Social Network Perspective Research Articles

Policy learning as complex contagion: how social networks shape organizational beliefs in forest-based climate change mitigation

Policy learning can alter the perceptions of both the seriousness and the causes of a policy problem, thus also altering the perceived need to do something about the problem. This then allows for the informed weighing of different policy options. Taking a social network perspective, we argue that the role of social influence as a driver of policy learning has been overlooked in the literature. Network research has shown that normatively laden belief change is likely to occur through complex contagion—a process in which an actor receives social reinforcement from more than one contact in its social network. We test the applicability of this idea to policy learning using node-level network regression models on a unique longitudinal policy network survey dataset concerning the Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative in Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam. We find that network connections explain policy learning in Indonesia and Vietnam, where the policy subsystems are collaborative, but not in Brazil, where the level of conflict is higher and the subsystem is more established. The results suggest that policy learning is more likely to result from social influence and complex contagion in collaborative than in conflictual settings.

Governors Fighting Crisis: Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic across U.S. States on Twitter

In the waves of the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, each U.S. state governor has been leading efforts to curb the spread of the virus within his or her state. Twitter has been widely used for crisis communications by governors. Their Twitter usage patterns can largely reflect how state governments responded to the COVID-19 crisis from both geographical and social network perspectives. Through spatial–temporal analysis, network analysis, and text mining, we identified several important usage patterns, such as (1) tweet quantities positively correlated with the pandemic severity; (2) most governors started to mention COVID-19 weeks before the first reported case in their states; (3) COVID-19-related hashtags were commonly used to organize information; (4) feedback was frequently provided by at-mentioning or retweeting other accounts; and (5) governors were networked for crisis communication, driven by demographics, pandemic severities, geographic closeness, cooperation, and party affiliations among states. The current usage patterns are generally consistent with the criteria for effective crisis communications on Twitter (listening, informing, feedback, and connections). Some actionable approaches for governors to improve Twitter crisis communications are also discussed. This exploratory study provides a guide for other agencies and officials to develop future crisis communication plans through leveraging social media for social good.

Acceleration of rural households’ conversion to cleaner cooking fuels: The importance and mechanisms of peer effects

This study investigated the existence of peer effects in the diffusion of clean cooking fuels among rural households in China and identified the mechanisms by which these peer effects were enacted from the perspective of social networks. We observed greater adoption of clean cooking fuels in areas in which adoption was already relatively high, however, this peer spill-over decreased over time and was regulated by the accessibility and strength of social networks. Specifically, if a household's social circle was more extensive or its communication with neighbours, relatives, and friends was closer, its choice of a clean cooking fuel was more likely to be affected by its peer groups. To stimulate stronger peer spill-over, we suggest that interventions such as strengthening social interactions across rural households should be included in the government's strategy to help more households convert to cleaner cooking fuels.

What fosters interorganizational frame convergence: Examining a semantic network during the opioid crisis

Public relations and strategic communication scholars have advocated for a social network perspective for a more relational and nuanced understanding of crisis communication. Drawing upon literature from crisis communication, framing, and network theories, we explicate the notion of interorganizational frame convergence (IFC), the extent to which different organizations share interpretations (i.e., frames) on a particular issue. This study examined an IFC network in which cross-sectoral organizations were connected by semantic ties based on the extent to which they shared similar frames in a crisis. We carried out a content analysis of organizational press releases during the US opioid crisis from 2017 to 2019 (N = 420) and the profiles of these organizations (N = 34). Results from network analyses revealed patterns, processes, and antecedents of IFC during the opioid crisis. We argue that understanding the antecedents and processes of IFC allows more relational and systemic theory construction as well as more effective relationship building.

Leader Network Centrality and Team Performance: Team Size as Moderator and Collaboration as Mediator

The social network perspective provides a valuable lens to understand the effectiveness of team leaders. In understanding leadership impact in team networks, an important question concerns the structural influence of leader centrality in advice-giving networks on team performance. Taking the inconsistent evidence for the positive relationship of network centrality and leadership effectiveness as a starting point, we suggest that the positive impact of leader centrality in advice-giving networks is contingent on team needs for leadership to meet communication and coordination challenges, which we argue are larger in larger teams. Developing our analysis, we examine the mediating role of member collaboration in the relationship of leader network centrality and team performance as moderated by team size. Based on a multi-source dataset of 542 employees and 71 team leaders, we found that leader centrality in advice-giving networks related positively to team performance in larger teams but negatively in smaller teams. Results supported the mediated moderation model via member collaboration in smaller teams, but not in larger teams.

Rumor investigation in networks

This paper studies how people react to rumors from the perspective of social networks. Before making decisions to match the state of a rumor, individuals in a social network decide whether to investigate the rumor's authenticity. An unusual signal, which could possibly be detected if the rumor is fake, is local public information. We show that an individual is a bystander when few linked neighbors investigate, is a free-rider when many neighbors are investigators, and becomes an investigator only when the number of linked neighbors falls in a certain range. We use the insulated set of a core of the network to characterize the set of investigators in an equilibrium that induces the least number of bystanders. Only those who belong to the core make decisions upon observed signals, while those outside the core make decisions based on prior belief in this equilibrium.

The global care network and its impact on sending and receiving countries: current knowledge and future directions

AbstractResearch concerning the effects of migrants on elder care in affluent receiving countries has been substantial, but we know little about the effects of migrant care on elder care in sending countries. There also is limited research on elder care in the context of the return migration of migrant care workers. This theoretical article explores the potential relevance of a social network perspective, which views individuals and countries as being interconnected even when they are miles apart. A multi-level framework that considers macro-, meso- and micro-level perspectives is introduced to better account for current migrant care arrangements. The macro-level perspective takes into account country-level characteristics including policies, geography and cultural preferences; the meso-level perspective takes into account the characteristics of the entire network, which may spread over different countries; and the micro-level perspective concerns the unique characteristics of the individuals who make up the network. This approach proposes that the effects of migrant home care go way beyond the care recipient–care-giver dyads or triads to incorporate many individuals and countries that are transnationally interconnected via the work of care. This article also aims to increase public and scientific awareness to the potential impact of migrant care and return migration on elder care in the sending countries by stressing a transnational social network perspective.

Social Geographies of Educational Leadership

Educational leaders across the globe are facing a growing set of challenges that include concerns around academic performance, but go well beyond to include the pandemic, equity, climate, and poverty. This is a defining time for leaders to attend to the needs of students in the face of ongoing and developing challenges. Better understanding how educational leaders engage with one another in developing community and accessing timely and context connected information is an important line of investigation during these challenging times. One of most widely used and simplest strategies is engaging communities through communication and collaboration in online spaces which involves accessing just in time information (e.g., news, ideas, approaches) and the exchange of information, knowledge, and strategies. Social media platforms provide multiple opportunities for these exchanges and yet we know very little about how educational leaders are engaging with these platforms.
 
 The rise of social media has led to a panoply of online communication spaces or sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, wherein individuals can engage into the informal learning with others. Furthermore, a growing number of studies have shown that educational professionals use social media, such as Twitter, to access and share information that helps them and others to face their everyday challenges. Being embedded in their immediate (work) environments, media constitute social opportunity spaces enabling individuals to engage discussions with a wide variety of others and stimulate a process of critical reflection. Consequently, educational leaders can benefit from participating in social media to help them (and their colleagues) in their efforts to engage in high quality practice. However, traditional views of leader activity have constrained work in the space.
 
 Leadership is one of the most examined concepts in the education literature, and while the study of online social networks is also gaining interest, the intersection between leadership and online social networks has received limited attention. The key notion underlying most traditional leadership research is that the behaviors or attributes of a leader, typically a person in a formal position, matter for a variety of outcomes. While offering valuable insights, this dominant view of leadership behavior and attributes underestimates the impact of (informal) social networks particularly those in online spaces.
 
 Scholars are increasingly recognizing the importance of social processes involved in leading. Leadership in its broadest sense has often been conceptualized as a process of influence toward an outcome. Social relationships through networks may provide leaders with the necessary infrastructure to access resources in achieving outcomes. A social network perspective brings to the fore the dependencies of actors within a social system. This perspective shifts the focus away from individual attributes toward an examination of the ties between individuals, thereby placing leadership directly in the role of a social undertaking. Leadership from a network perspective emphasizes the interdependence of action that are reflected by a network of ties, which may ultimately moderate, influence, or determine the activity and movement of resources such as practices and knowledge.

Role stress, emotional exhaustion, and knowledge hiding: The joint moderating effects of network centrality and structural holes

Little research to date has focused on a social network perspective in the field of knowledge hiding. Therefore, based on a three-wave examination of 222 Chinese employees, we integrated affective events theory and social network theory to investigate how individual network positions become cogent boundary conditions in the process of role stress influencing knowledge hiding through emotional exhaustion. Results revealed that role stress affected knowledge hiding through emotional exhaustion. We further posited that network centrality negatively moderated the effect of role stress on emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, structural holes positively moderated the effect of role stress on emotional exhaustion. Finally, network centrality and structural holes jointly moderated the indirect effect of role stress on knowledge hiding through emotional exhaustion, such that the indirect effect is stronger when low network centrality combined with high structural holes.

A framework for determining the impacts of a multiple relationship network on green innovation

Abstract Green innovation is an important way to promote the sustainable development of high energy consumption enterprises. Different from the perspective of social networks constructed by a single entity and only the application of the regression method, this paper establishes a conceptual framework for determining the impacts of a multiple relationship network on green innovation. We use regression analysis to study the direct impact of a multiple relationship network on green innovation and the moderating roles of environmental regulation and financial slack. And we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to study the equivalent influencing paths of green innovation. Taking 503 high energy consumption enterprises in China in 2018 as samples and based on more than 140,000 big data texts, we use text mining to construct the multiple relationship network, use content analysis to identify green patents from the massive patent data. The regression results show the following: (1) The network breadth, depth and knowledge heterogeneity can promote green innovation; and there are inverted U-shaped relationships between the network depth and green innovation and between the network knowledge heterogeneity and green innovation. (2) Environmental regulation significantly promotes the impacts of the network breadth, depth and knowledge heterogeneity on green innovation. Financial slack significantly promotes the impact of the network knowledge heterogeneity on green innovation. The results from fsQCA verify the regression findings and reveal the following: (3) When external environmental regulation and eight kinds of stakeholders (government, shareholders, suppliers, purchasers, consumers, financial institutions, scientific research institutions, competitors) in the multiple relationship network simultaneously transmit green resources, information and exert green pressure, enterprises are more likely to conduct green innovation. (4) Under appropriate environmental regulation, green innovation is mostly achieved due to deep communication with external stakeholders.

Values Matter: The Role of Key Nodes of Social Networks in an Environmental Governance Case from Taiwan.

Social networks and related social processes play a critical role in natural resources and environmental governance. In this paper, an environmental governance case is analyzed from a social network perspective. We explore how social networks of proponents for and opponents against environmental regulations are formed and developed and how these social networks facilitate or hinder environmental regulations in different periods. The results reveal that government leaders with political power, the key node of the social network, can connect specific networks with their value orientation and can therefore influence the structure and development of networks, which significantly affect subsequent policy formation and governance results. Social networks affect and are affected by the processes and results of environmental governance. Consequently, actors in key positions and value orientations of the community to which they belong to play a critical role; this finding has rarely been discussed in past analyses of social networks.

Research on construction projects from a social network perspective: based on knowledge graph analysis

In order to comprehensively reflect the current status, research hotspots and evolutionary trends of research on construction projects from a social network perspective, 143 HJrelevant papers in the WoS database from 1999 to 2020 were taken as the research objects, and the bibliometric method and CiteSpace V were used to reveal the research development and evolution of the field during the 20 years and explore the future research trends. The study shows that the hotspots of construction project research from social network perspective include performance, governance, stakeholder management, risk management, and communication; research on construction project organizational network innovation, stakeholder risk and governance, BIM technology application, and social capital perspective to improve project organization become future research trends.

An Empirical Study on the Innovation Performance of Regional (Enterprise) by Dual Network Embedding in E-commerce Environment

With the help of the Internet technology platform and relying on the huge economic dividend of the network population, the Chinese e-commerce economy has rapidly emerged and developed. However, after experiencing the initial barbaric growth, in the face of the economic new normal e-commerce economy, there is a dilemma of rapid development, a lack of rational development rules, and a vulgarization of marketing strategies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of dual network embedding on the innovation performance of e-commerce enterprises from the two dimensions of relationship and structure. This paper takes some e-commerce companies in a city as the empirical object, and discusses the influence of e-commerce enterprise's network embedding characteristics on the innovation performance of enterprises from the perspective of social network. Through the analysis of reliability and validity, the absorption capacity is embedded in the network and the enterprise. The role of partial intermediation in innovation performance, the correlation coefficient of relationship embedding, structure embedding, absorptive capacity and innovation performance is 0.328, 0.243, 0.642, and the significance of the test is P<0.01, indicating that the significance level is 0.01. Relationship embedding, structure embedding, absorptive capacity and innovation performance are significantly positively correlated. Dual network embedding has a significant positive impact on the innovation performance of e-commerce companies.

The Social Network of the Grand Scribe and the Writing of the Biographies in the Shiji

This research sketches, to a degree, the social network of Sima Qian’s family by gleaning information from the Shiji, Hanshu, and other written sources to explore the writing of the Shiji biographies from the perspective of social networks. This research finds that the network seldom affected the choices and attitudes of Sima Qian toward the persons recorded in the biographies and instead served as an important tool to help Sima Qian obtain crucially detailed biographical information for his writing. In addition, Sima Qian presented his relatively critical historical view through his dialogue with his friends (i.e., via the network). Generally speaking, Sima Qian did not write biographies for his ancestors and did not hide the awkward experiences of his teacher whom he greatly respected. He bravely praised the families of stigmatized ministers against political pressures and even openly declared friendship with someone whose entire clan was executed by the emperor. These features suggest that Sima Qian held somewhat independent attitudes in recording and analysing distinguished people of the past and was mostly concerned with the reliability and details of the narratives he constructed. This perspective, in some respects, is what he meant by saying “the words of one family”.

Influence of farming household interactions on rural homestead withdrawal compensation from the perspective of social network

Influence of farming household interactions on rural homestead withdrawal compensation from the perspective of social network

The Link between Social and Structural Integration: Co- and Interethnic Friendship Selection and Social Influence within Adolescent Social Networks

Assimilation theories argue that social ties with majority-group members enhance the structural integration of ethnic minority members, whereas under certain conditions, coethnic social ties can also benefit minority members' socioeconomic outcomes. We examine these propositions through a social network perspective, focusing on friendship networks and educational expectations in adolescence, during which peer socialization is crucial. Longitudinal data from 1,992 adolescents in 91 classrooms allow us to investigate co- and interethnic social selection and social influence processes as well as their aggregated outcomes. In terms of friendship selection, we find that Turkishorigin minority adolescents in Germany have distinct preferences for friends with high educational expectations, among both co- and interethnic peers. In contrast, social influence on Turkish-minority adolescents' educational expectations is not uniform: only majority-group friends exert a significant (positive) influence. Our results emphasize that bridging social capital gained from social ties with majority-group members enhances ethnic minority adolescents' educational integration.

The Retirement Process from the Perspective of Meaningful Social Networks of Retirees

Abstract Research on retirement have traditionally been centered on the individual perspective of the phenomenon. This qualitative study aimed at understanding the relational dynamics in meaningful social networks during the retirement process, as perceived by members of retirees’ networks. Nine people indicated by retirees as members of their social networks (spouses, siblings, friends, and former coworkers) participated in this study. Data collection was performed through the Focus Group technique, and field notes were recorded. Data organization and analysis were based on the Grounded Theory and aided by the Atlas.ti software - Mac version 1.6.0. Results show that retirement triggers a recursive process to break, maintain, or redevelop bonds, with repercussions on the relational issues and proposals among the network of retirees. The study data suggest that the relational dimension greatly affects the retirees’ experience as well as their relational network.

Interlocked Audit Partners and Board Directors: An Examination of Financial Reporting Quality

We examine the role of interlocking connections among board directors and external auditors on financial reporting quality. Following agency, social network, and resource dependence theoretical perspectives, we form different expectations according to directors' role on the board and in the financial reporting process. When such interlocks involve executive directors, we expect that they reduce auditors’ independence and decrease financial reporting quality. On the contrary, when audit committee non-executive directors are involved, such interlocks represent an effective channel to reinforce their co-operation and information sharing with auditors towards ensuring higher financial reporting quality. Investigating a sample of 794 companies listed in France, Germany, and the UK throughout 2009-2017, we find support for both our expectations. On the one hand, firms with executive-auditor interlocks have less reliable accruals and lower reporting conservatism. On the other hand, when experienced but not too busy, audit committee directors interlocked with auditors are associated with more reliable accruals and a lower likelihood of beating earnings benchmarks. We also show that these findings vary by country according to the strength of legal and governance traditions.

Consumer susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion networks: how does network location matter?

Purpose This study aims to empirically investigate how susceptibility to social influence in new product adoption varies with one’s structural location in a social network. Design/methodology/approach The social network data were collected based on a sociometric network survey with 589 undergraduate students. Social network analysis and ordinary least squares regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses. Findings This study finds that consumers with high degree centrality (i.e. hubs) who have a large number of connections to others and consumers with high betweenness centrality (i.e. bridges) who connect otherwise distant groups in social networks are both less sensitive to informational influence from others. More importantly, the authors find evidence that consumers with moderate levels of degree/betweenness centrality are more susceptible to normative influence and status competition than those with low or high degree/betweenness centrality. The inverse-U patterns in the above relations are consistent with middle-status conformity and anxiety. Research limitations/implications This research complements social influence and new product diffusion research by documenting important contingencies (i.e. network locations) in consumer susceptibility to different types of social influence from a social network perspective. Practical implications The findings will assist marketers to leverage social influence by activating relevant social ties with effective messages in their network marketing strategies. Originality/value This research provides a better understanding of the mechanisms driving susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion.

Associativity and social capital in the multicultural context of Chilean migration 2014-2017 Social networks in the immigrant response?

This article discusses Putnam’s (2007) proposal about the possibility that intercultural heterogeneity may negatively affect social capital creation in the short term while also negatively affecting associativity. This issue will be discussed in relation to the case of collective political action by migrant organizations, namely MovimientoAcciónMigrante (MAM) and Coordinadora Nacional de Inmigrantes (CNI) in Chile during the 2014-2017 period. From a social network perspective, this article describes the context of the Chilean socio-political integration model, by both characterizing these groups and exploring the existence of—or lack thereof—politicization and social capital. This exercise seeks to elucidate whether these groups may or may not be considered social networks. By using a mixed-methods approach that included interviews and social network analysis techniques, the researchers accounted for here explores the question: Which are the politicization strategies used by socio-political networks composed by multicultural migrant organizations in the Chilean public sphere? From a combined perspective of political science and network analysis, this article addresses politicization and collective action of these collectives in Chile.