Networks of coupled dynamical systems have been used to model biological oscillators, Josephson junction arrays, excitable media, neural networks, spatial games, genetic control networks and many other self-organizing systems. Ordinarily, the connection topology is assumed to be either completely regular or completely random. But many biological, technological and social networks lie somewhere between these two extremes. Here we explore simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground: regular networks 'rewired' to introduce increasing amounts of disorder. We find that these systems can be highly clustered, like regular lattices, yet have small characteristic path lengths, like random graphs. We call them 'small-world' networks, by analogy with the small-world phenomenon (popularly known as six degrees of separation. The neural network of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, the power grid of the western United States, and the collaboration graph of film actors are shown to be small-world networks. Models of dynamical systems with small-world coupling display enhanced signal-propagation speed, computational power, and synchronizability. In particular, infectious diseases spread more easily in small-world networks than in regular lattices.

/pdf/collective-dynamics-of-small-world-networks-205zhem3gm.pdf

Collective dynamics of small-world networks

Similarity breeds connection. This principle—the homophily principle—structures network ties of every type, including marriage, friendship, work, advice, support, information transfer, exchange, comembership, and other types of relationship. The result is that people's personal networks are homogeneous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily limits people's social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience. Homophily in race and ethnicity creates the strongest divides in our personal environments, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order. Geographic propinquity, families, organizations, and isomorphic positions in social systems all create contexts in which homophilous relations form. Ties between nonsimilar individuals also dissolve at a higher rate, which sets the stage for the formation of niches (localize...

/pdf/birds-of-a-feather-homophily-in-social-networks-3kjmeyr23w.pdf

Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks

Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/259373.pdf

Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage

This article applies the convergent insights of institutional and resource dependence perspectives to the prediction of strategic responses to institutional processes. The article offers a typology of strategic responses that vary in active organizational resistance from passive conformity to proactive manipulation. Ten institutional factors are hypothesized to predict the occurrence of the alternative proposed strategies and the degree of organizational conformity or resistance to institutional pressures.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/258610.pdf

Strategic responses to institutional processes

This paper combines the concept of weak ties from social network research and the notion of complex knowledge to explain the role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits in a...

The Search-Transfer Problem: The Role of Weak Ties in Sharing Knowledge across Organization Subunits.

Chapter 1. Introduction to Social Network Analysis Chapter 2. Network Fundamentals Chapter 3. Data Collection Chapter 4. Basic Methods for Analyzing Networks Chapter 5. Advanced Methods for Analyzing Networks References

Social network analysis

Discusses the innovative log-linear model of statistical analysis. This model makes no distinction between independent and dependent variables, but is used to examine relationships among categoric variables by analyzing expected cell frequencies.

Log-Linear Models

Part One: BASIC CONCEPTS AND MEASURES. 1. Statistics in the Research Process. 2. Describing Variables. Part Two: MAKING STATISTICAL INFERENCES. 3. Inferences About Means. Part Three: ANALYZING BIVARIATE RELATIONSHIPS. 4. Analysis of Variance. 5. Analyzing Categoric Data. 6. Bivariate Regression and Correlation. Part Four: MULTIVARIATE MODELS. 7. The Logic of Multivariate Contingency Analysis. 8. Multiple Regression Analysis. 9. Nonlinear and Logistic Regression. Part Five: ADVANCED TOPICS. 10. Log-Linear Analysis. 11. Causal Models and Path Analysis. 12. Structural Equation Models. Appendices. List of Mathematical and Statistical Symbols. Answers to Problems. Instructor's Manual and Data Disk Available.

Statistics for social data analysis

1. Politics in structural perspective 2. Voting and political participation 3. Social movements Nancy Wisely 4. Organizational power Naomi J. Kaufman 5. Community power structures 6. Elites in the nation state 7. International relations Jodi Burmeister-May 8. Toward a structural political economy Appendix References Index.

Political Networks: The Structural Perspective

The Federal Government in the United States is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Presidents are elected by popular vote in the nation (filtered through the electoral college), Senators are elected by popular vote in their states, and Representatives are elected by popular vote in their Congressional districts. Cabinet members and agency heads are appointed by the elected president, as are members of the Supreme Court. But this says nothing about politics. Professor Lauman and Knoke have asked, in this book, how policies were made, in the period 1977-1980, in the areas of energy and health. The question is a very different one from the question of how the positions of president and Congress are filled.

David Knoke

Papers

Social network analysis

Log-Linear Models

Statistics for social data analysis

Political Networks: The Structural Perspective

The Organizational State: Social Choice in National Policy Domains