“Analysing the dynamic interdependence of network structures
and individual performance in organizations.”

Relational approaches to organization typically ignore processes of network formation while studying network consequences, and, symmetrically, ignore the implications of network structures and flows while studying network antecedents. In this paper we address these symmetric weaknesses in the organizational literature by specifying dynamic models for the joint representation of network selection and influence processes.

We estimate our models using a set of longitudinal data that we have collected on a sample of graduate students enrolled in a professional management degree program, followed over the program’s 17 month period. The networks studied are communication, advice seeking, professional esteem, and friendship. Controlling for a variety of individual sources of partner choice and performance (e.g., age and gender), mutual dependence of the networks on each other, and a number of endogenous local network effects (e.g., transitivity, reciprocity, or preferential attachment), we find that performance of individual subjects tends to be assimilated to the performance of their network neighbours, and that performance also acts as a basis for network formation in some, but not all of the studied networks.

The slides were presented at the 4th conference on Applications of Social Network Analysis (13-15 September 2007, Zürich)

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