APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

DRE 1018 Organizational Network Analysis

Responsible for the course
Amir Sasson, Miha Skerlavaj

Department
Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
Over the past decade or so, social network analysis and theories have become an important perspective to study organizational phenomena. Organizational network analysis (ONA) is a term coined to describe application of the relational perspective to observe, measure, visualize, and manage organizations. In other words, it is a set of theories, methods and techniques that acknowledge the fact that people, teams, and organizations are interconnected and dependent on one another to achieve their respective goals. It also upgrades the classic multivariate analysis with the understanding that independence of observations is rarely a fact.

Organizational networks can be studied at multiple levels of research (intra-organizationally and inter-organizationally) and can be meaningfully applied to numerous organizational phenomena. The typology of ties studied in organizational network analysis would range from similarities (location, membership, attribute), over social relations (cognitive, affective, kinship), interactions (e.g. gets creative ideas from and gets support to implement innovations from), to the flows (e.g. information, learning). In its essence, it aims to understand structure of organizational networks, as well as their antecedents and consequences.

Understanding these seemingly invisible networks of relationships have become central to understand various organizational behavior phenomena, leadership, performance and strategy execution, learning, creativity, and innovation topics. Research shows that appropriate connectivity in networks within and between organizations can have a substantial impact on organizational outcomes. Hence, the purpose of the ONA course is to familiarize students with the set of competences a researcher needs for research on organizational networks.

Learning outcome
At the end of the course students will be in a better position to appreciate and understand:
- What is organizational network analysis?
- Why and when to use it?
What are the current network theories?
- What are the key concepts that constitute organizational network theories?
- What can we do with it to better understand organizations?
- The antecedents and consequences of the network phenomena
- The multiple level aspect of organizational network research: intraorganizational (interpersonal & interunit) & interorganizational and their interrelations.
- Which software tools can we use?
- Where to go from here / how is it relevant to my research?

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a content-oriented workshop led by advanced users. While you can expect a plethora of practical hints and tips as well as demonstrations and tutorials, this is not a methodological course.

Prerequisites
Admission to a PhD program is a general requirement for participation in PhD courses at BI Norwegian Business School.

External candidates are kindly asked to attach confirmation of admission to a PhD program when signing up for a course with the doctoral administration. Students will not be permitted to “sit in” on this course. Active participation will be critical to the educational experience and all enrolled students must engage in the sequence of interactive classroom sessions (presentations, tutorials, round table, guest speakers) and at the end of course assignment.

Compulsory reading

Articles:
A collection of scientific articles. The detailed list will be available on it's learning

Recommended reading

Course outline
The course consists of five sessions each of 6 hours each. To a large extent, the value of this course will depend on the level and quality of student preparation and participation in classroom discussion.
Session 1: Introduction, key network concepts, organizational network theories

Session 2: Organizational Network Methodology (Tutorial with NodeXL, basic organizational network analysis concepts)

Session 3: Inter-organizational Network Applications

Session 4: Intra-organizational Network Applications

Sessions 5 & 6: Tutorial with Pajek software (advanced exploratory network anaysis concepts)

Session 7: Tutorial with UCINET software (advanced confirmatorz network analysis concepts)

Session 8: Network dynamics

Session 9 & 10: Current and future trends in network research (guest lectures & round table)