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  3. Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences

This series is designed to bring together under a single rubric social scientific research undertaken from a structural perspective. Each volume in the series demonstrates the value of a structural approach in a particular subject area, while the series as a whole brings the achievements of structurally-oriented scholars to the attention of a wider public, and thereby encourages others to approach their theory and research in this very fruitful way.

  • General Editors: Mark Granovetter, Stanford University, California

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47 results in Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences

Page 2 of 3

Exponential Random Graph Models for Social Networks
  • Theory, Methods, and Applications
  • Edited by Dean Lusher, Johan Koskinen, Garry Robins
  • Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    19 November 2012
  • Exponential random graph models (ERGMs) are increasingly applied to observed network data and are central to understanding social structure and network processes. The chapters in this edited volume provide a self-contained, exhaustive account of the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of ERGMs, including models for univariate, multivariate, bipartite, longitudinal and social-influence type ERGMs. Each method is applied in individual case studies illustrating how social science theories may be examined empirically using ERGMs. The authors supply the reader with sufficient detail to specify ERGMs, fit them to data with any of the available software packages and interpret the results.

Social Capital
  • A Theory of Social Structure and Action
  • Nan Lin
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    29 January 2001
  • In Social Capital, Nan Lin explains the importance of using social connections and social relations in achieving goals. Social capital, or resources accessed through such connections and relations, is critical (along with human capital, or what a person or organization actually possesses) to individuals, social groups, organizations, and communities in obtaining their objectives. This book places social capital in the family of capital theories (the classical and neo-capital theories), articulates its elements and propositions, presents research programs, findings, and agenda, and theorizes its significance in various moments of interactions between individual actions and social structure (for example, the primordial groups, social exchanges, organizations, institutional transformations and cybernetworks). Nan Lin eloquently introduces a groundbreaking theory that forcefully argues and shows why it is 'who you know', as well as 'what you know' that makes a difference in life and society.

Social Network Analysis
  • Methods and Applications
  • Stanley Wasserman, Katherine Faust
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    25 November 1994
  • Social network analysis is used widely in the social and behavioral sciences, as well as in economics, marketing, and industrial engineering. The social network perspective focuses on relationships among social entities and is an important addition to standard social and behavioral research, which is primarily concerned with attributes of the social units. Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications reviews and discusses methods for the analysis of social networks with a focus on applications of these methods to many substantive examples. It is a reference book that can be used by those who want a comprehensive review of network methods, or by researchers who have gathered network data and want to find the most appropriate method by which to analyze it. It is also intended for use as a textbook as it is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the methodology and applications of the field.

Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek
  • Wouter de Nooy, Andrej Mrvar, Vladimir Batagelj
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    10 January 2005
  • This was the first textbook on social network analysis integrating theory, applications, and professional software for performing network analysis (Pajek). Step by step, the book introduces the main structural concepts and their applications in social research with exercises to test the understanding. An application section explaining how to perform the network analyses with Pajek software follows each theoretical section. Pajek software and datasets for all examples are freely available, so the reader can learn network analysis by doing it. In addition, each chapter offers case studies for practising network analysis. In the end, the reader has the knowledge, skills, and tools to apply social network analysis in all social sciences, ranging from anthropology and sociology to business administration and history.

Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis
  • Edited by Peter J. Carrington, John Scott, Stanley Wasserman
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    07 February 2005
  • Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis, first published in 2005, presents the most important developments in quantitative models and methods for analyzing social network data that have appeared during the 1990s. Intended as a complement to Wasserman and Faust's Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications, it is a collection of articles by leading methodologists reviewing advances in their particular areas of network methods. Reviewed are advances in network measurement, network sampling, the analysis of centrality, positional analysis or blockmodelling, the analysis of diffusion through networks, the analysis of affiliation or 'two-mode' networks, the theory of random graphs, dependence graphs, exponential families of random graphs, the analysis of longitudinal network data, graphical techniques for exploring network data, and software for the analysis of social networks.

Networks of Nations
  • The Evolution, Structure, and Impact of International Networks, 1816–2001
  • Zeev Maoz
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    06 December 2010
  • Maoz views the evolution of international relations over the last two centuries as a set of interacting, cooperative and conflicting networks of states. The networks that emerged are the result of national choice processes about forming or breaking ties with other states. States are constantly concerned with their security and survival in an anarchic world. Their security concerns stem from their external environment and their past conflicts. Because many of them cannot ensure their security by their own power, they need allies to balance against a hostile international environment. The alliance choices made by states define the structure of security cooperation networks and spill over into other cooperative networks, including trade and institutions. Maoz tests his theory by applying social networks analysis (SNA) methods to international relations. He offers a novel perspective as a system of interrelated networks that co-evolve and interact with one another.

Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek
  • 2nd edition
  • Wouter de Nooy, Andrej Mrvar, Vladimir Batagelj
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    30 September 2011
  • An extensively revised and expanded second edition of the successful textbook on social network analysis integrating theory, applications and network analysis using Pajek. The main structural concepts and their applications in social research are introduced with exercises. Pajek software and data sets are available so readers can learn network analysis through application and case studies. Readers will have the knowledge, skill and tools to apply social network analysis across the social sciences, from anthropology and sociology to business administration and history. This second edition has a new chapter on random network models, for example, scale-free and small-world networks and Monte Carlo simulation; discussion of multiple relations, islands and matrix multiplication; new structural indices such as eigenvector centrality, degree distribution and clustering coefficients; new visualization options that include circular layout for partitions and drawing a network geographically as a 3D surface; and using Unicode labels.

Kinship, Networks, and Exchange
  • Edited by Thomas Schweizer, Douglas R. White
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    13 June 1998
  • This collection of articles aims at revitalizing the study of kinship and exchange in a social network perspective. It brings together studies of empirical systems of marriage and descent with investigations of the flow of material resources in societies of Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Europe. Restudies of classic ethnographic cases and fieldwork studies of kinship and exchange demonstrate how the social and material aspects of society are related, and address issues of concern to anthropology and the neighbouring disciplines of history, sociology and economics. This book marks the emergence of an era in the study of kinship and exchange using a productive combination of ethnographic substance with formal methods, one which leaves behind older structural-functionalist and culturalist assumptions.

The Struggle for Control of the Modern Corporation
  • Organizational Change at General Motors, 1924–1970
  • Robert F. Freeland
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    28 December 2000
  • Winner of the 2005 Business History Review Newcomen Award for best book in business history, The Struggle for Control of the Modern Corporation provides a fascinating historical overview of decision-making and political struggle within one of America's largest and most important corporations. Drawing on primary historical material, Robert Freeland examines the changes in General Motors' organization between the years 1924 and 1970. He takes issue with the well-known argument of business historian Alfred Chandler and economist Oliver Wiliamson, who contend that GM's multidivisional corporate structure emerged and survived because it was more efficient than alternative forms of organization. This book illustrates that for most of its history, GM intentionally violated the fundamental axioms of efficient organization put forth by these analysts. It did so in order to create cooperation and managerial consent to corporate policies. Freeland uses the GM case to re-examine existing theories of corporate governance, arguing that the decentralized organizational structure advocated by efficiency theorists may actually undermine cooperation, and thus foster organizational decline.

Social Influence Network Theory
  • A Sociological Examination of Small Group Dynamics
  • Noah E. Friedkin, Eugene C. Johnsen
  • Published online:
    03 May 2011
    Print publication:
    18 April 2011
  • Social influence network theory presents a mathematical formalization of the social process of attitude changes that unfolds in a social network of interpersonal influences. This book brings the theory to bear on lines of research in the domain of small group dynamics concerned with changes of group members' positions on an issue, including the formation of consensus and of settled disagreement, via endogenous interpersonal influences, in which group members are responding to the displayed positions of the members of the group. Social influence network theory advances a dynamic social cognition mechanism, in which individuals are weighing and combining their own and others' positions on an issue in the revision of their own positions. The influence network construct of the theory is the social structure of the endogenous interpersonal influences that are involved in this mechanism. With this theory, the authors seek to lay the foundation for a better formal integration of classical and current lines of work on small groups in psychological and sociological social psychology.

Island Networks
  • Communication, Kinship, and Classification Structures in Oceania
  • Per Hage, Frank Harary
  • Published online:
    06 August 2010
    Print publication:
    28 October 1996
  • Contrary to common perception and belief, most island societies of the Pacific were not isolated, but were connected to other island societies by relations of kinship and marriage, trade and tribute, language and history. Using network models from graph theory, the authors analyse the formation of island empires, the social basis of dialect groups, the emergence of economic and political centres, the evolution and devolution of social stratification and the evolution of kinship terminologies, marriage systems and descent groups from common historical prototypes. The book is at once a unique and important contribution to Oceania studies, anthropology and social network analysis.

Interpersonal Networks in Organizations
  • Cognition, Personality, Dynamics, and Culture
  • Martin Kilduff, David Krackhardt
  • Published online:
    24 May 2010
    Print publication:
    01 September 2008
  • This book brings a social networks perspective to bear on topics of leadership, decision-making, turnover, organizational crises, organizational culture, and other major organizational behavior topics. It offers a new direction for organizational behavior theory and research by drawing from social network ideas. Across diverse research topics, the authors pursue an integrated focus on social ties both as they are represented in the cognitions of individuals and as they operate as constraints and opportunities in organizational settings. The authors bring their 20 years worth of research experience together to provide a programmatic social network approach to understanding the internal functioning of organizations. By focusing a distinctive research lens on interpersonal networks, they attempt to discover the keys to the whole realm of organizational behavior through the social network approach.

Japan's Network Economy
  • Structure, Persistence, and Change
  • James R. Lincoln, Michael L. Gerlach
  • Published online:
    05 April 2010
    Print publication:
    16 August 2004
  • Japan's economy has long been described as network-centric. A web of stable, reciprocated relations among banks, firms, and ministries, is thought to play an important role in Japan's ability to navigate smoothly around economic shocks. Now those networks are widely blamed for Japan's faltering competitiveness. This book applies structural sociology to a study of how the form and functioning of this network economy has evolved from the prewar era to the late 90s. It asks whether, in the face of deregulation, globalization, and financial disintermediation, Japan's corporate networks - the keiretsu groupings particularly - have 'withered away', losing their cohesion and their historical function of supporting member firms in hard times. Using detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis, this book's conclusion is a qualified 'yes'. Relationships remain central to the Japanese way of business, but are much more subordinated to the competitive strategy of the enterprise than the network economy of the past.

Governance of the American Economy
  • Edited by John L. Campbell, J. Rogers Hollingsworth, Leon N. Lindberg
  • Published online:
    21 March 2010
    Print publication:
    31 May 1991
  • In this book, nine scholars representing various perspectives examine institutions that govern economic activity in the United States and the dramatic changes they have undergone since the late nineteenth century. They investigate how and why these changes occurred and continue to occur as markets become more volatile, technology changes and international competition becomes more intense. They also address general questions about the governance of capitalist economies by considering several governance mechanisms such as markets, bureaucratic hierarchies, associations and informal networks and by exploring how such mechanisms emerge to coordinate economic activity and affect economic performance. The first part of the book describes the important characteristics of these organisational forms and provides an overview of institutional development in the US economy. The second part includes case studies of the institutional development of eight economic sectors. Finally, based on data from these case studies, the third part of the book tests competing theories of institutional change in capitalism, develops a new evolutionary model of the change process, and offers an original analysis of how the state influences this process.

Intercorporate Relations
  • The Structural Analysis of Business
  • Edited by Mark S. Mizruchi, Michael Schwartz
  • Published online:
    04 February 2010
    Print publication:
    07 January 1988
  • Within the last decade, researchers studying business organizations have come to realize that corporate behaviour cannot be explained in terms of the actions of individual firms alone, and that in order to understand how businesses operate it is necessary to explore the relationships among them. This volume constitutes the first compilation of work by leading international scholars who have adopted a structural approach to the study of business, taking relations among companies as the fundamental unit of analysis, and examining the behaviour of individual firms within that framework. In their introduction to the volume, the editors analyze the historical and intellectual context of this rapidly growing area of research. The essays that follow include position statements by leading spokespersons for the two major structural perspectives on intercorporate relations - the resource dependence and social class views; national studies of the comparative historical development of intercorporate structures in Britain, France and Germany; essays on markets, money, and relations between corporations and cities; analyses of business structures in Europe, Latin America, japan and the US; and a chapter on transnational business relations. The volume as a whole will demonstrate to a broader public the significance and value of a structural approach to business studies, and will appeal to sociologists, organization theorists, business scholars, economists, political scientists, and business historians.

Generalized Blockmodeling
  • Patrick Doreian, Vladimir Batagelj, Anuska Ferligoj
  • Published online:
    13 January 2010
    Print publication:
    08 November 2004
  • This book provides an integrated treatment of blockmodeling, the most frequently used technique in social network analysis. It secures its mathematical foundations and then generalizes blockmodeling for the analysis of many types of network structures. Examples are used throughout the text and include small group structures, little league baseball teams, intra-organizational networks, inter-organizational networks, baboon grooming networks, marriage ties of noble families, trust networks, signed networks, Supreme Court decisions, journal citation networks, and alliance networks. Also provided is an integrated treatment of algebraic and graph theoretic concepts for network analysis and a broad introduction to cluster analysis. These formal ideas are the foundations for the authors' proposal for direct optimizational approaches to blockmodeling which yield blockmodels that best fit the data, a measure of fit that is integral to the establishment of blockmodels, and creates the potential for many generalizations and a deductive use of blockmodeling.

A Structural Theory of Social Influence
  • Noah E. Friedkin
  • Published online:
    23 December 2009
    Print publication:
    13 September 1998
  • This book addresses a phenomenon that has been much studied in anthropology, sociology and administrative science - the social structural foundations of coordinated activity and consensus in complexly differentiated communities and organizations. Such foundations are important because social differentiation makes coordination and agreement especially hard to achieve and maintain. Friedkin focuses on the process of social influence, and on how this process, when it is played out in a network of interpersonal influence, may result in interpersonal agreements among actors who are located in different parts of a complexly differentiated organization. This work builds on structural role analysis which provides a description of the pattern of social differentiation in a population. Interpretation of the revealed social structures has long been a problem. The steps for structural analysis that are proposed in this book are addressed to the above problem. To explain the coordination of social positions, the author pursues the development of a structural social psychology that attends to both social structure and process.

Placing Friendship in Context
  • Edited by Rebecca G. Adams, Graham Allan
  • Published online:
    15 December 2009
    Print publication:
    28 January 1999
  • Personal relationships have long been of central interest to social scientists, but the subject of friendship has been relatively neglected. Moreover, most studies of friendship have been social psychological. Placing Friendship in Context is a unique collection bridging social psychological and social structural research to advance understanding of this important subject. In it, some of the world's leading researchers explore the social and historical contexts in which friendships and other similar informal ties develop and how it is that these contexts shape the form and substance the relationships assume. Together, they demonstrate that friendship cannot be understood from individualistic or dyadic perspectives alone, but is a relationship significantly influenced by the environment in which it is generated. By analysing the ways in which friendships articulate with the social structures in which they are embedded, Placing Friendship in Context redescribes such personal relationships at both the macro and the micro level.

The Logics of Social Structure
  • Kyriakos M. Kontopoulos
  • Published online:
    24 October 2009
    Print publication:
    25 June 1993
  • In this book, the author proposes an interesting approach to the study of one of the most central concepts in social analysis, that of social structure. He provides a critique of the leading models and argues that each is inadequate to the task of explaining the complexity of structures that make up society and the processes by which these structures are formed and are interlinked. A conceptualization of the processes of societal formation is then presented, drawing on developments in the physical, biological and cognitive sciences. This conceptualization allows for the multiplicity of processes of structuration, which the author refers to as logics, some of which function at the individual or 'micro' level, others at the organizational or 'meso' level, and still others at the society-wide, or 'macro' level. The author terms this conceptualization a theory of heterarchy and it is a truly comprehensive theory of societal structuration.

Algebraic Models for Social Networks
  • Philippa Pattison
  • Published online:
    21 October 2009
    Print publication:
    24 September 1993
  • As the analysis of social networks, or networks of interpersonal and social relationships among social groups, has become an increasingly important method of research in several of the social and behavioural sciences, the gathering of network data has outpaced the development of new methods for its analysis. Addressing the need for analytical tools, Philippa Pattison presents a number of algebraic models for the analysis of network data, explaining in the process the rationale for an algebraic approach. Models are developed for both complete networks, meaning those representing the social ties between all pairs of members in a given group, and local networks, meaning those structured around the social ties of one particular group member. Many applications are presented and the ways that these methods can address a number of important issues confronting network analysis are explained.

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