Organizational Communication Networks Research Articles

ANALISA JARINGAN, POLA DAN BUDAYA KOMUNIKASI ORGANISASI DI PT ASTRA HONDA MOTOR (AHM), MAJALENGKA

Automotive developments in Indonesia have been proven to be able to advance the Indonesian economy. This is proven by the fact that this sector is able to contribute around Rp. 99.16 Trillion. PT Astra Honda Motor (AHM) is one of the companies operating in the automotive sector that is successful in this marketing. The success achieved will certainly be related to the network, patterns, and culture of organizational communication carried out. This is because, with the formation of networks, organizational communication patterns, and culture, cooperation will increase to achieve its goals. The aim of this research is to analyze the network, patterns, and culture of organizational communication at PT Astra Motor Honda (AHM) Majalengka. The research method used is qualitative with primary and secondary data collection techniques, by conducting a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to interpret the findings obtained. The results of this research show that AHM Majalengka has an organizational communication network and pattern, which can be seen in the communication network having several characteristics such as opinion leaders, bridges, and gatekeepers. The Organizational Communication Pattern has 2 (two) patterns, namely the Chain Communication Pattern which is found from the Main Director to the Director to the HRD Manager, while the Y Organizational Communication Pattern is found in the HRD Manager to several divisions such as Psychologist, Marketing, Account & ADM Manager, Operational Division, and Recruitment Division.

The Interactive Effects of Communication Network Structure and Organizational Size on Task Performance in Project-Based Organizations: The Mediating Role of Bootleg Innovation Behavior

A PBO is a temporary organization formed by assembling members with diverse experiences and backgrounds, aimed at achieving specific innovation goals. Constructing a reasonable communication network structure and enhancing organizational synergy are effective ways to promote the sustainable development of the system. This study, based on the Input–Process–Output (IPO) model and social network analysis, utilized a group collaboration platform to conduct a three-stage communication experiment on 685 construction project managers. Under two organizational sizes, the internal mechanism of how communication networks with two levels of centralization influence task performance were tested. The results indicate that in the case of a smaller organizational size, PBOs using a decentralized communication network tend to achieve higher task performance. However, as the organizational size expands, PBOs employing a centralized communication network may surpass in task performance. Additionally, we found that with the expansion of organizational size, bootleg innovation behaviors of organizational members are continually stimulated, further enhancing collective task performance. This study, based on the evolution of communication network parameters, explores the structural characteristics of organizational communication networks and the mechanisms underlying the emergence of bootleg innovation behaviors. It delineates the key pathways for improving collective task performance. The findings can provide a scientific reference for the organizational evolution and development of engineering project management.

Impact of Entity Disambiguation Errors on Social Network Properties

Entities in social networks may be subject to consolidation when they are inconsistently indexed, and subject to splitting when multiple entities share the same name. How much do errors or shortfalls in entity disambiguation distort network properties? We show empirically how network analysis results and derived implications can tremendously change depending solely on entity resolution techniques. We present a series of controlled experiments where we vary disambiguation accuracy to study error propagation and the robustness of common network metrics, topologies and key players. Our results suggest that for email data, not conducting deduplication, e.g. when operating on the level of email addressed instead of individuals, can make organizational communication networks appear to be less coherent and integrated as well as bigger than they truly are. For co-publishing networks, improper merging as caused by the commonly used initial based disambiguation techniques can make a scientific sector seem more dense and cohesive than it really is, and individual authors appear to be more productive, collaborative and diversified than they actually are. Disambiguation errors can also lead to the false detection of power law distributions of node degree; suggesting preferential attachment processes that might not apply.

Endogeneity and permeation in an organizational communication network

Face-to-face conversation has been shown to be influenced by features that ensure comprehensible and linear conversation (“endogeneity”), and attributes of its potential participants, such as organizational position or contextual role, that “permeate” these endogenous effects. A direct comparison of both features is rarely studied, however, due to methodological challenges it presents. In addition, conversation is increasingly taking place in new mediated forms, such as emails and social media. It remains to be seen if social dynamics observed in face-to-face conversation transfer to these new media forms. Using an email network among individuals during a military exercise, we use relational event modeling to determine whether social norms of communication dominate conversation flow in this medium and to what extent individual attributes affect the flow of messages to and from those in the organization. Though email communication does not require immediate response, we find that immediate-response turn-taking dynamics occur anyway; though emails are only visible to sender and recipient(s), we observe a “Matthew effect” in the communication sequence (i.e., those who receive many emails receive even more in the future). Finally, these dynamics are only marginally affected by measured individual attributes (e.g., military rank, situational awareness), suggesting the primacy of “endogenous” conversation dynamics in this network. We thus find that many previously-observed social dynamics in face-to-face conversation carry over to the new form, despite practical differences between the two types. This study is only one of a handful that directly compares endogeneity and permeation in a communication network.

Classifying Community Organizational Health Communication Networks: Local Health Department Recognition of Public Information-Sharing Partners Across Sectors.

Local health departments (LHDs) operate within complex, multisectoral organizational communication networks. Network composition may affect priorities, processes, and the reach of health information to key stakeholders. This study seeks to elucidate variation in local network structures to examine how different constellations may affect information sharing across audiences. This study analyzes data from a 2016 US survey of 491 metropolitan LHDs and 556 nonmetropolitan LHDs. Researchers first conducted social network analysis of network density, defined as the total number of potential organizations contributing to a jurisdiction's health communication activities. Researchers then conducted logistic regression to compare the relationship between network density and reported health communication activities targeting 3 specific audiences: policy makers, lay publics, and mass media. Three network types emerged on the basis of the number of organizations that contribute to health communication activities, with low-density Minimal networks more common in nonmetropolitan jurisdictions and higher-density Expanded and Robust networks more common in metropolitan jurisdictions. LHDs in Minimal networks were significantly less likely to communicate with policy makers, lay publics, and mass media than their counterparts in higher-density networks (P < .05). LHDs are embedded in organizational communication networks that vary in both the number of communication partners and the types of audiences reached. Examining their own local organizational communication networks may provide insights into LHDs that wish to improve the effectiveness of public health messaging. By adding organizational communication partners and reaching new audiences, LHDs in Minimal networks can expand the reach of messages designed to help policy makers, communities, and individuals promote health and prevent disease.

Staying connected under fire: Effects of individual roles and organizational specialization on the robustness of emergency-phase communication networks

Communication network connectivity is central to organizational performance, but maintaining connectivity can be difficult during periods of disruption. During the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster of September 11th, 2001, both emergency response-specialized organizations and organizations without such specialization forcibly adapted to a radically altered environment. Their dynamic communication networks necessarily entailed trade-offs between competing demands for efficiency and robustness to disruption. Of particular importance is whether organizations concentrated activity within a small number of “hub” nodes, and whether those with existing coordinative roles were critical to maintaining connectivity. We examine these questions by analyzing seventeen organizational communication networks in the WTC disaster. We find that organizations maintain connectivity through relatively small numbers of coordinators, but the realization of institutionalized coordinative roles depends upon organizational context. Further, we find distinct patterns of robustness, with the removal of key players leading to mass isolation in specialist networks versus a gradual pattern of failure in non-specialist networks. These results suggest that organizations responding to disruptions within their usual domain of operations will be more likely to retain institutionalized roles when building emergent networks, although this increases the network's fragility in the event of the loss of one of those coordinators. Organizations responding to novel threats may reconfigure more radically, limiting vulnerability to the loss of institutionalized—but not emergent—coordinators.

Temporal network analysis of inter-organizational communications on social media during disasters: A study of Hurricane Harvey in Houston

The objective of this study is to model and analyze inter-organizational communication networks on social media to characterize the roles of organizations and situational information communication before, during and after disasters. Recent studies have shown that social media plays an important role in disasters, offering a participatory, collaborative and self-organized structure to communicate and disseminate situational information. Despite growing research on social media during disasters, little is known about the dynamic properties of inter-organizational networks and the roles of different organizations in communication networks on social media during disasters. This understanding is important for evaluating and improving collective action for disaster preparedness, emergency response, and recovery. To address this gap, this study presents a methodology for mapping and analyzing online organizational communication networks based on their interactions on twitter using the data obtained from Hurricane Harvey. The proposed method enables examining the network properties of online inter-organizational communication networks, unveiling the evolution of the roles of organizations within different phases of the disaster. The results show that: 1) during Harvey, government organizational users primarily generate information, while non-government organizational users mainly disseminate information, 2) during Harvey, most users in the cores of online organizational communication networks are from government organizations, 3) there are limited interactions among government and non-government organizational users before and after Harvey. The results provide insights into the roles of different types of organizations in online communication networks, helping make recommendations to improve inter-organizational communication in online social media to enhance disaster preparedness, responses, and recovery.

“Goal-Driven” or “Data-Driven”: An Ethnographic Study of MBO in a College in China

MBO (management by objectives) is a popular management model in Western countries though its effectiveness was questioned. The study based on D college showed ideal “goal-driven” turned into “data-driven”. Those including single X-theory, data orientation, lack of participation mechanism, dominant quantitative assessment and so on resulted in the variation of MBO. Rebuilding organizational trust, encouraging faculty to participate in management, improving organizational communication networks and regulating performance procedure are suggested for D college to reconstruct the system of MBO.

Node property of weighted networks considering connectability to nodes within two degrees of separation

Weighted networks have been extensively studied because they can represent various phenomena in which the diversity of edges is essential. To investigate the properties of weighted networks, various centrality measures have been proposed, such as strength, weighted clustering coefficients, and weighted betweenness centrality. In such measures, only direct connections or entire network connectivity from arbitrary nodes have been used to calculate the connectivity of each node. However, in weighted networks composed of autonomous elements such as humans, middle ranges from each node are also considered to be meaningful for characterizing each node’s connectability. In this study, we define a new node property in weighted networks to consider connectability to nodes within a range of two degrees of separation, then apply this new centrality to face-to-face human communication networks in corporate organizations. Our results show that the proposed centrality distinguishes inherent communities corresponding to the job types in each organization with a high degree of accuracy. This indicates the possibility that connectability to nodes within two degrees of separation reveals potential trends of weighted networks that are not apparent from conventional measures.

A Study of the Network Analysis in Enhancing the Managerial Efficiency of Dairy Co-Operative Personnels in Uttar Pradesh

&lt;p&gt;The dairy organization represents a complex system is highly departmentalized and specialized at various levels, which has necessitated a great deal of co-ordination and interaction among its employees through an efficient organizational communication network. Net work analysis between management and employees at various levels of management plays an important role in achievement of the organizational effectiveness. The amount of upward communication was higher than downward communication as well as horizontal communication. The horizontal communication was also observed more than downward communication and hence, the efforts are required to attract the attention in this directionality the top management so that the management personnel could raise downward communication. Various types of communication messages i.e. informative, instructive, influencive, evaluative and counseling play a vital and indispensable role in management. The network analysis directly assist the management system in achieving the goals of the organization and also help in creating a congenial environment of better functioning by the incumbents in the organization.&lt;/p&gt;

Statistical Analysis of Organizational Communication Network Abstracted from Workflow Logs

As a highly abstraction of real system, complex network provides a vital means for the study on systems. Taking ‘university’ as an example of social organization systems, this paper investigate the organizational communication network abstracted from workflow logs in Office Automation System of a university. First, a descriptive statistic of the workflow log records for each department in the university is presented. Then, we regard the number of users' message-workflow as node degree while the total number of users' interaction as weight of edge. It is found that the organizational communication network has a small world attribute, and the division of the community is consistent with the division of the department.

Modeling Valued Organizational Communication Networks Using Exponential Random Graph Models

For years, organizational communication scholars have been interested in the mechanisms that influence the formation of communication networks. One way to gain a deeper insight into the factors that shape such networks is to model them using exponential random graph modeling (ERGM). However, ERGM has only been applicable to binary networks, reducing communication to something that is either present or not. This article illustrates valued ERGM for organizational communication networks that have a weight associated with each tie. Using a data set on friendship strength between collaborative scientists, results show there are important differences when the network is modeled as binary versus when modeled as valued. In particular, the valued model showed that scientists are more selective regarding friendship (less outdegree activity). Moreover, there were several differences regarding how popular certain disciplines were over others. An online appendix with the R code and data is also included.

An Exploratory Study on Heterogeneity of Organizational Communication Network with Department Feature

Department is a distinctive label in organizational activities. To explorer the heterogeneity of organizational communication network combined with departmental feature, we build organizational communication network according to organization’s office automation system logs. On this basis, some concepts are proposed to depict inter-departmental and intra-departmental communication behaviours, which can tell the differences of function and character between departments. A certain organization is taken as an example to show the feasibility of the method.

Bridging with Meaning: Organizational Vocabularies and Communication Networks in Organizations

We examine how communication networks within organizations are structured by organizational vocabularies -- sets of words used by organizational participants to describe, interpret and share their personal experiences within hierarchically structured domains of activity. The basic question we explore asks: how does the overlap in organizational vocabularies affect communication and information sharing relations across formal organizational boundaries? We reconstruct the bipartite network between organizational participants and the words they use to describe their subsidiary company within a multi-unit group, and examine how dyadic patterns of association between participants and words affect interpersonal communication networks. In an analysis of the multilevel network linking managers both directly, as well as through their affiliation to words, we find that organizational members adopt similar vocabularies to describe their organizational units. However, overlapping organizational vocabularies per se do not imply that organizational members will be more likely to establish relations of task-related communication. Typically, organizational members tend to restrict communication ties within rather than between formal boundaries. Yet, overlapping vocabularies make organizational members significantly more likely to communicate and share information across the formal boundaries of their units. We discuss the role that organizational vocabularies play in sustaining knowledge transfer across organizational boundaries, thus bridging cultural holes within organizations.

Transitivity, hierarchy and reciprocity of organizational communication network during crisis

Purpose – This paper aims to explore changes in communication networks during organizational crisis. In the literature, various terms such as organizational mortality, organizational death, bankruptcy, decline, retrenchment and failure have been used to characterize different forms and facets of organizational crisis. Communication network studies have typically focussed on nodes (e.g. individuals or organizations), relationships between those nodes and subsequent affects of these relationships upon the network as a whole. Email networks in contemporary organizations are fairly representative of the underlying communication networks. Design/methodology/approach – The changing communication network structure at Enron Corporation during the crisis period (2000-2001) has been analyzed. The goal is to understand how communication patterns and structures are affected by organizational crisis. Drawing on communication network crisis and group behaviour theory, three propositions are tested: communication network becomes increasingly transitive as organizations experience crisis; communication network becomes less hierarchical as organizations are going through crisis; and communication network becomes more reciprocal as organizations are going through crisis. Findings – In this research analysis, the support of these three propositions was noticed. The results of tests and their implications are discussed in this paper. Originality/value – This study builds on an emerging stream of research area that applies social network analysis to organizational interaction data to study various questions related to organizational change and disintegration. These findings could help managers in designing an effective approach to monitor regular functionalities of their organizations.

Communication network dynamics during organizational crisis

Communication network is a personal or professional set of relationships between individuals or organizations. In other words, it is a pattern of contacts which are created due to the flow of information among the participating actors. The flow of information establishes various types of relationships among the participating entities. These relationships eventually form an overall pattern that could form a gestalt of the total structure within organizational context. In this paper, we analyze the changing communications structure in order to investigate the patterns associated with the final stages of organizational crisis. Organizational crisis has been defined as organizational mortality, organizational death, organizational exit, bankruptcy, decline, retrenchment and failure to characterize various forms of organizational crisis. We draw on theoretical perspectives on organizational crisis proposed by social network analysts and other sociologists to test 5 key propositions on the changes in the network communication structure associated with organizational crisis: (1) a few actors, who are prominent or more active, will become central during the organizational crisis period; (2) reciprocity within the organizational communication network will increase during crisis period; (3) organizational communication network becomes less transitive as organizations experience crisis; (4) number of cliques increases in a communication network as organizations are going through crisis; and (5) communication network becomes increasingly centralized as organizations go through crisis.

The Coevolution of Multiplex Communication Networks in Organizational Communities

This research examines the evolutionary patterns and determinants of multiplex organizational communication networks. Based on the data between 1997 and 2005 collected from the records of development projects in the field of Information and Communication Technology for Development, the study demonstrates that dynamics in one network are significant drivers of tie formation in the other network at both dyadic and triadic levels. In particular, results show that the effects of common third-party ties and structural embeddedness exist across multiplex networks. Further, the study suggests that resource similarity of organizational dyads, resource width, and organizational centrality have positive effects on the propensity for multiplex ties. These results have implications for organizations’ communication networking strategies in a wide variety of organizational communities.

Power-law behavior in complex organizational communication networks during crisis

Communication networks can be described as patterns of contacts which are created due to the flow of messages and information shared among participating actors. Contemporary organizations are now commonly viewed as dynamic systems of adaptation and evolution containing several parts, which interact with one another both in internal and in external environment. Although there is limited consensus among researchers on the precise definition of organizational crisis, there is evidence of shared meaning: crisis produces individual crisis, crisis can be associated with positive or negative conditions, crises can be situations having been precipitated quickly or suddenly or situations that have developed over time and are predictable etc. In this research, we study the power-law behavior of an organizational email communication network during crisis from complexity perspective. Power law simply describes that, the probability that a randomly selected node has k links (i.e. degree k) follows P(k)∼k−γ, where γ is the degree exponent. We used social network analysis tools and techniques to analyze the email communication dataset. We tested two propositions: (1) as organization goes through crisis, a few actors, who are prominent or more active, will become central, and (2) the daily communication network as well as the actors in the communication network exhibit power-law behavior. Our preliminary results support these two propositions. The outcome of this study may provide significant advancement in exploring organizational communication network behavior during crisis.

Static versus dynamic topology of complex communications network during organizational crisis

The significance of temporal changes in the topology of organizational communication networks during a crisis is studied using static and dynamic social network analysis (SNA). In static SNA, the network of interactions made during an entire data collection period is studied. For dynamic SNA, shorter segments of network data are used in the analysis. Using measures of degree centrality and core-periphery analysis, the prominence of actors is characterized and compared in the aggregate network (i.e., using static topology) and in daily networks (i.e., using dynamic topology) of a complex email network in a large organization during crisis. We show that while static typology cannot capture the network behavior completely, there are particular situations where the additional description provided by dynamic analysis is not significant. The limitations of dynamic topological SNA are discussed and we stress the importance of associating function with network structure in moving towards a more informative dynamical description. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2011

Organizational structure and communication networks in a university environment

The "six degrees of separation" between any two individuals on Earth has become emblematic of the "small world" theme, even though the information conveyed via a chain of human encounters decays very rapidly with increasing chain length, and diffusion of information via this process may be very inefficient in large human organizations. The information flow on a communication network in a large organization, the University of Oslo, has been studied by analyzing email records. The records allow for quantification of communication intensity across organizational levels and between organizational units (referred to as "modules"). We find that the number of email messages within modules scales with module size to the power of 1.29±.06 , and the frequency of communication between individuals decays exponentially with the number of links required upward in the organizational hierarchy before they are connected. Our data also indicates that the number of messages sent by administrative units is proportional to the number of individuals at lower levels in the administrative hierarchy, and the "divergence of information" within modules is associated with this linear relationship. The observed scaling is consistent with a hierarchical system in which individuals far apart in the organization interact little with each other and receive a disproportionate number of messages from higher levels in the administrative hierarchy.