"Social network
analysis is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between
people, groups, organizations, computers or other information/knowledge
processing entities."
----Valdis Krebs, 2002
Social Network Analysis
(SNA) is a study of patterns between actors which include people, groups, and
other network members. Each participant in the community is called an actor and
depicted as a node. SNA not only focuses on the actors and the relationship
between them, but also values relations between actors which are depicted as
links or ties. It is a method for visualizing our people and connecting power,
leading us to identify how we can best be interacted to share knowledge.
In the context of knowledge
management, SNA enables relationships between people to be mapped in order to
identify knowledge flows: who do people seek information and knowledge from?
Who do they share information and knowledge with? In contrast to an organization
chart which shows formal relationships such as who works where and who reports
to whom, a social network analysis chart shows informal relationships. It allows
managers to visualize and understand the many relationships that can either
facilitate or impede knowledge creation and sharing. Because these
relationships are normally invisible, SNA is sometimes referred to as an
'organizational x-ray', showing the real networks that operate underneath the
surface organizational structure. Thus, social network
analysis is mostly used to meet the following specific needs:
- Facilitate identification of who knows who and who might know what.
- Identify isolated teams or individuals and knowledge bottlenecks.
- Improve the effectiveness of formal and informal communication channels.
- Accelerate the flow of knowledge and information across functional and
organizational boundaries.
- Raise awareness of the importance of informal networks.
- Visualize relationships within and outside of the organization.
- Strategically work to improve knowledge flows.
Here are some applications of social network analysis:
Application of SNA in
Social Psychology Research
Nowadays, SNA is increasingly being used to
evaluate the communication patterns and status structures that emerge during students’
web-based discussions. SNA can reveal the most prolific and the most
influential students, as well as those students who are isolated those who
assume roles as mediators between their classmates.
Application of SNA in Knowledge Processes
SNA is now applied to
analyze existing knowledge exchange processes in companies. In the past, these
processes were mainly analyzed by traditional business process modeling
methods, some of which are working with a specific knowledge perspective. The
SNA however has no direct reference to processes; here persons with specific
relationships (e.g. knowledge exchange) are mainly the object of interest. Therefore
SNA metrics can be used to analyze knowledge and information flows in companies
or in specific communities.
Application of SNA to
Collaborative Team Formation
Team formation is a
challenging problem in many large organizations in which it is entirely
possible for two individuals to work on similar projects without realizing it.
By applying social network analysis to mappings of co-authors and to mappings
of related research paper keywords, it is easy to help generate teams of
diverse individuals with similar interests and aptitudes.
Thank you for introducing us the defination of SNA,together with some applications of social network analysis.The last one is very interesting and impressive.
ReplyDeleteyup,the words are very clear about what's SNA and how we introduce and analyse it.besides, the applications is very clear, too. i like the way of this article.
DeleteThank you for your interest.I think social network analysis is a new discipline for us to learn.
DeleteI think you give some analyse idea about social network. You show us some different ways to measure the relationships between people. I think these analyse is very important because we can't know the relation by looking at the social network. The application you listed is also useful for certain area.
ReplyDeleteYeah,it's true that social network analysis has become one of the most latest researches in the world,and applications I have introduced in the article are only a small part,I believe there are more useful applications of SNA.
DeleteSNA like an 'organizational x-ray'？That is a cool comparison. Maybe not only manager need to learn something about SNA, HR department also can use it in their daily work. ;D
ReplyDeleteThank you for you explanation about the SNA. And I like your comparison of the organizational X-ray. Some relations between the data are difficult to find their importance. And people without any knowledge about social networking often ignore the data relations and is difficult to apply the interaction among data relations. So this course is very useful to help us know what social networking and how to use these knowledge about social networking to create the new products.
ReplyDeleteReally clear explanation about the SNA,however more detailed progress of calculation will be admirable. All in all, thanks for your explain that inspires me a lot.
ReplyDeleteThis essay describes the usage of social network analysis in business world as it can be regarded as an x-ray of a organization. It is nice that examples are also given in the end which strengths the understanding of readers.
ReplyDelete