An Index of Subgroup Influence in Dependency Networks

Abstract

For variety, the terms influence, and importance are used interchangeably to refer to the concept structural power, which is not to be confused with operational influence. Structural power refers to a situational context of dependency in a relationship, such that one party is said to be more powerful to the extent that (1) the party controls and has discretion to allocate resources (2) desired by the other party who (3) has no alternate sources for acquiring them. Emerson's (1962) proposition about power-dependence relations says that for any two parties A and B, dAB) dBA = PBA) PAB Accurate assessments of the power of several interdependent parties are hampered by the fact that parties depend on one another indirectly as well as directly and that any one's dependencies are not equally important for all parties. An index overcoming both limitations is derived for dependency networks so that parties are defined as more important if others depend more on them and if the others depending on them are themselves important. The index is generalized for assessing a member's influence in subgroups of a network. Indices of both overall importance and subgroup importance are illustrated by a study of the influence of twenty-four journals within five areas of organizational research -organizations, sociology, management, applied psychology, and theoretical/experimental psychology. Among the findings; ASQ's influence was found to span several areas while the Journal ofApplied Psychology's is mainly felt in the applied psychology area.-