dissemination of important content.

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