This Element synthesizes the current state of research on organizational social networks from its early foundations to contemporary debates. It highlights the characteristics that make the social network perspective distinctive in the organizational research landscape, including its emphasis on structure and outcomes. It covers the main theoretical developments and summarizes the research design questions that organizational researchers face when collecting and analyzing network data. Then...

`The authors should be congratulated for not only offering an excellent tour de force of cutting-edge work in social network analysis, but also charting some new possible territories for future organizational research′ -Environment and PlanningSocial Networks and Organizations provides a compact introduction to major concepts in the area of organizational social networks.The book covers the rudiments of methods, explores ma...

With four simple truths as his framework, Charles Murray, the bestselling coauthor of The Bell Curve, sweeps away the hypocrisy, wishful thinking, and upside-down priorities that grip America’s educational establishment.Ability varies. Children differ in their ability to learn academic material. Doing our best for every child requires, above all else, that we embrace that simplest of truths. America’s educational system does its best to ignore it.Half of the childr...

Despite the swift spread of social network concepts and their applications and the rising use of network analysis in social science, there is no book that provides a thorough general introduction for the serious reader. Understanding Social Networks fills that gap by explaining the big ideas that underlie the social network phenomenon. Written for those interested in this fast moving area but who are not mathematically inclined, it covers fundamental concepts, then discusses netwo...

HANDBOOK OF DECISION MAKINGThis handbook offers a state-of-the-art overview of research and theories on decision making in organizations at the strategic level of analysis.Chapters are authored by leading international scholars, with some illustrative case vignettes from practitioners. Each contributor was selected for his/her special knowledge of the field.The Handbook addresses key questions confronting the decision making research of the past and the present, off...

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION THEORYManagement and Organization Theory offers a summary and analysis of the 40 most popular, researched, and applied management and organization theories. This important resource includes key instruments used to measure variables in each theory and examines pertinent questions about the theory: strengths and weaknesses, practical applications, and the seminal articles published on each theory."This is a remarkable book...

A new, counterintuitive theory for how social networks influence the spread of behaviorNew social movements, technologies, and public-health initiatives often struggle to take off, yet many diseases disperse rapidly without issue. Can the lessons learned from the viral diffusion of diseases be used to improve the spread of beneficial behaviors and innovations? In How Behavior Spreads, Damon Centola presents over a decade of original research examining how ...

When people are facing difficulties, they often feel the need for a confidant-a person to vent to or a sympathetic ear with whom to talk things through. How do they decide on whom to rely? In theory, the answer seems obvious: if the matter is personal, they will turn to a spouse, a family member, or someone close. In practice, what people actually do often belies these expectations. In Someone To Talk To, Mario Luis Small follows a group of graduate students as they cope with stre...

The first component of intelligence involves effective adaptation to an environment. In order to adapt effectively, organizations require resources, capabilities at using them, knowledge about the worlds in which they exist, good fortune, and good decisions. They typically face competition for resources and uncertainties about the future. Many, but possibly not all, of the factors determining their fates are outside their control. Populations of organizations and individual organizations s...

Social Network Theory and Educational Change offers a provocative and fascinating exploration of how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform.Drawing on the work of leading scholars, the book comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders, contrasting formal and informal organizational structures, and exploring the mechanisms by which ideas, information, and influence flow from per...

This book synthesizes a decade of research by the author into fundamental issues in organization design. The result is a novel micro-structural perspective on organizations, which aims to both expand and narrow current thinking. The new perspective takes an expansive view on the kinds of phenomena that can be studied in terms of organization design- such as cross-functional teams, strategic partnerships, buyer-supplier relations, alliance networks, mega-projects, post-merger integration, b...

Egocentric network analysis is used widely across the social sciences, especially in anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology, and is increasingly being employed in communications, informatics, and business and marketing studies. Egocentric network analysis requires a unique set of data collection and analysis skills that overlap only minimally with other network methodologies. However, until now there has been no single reference for conceptualizing, collecting, and analy...