Introduction SNA

1
Introduction SNA

• Professor Leslie Johnson
• Director of the University of Greenwich Business
  School
• London Knowledge Networkhttp//www.londonknowledg
  enetwork.org.uk/

2
A distinction

• Social Networks are things out there in human
  activities and those in them may have no
  awareness of the network as such
• Social Networking is something we do with a
  degree of awareness
• Social Network Analysis is the analysis of Social
  Networks, SNA tools are tools that help in this
• Social Networking tools are tools that help
  people to network

3
What are social networks?

• They are dynamic relationships in organizations
  conditioned by organizational strategy,
  infrastructure, and how work is done at the
  time.As such managerial behaviours can fragment
  or improve networks.
• Information does not flow like electrons through
  a copper wire, it is passed from one to many and
  each transaction is conditioned by context and
  social-psychological processes.Leaders (formal
  or informal) can distort communications.

4
Formal and informal
SVP
Taylor
Stock
Williams
OBrian
Shapiro
Sen
OBrian
Cross
Cohen
Paine
Andrews
Moore
Smith
Stock
Shapiro
Miller
Hughes
Paine
Patel
Bell
Cole
Cohen
Cole
SVP
Kelly
Andrews
Lin
Smith
Miller
Kelly
Williams
Patel
Cross
Hughes
Taylor
Bell
Sen
Moore
Lin
Adapted from Cross et al, knowing what we know,
Organizational dynamics (2001) 30(2), 100-200
5
What does this network show?

• In groups of 3, spend 10 minutes on this
• give a meaning to the lines so that your
  interpretation is positive
• give a meaning to the lines so that your
  interpretation is negative

OBrian
Stock
Shapiro
Paine
Cole
Cohen
SVP
Kelly
Andrews
Smith
Miller
Williams
Patel
Cross
Hughes
Taylor
Bell
Sen
Moore
Lin
Adapted from Cross et al, knowing what we know,
Organizational dynamics (2001) 30(2), 100-200
6

• It is useful to think of Social Networks as a
  product of analysis they exist only as a
  response to a set of questions and these provide
  the criteria of identity.
• Analogy 1 Things do not just exist we need to
  recognize them through an implicit or explicit
  criteria of identity
• Analogy 2 A map of the territory (SNA or even
  your informal notion of the SN) is not the
  territory itself

7
Uses of SNA

• Facilitating integration after disruptive
  transformations
• Supporting partnerships and alliances
• Assessing strategy execution
• Supporting leadership networks
• Enhancing Communities of Practice
• Integrating the value network
• Promoting innovation

8
Information sharing

• Before

• The bottleneck fragmented the group
• was the only one both hard and soft
• Cultivating dependency, he excelled but thereby
  ensured no one else developed

Hard
Soft
9
Integration

• Internal projects
• White papers
• Project tracking database
• Mixed teams hard and soft members
• New revenue targets (mixed portfolios)
• Communication protocols
• Weekly status calls
• E-mail updates
• Use of the tracking software

9 months after
10
Social Networks
SNA projects should be approached as though they
were research and all that we know about
research ethics applies I sincerely hope that
SNA does not become the next big thing that
will surely kill it for a time until it can come
back as the Fundamental contribution it is