A summary on the course Business Insights and Networks, from the bachelor Data Science in Eindhoven and Tilburg. This course focusses on network analysis and inter-organizational relationships.
This summary also contains some non-extensive notes on the provided readings and the abstracts of the pa...
JBE140 BUSINESS INSIGHTS
GENERAL COURSE OVERVIEW ASSIGNMENTS/DEADLINES
Week 1 Tue Course introduction | Organizations and their environment 22-09 Group assignments
available
Week 2 Tue Introduction to interorganizational networks
27-09 Game simulation
Thu Determinants of interorganizational relations
13-10 Programming quiz
Week 3 Tue Social networks analysis
Thu Workshop (CZ 121) intro to social network analysis (SNA) in R 20-10 Assignment submission
Week 4 Tue Game (online) The consequences of network position 08-11 Exam
Thu Workshop (Cube 241) SNA and visualization in R
GRADE DISTRIBUTIONS
Week 5 Tue Network dynamics and evolutions
Thu Workshop (CZ 121) Advanced SNA in R 70% Exam
30 % Assignments
Week 6 Tue Managing Interorganizational Relations
Thu (online) programming quiz
Assignments:
Week 7 Tue Interactive Learning & innovation | Exam instructions 65% group assignment
35% programming quiz
EXPECTATIONS FOR DEADLINES
Programming quiz:
Several R questions on the topics discussed during the lab sessions. Open book exam via Canvas.
Group assignment:
Groups of 5-6 people. Identify a business problem, conduct literary search and SNA and write a report that meet
the standards of an academic paper and the standards of reproducible research.
Exam:
Multiple choice and open questions that address topics from the lectures and readings.
ON CAMPUS OR ONLINE COURSE MATERIALS
Everything is on campus Week 1 Tue Kilduff & Brass 2010
Lectures Tilburg CZ 121 Week 2 Tue Borgatti et al 2009 | Schilling & Phelps 2007
Thu Oliver 1990
NOTES
Week 3 Tue Freeman 1978 | Hanneman & Riddle 2005
Focus of the course: Thu Easley & Kleinberg 2010 chapter 2 | intro to R files
Interorganizational relationships (IORs)
Antecedents and consequences of Week 4 Tue Podcast
IORs Thu Easley & Kleinberg 2010 chapter 3+4
The effect of interorganizational
networks on innovation Week 5 Tue Ahuja et al 2011 | Gulati & Gargiulo 1999
Social network analyses with R | Madhaven et al 1998
Thu Snijders 2011
Theory/papers are useful to learn to
determine network effectiveness. Week 6 Tue Gulati & Singh 1998 | Oliveira & Lumineau 2019
Thu
Lectures explain which parts of the papers
are important to remember Week 7 Tue Foerderer 2020 | Powell et al. 1996
,CONTENTS
Managing Interorganizational Relations 16
LECTURES 3 Gulati & Singh 16
Hypothesis 1 16
Organizations and their environment 3 Hypothesis 2 16
Example questions 4 Hypothesis 3 17
Results 17
Introduction to interorganizational networks 5 Take-aways and additional notes 17
Defining a network 5
As a social structure 5 Interactive Learning & innovation | Exam
As a perspective and as an empirical tool 5 instructions 18
As a form of governance 5 Exam notes 18
Social capital 6 Mock exam questions 19
Coleman (1988) Closure 6 Knowledge question 19
Burt (2005) Brokerage 6 Application question 19
Closure vs. brokerage 6 Analysis question 19
Example questions 7 Evaluation question 19
Open questions 19
Determinants of interorganizational relations 8
Determinants of IORs (oliver 1990) 8
Types of organizations 8
READINGS 20
Social networks analysis (SNA) 9
The study of social networks 9 Kilduff & Brass 2010 20
Network boundary specification 9
Types of relational data 9 Borgatti et all 2009 21
Sources of relational data and data collection 9
Data entry and data representation 10 Schilling & Phelps 2007 22
Basic concepts and measures 10
At the actor level 10 Oliver 1990 23
At the network level 10
At the intermediate level 10 Freeman 1978 25
Example questions 11
Easley & Kleinberg CH2 (2010) 26
Lab session 1 12
Explanation of the assignment 12 Easley & Kleinberg CH3+4 (2010) 27
Lab Session 2 12 Ahuja et al 2011 28
Lab Session 3 12 Gulati & Gargiulo 1999 29
Network dynamics and evolutions 13 Madhaven et al 1998 30
Causes for networks dynamics 13
Gulati & Gargiulo 13 Snijders 2011 31
Mannak, van zelst & Oerlemans 13
Ahuja et al 14 Gulati & Singh 1998 33
Madhaven et al 14
Example questions 15 Oliveira & Lumineau 2019 34
Foerderer 2020 35
Powell et al. 1996 36
,LECTURES
ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR ENVIRONMEN T
Organization A social entity that is (1) goal-driven, (2) designed as consciously structured and coordinated
systems of activities (3) which interact with the external environment (Jansen 2019)
It is an open system: it interacts with its environment, don’t treat it as an island
Network approach This helps us understand strategic options for organizations, including the opportunities and
constraints offered by the environment. The approach also has some limitations.
Customers journey The service encounters experienced by the customer.
Customers generally have several service encounters (touchpoints) with different
stakeholders involved in the offering of a specific service.
PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK
Generally people, and thereby organizations, do not like change.
It is therefore very important to monitor performance to determine when change of strategy is actually necessary.
In general it’s done by setting an aspiration level, which determines at which point the organization must change.
The aspiration level indicates the probability of a strategy change.
There are two sources to determine the aspiration level:
Social aspiration level: compare performance to the performance of the peer group
Historical aspiration level: compare performance to the performance of last year
Some companies determine that they have to change when both aspiration levels are insufficient, others
determine that not complying with only one of these would be sufficient to incite change.
WHAT TO CHANGE IN CASE OF BAD PERFORMANCE
There are three levels on which to intervene in the case of bad performance:
1. Intra-organizational micro-level (individuals, groups, departments, divisions)
2. Inter-organizational in-between (inter-organizational contact, networks)
3. Institutional macro-level (countries etc.)
BUILDING YOUR ENTWORK
Core ideas: (Kilduff & Brass 2010)
Social relations (in contrast or addition to attribute-oriented approached)
Embeddedness (economic transactions occur in context of social relationships)
Structural patterns
Utility of network connections (opportunities and constraints that affect outcomes important to actors)
Criticisms (Kilduff & Brass 2010)
Actor characteristics are neglected
Lack of attention to agency
Network members lack accurate network cognition
The context in which networks emerge and the dynamic nature is often neglected
WHY ORGANIZATIONS FORM RELATIONS
Relationships can be either embedded ties or arm’s length ties.
Transaction cost economics Resource dependence theory
(focus on investments required) (focus on importance of the relationship)
Those with better transaction cost Firms manage dependencies in face of uncertainties.
economizing properties will displace those Increasing dependencies and uncertainty increase demand for closer
that have worse properties. relationships to improve (1) information exchanges, (2) commitment,
Uncertainty, frequency, and asset specificity (3) legitimacy, (4) and exchange stability.
are the base for making, buying or
Unique resources/capacities increase the likelihood of long-term
becoming allies (IORs)
relationships. Asymmetry is the determinant for tie formation.
An alternative to IORs would be to buy everything in one off exchanges on the market.
, EXAMPLE QUESTIONS
Define an organization:
• Social entity
• Goal-driven
• Structured in order to achieve that goal
• Interacting with the environment (it is an open system)
Explain the following statement:
Organizations monitor their environment in order to benchmark their performance and decide on strategy
changes
• Social aspiration level
• Performance above or below aspiration level
• Probability of strategy change
The customer journey refers to:
The visitor’s travel time to the theatre
The amount of stakeholders involved in a service offering
The service encounters experienced by the visitor
A book by JRR Tolkien
What is not a criticism of Kilduff and Brass on the network approach
Actor characteristics are neglected
The lack of attention for agency
Network members lack of accurate network cognition
Interventions are not sufficiently based on scientific knowledge and analysis
When the Covid-19 pandemic reached its first peak in the Netherlands in spring 2020, the Dutch government was
confronted with a shortage of protective facemasks as well as necessity for major investments in vaccine
development. If you evaluate this situation by means of transaction costs economics and/or resource
dependency theory, what would you recommend to the Dutch government?
To form arm’s length ties both with a facemask supplier and with a vaccine developer
To form embedded ties both with a facemask supplies and with a vaccine developer
To form arm’s length ties with a facemask supplier and embedded ties with vaccine developer
To form embedded ties with a facemask supplier and arm’s length ties with vaccine developer
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