The Swiss StudentLife Study: Investigating the emergence of an undergraduate community through dynamic,multidimensional social network data

The Swiss StudentLife Study (SSL Study) is a longitudinal social network data collection conducted in three undergraduate student cohorts (N₁ = 226, N₂ = 261, N₃ = 660) in 2016−2019. The main goal of the study was to understand the emergence of informal student communities and their effects on different individual outcomes, such as well-being, motivation, and academic success. To this end, multiple dimensions of social ties were assessed, combining computer-based surveys, social sensors, social media data, and field experiments. The dynamics of these social networks were measured on various time scales. In this paper, we present the design and data collection strategy of the SSL Study. We discuss practical challenges and solutions related to the data collection in four areas that were key to the success of our project: study design, research ethics, communication, and population definition.     

The potential of online social networking data for augmenting the study of high-risk personal networks among young men who have sex with men at-risk for HIV

Capturing dynamics in high-risk personal networks is essential for preventing HIV transmission. Online social networking data offer incentive to augment traditional selfreported approaches for network enumeration. To explore what online networks reveal about dynamics among high-risk associates, we examine the relationship between egocentric confidant and sex networks and personal Facebook friendship networks of a cohort of young Black men who have sex with men. Although overlap exists between self-reported and Facebook associates, the stabilities of each were unrelated. Confidants who were also Facebook friends with a respondent were, however, more likely to be retained. Thus, Facebook networks contain stable confidants.     

In transit: Changing social networks of sub-Saharan African migrants in Turkey and Greece

Research on the role of social networks in human migration has mainly relied on single snapshots in time. This paper focuses on the changes in composition and usage of the transnational networks of migrants and why these changes occur. It is based on ethnography and network analysis with forty sub-Saharan African migrants in two transit contexts: Turkey and Greece, over a 17-month period. Findings show that relationship preferences, resources and communication infrastructures constitute an individual opportunity infrastructure affecting how critical events produce network changes. This process is ongoing through the continued experience of critical events, suggesting that the role of networks fluctuates over time.     

Neighborhood conditions and social network turnover among older adults

Increasing research highlights heterogeneity in patterns of social network change, with growing evidence that these patterns are shaped in part by social structure. The role of social and structural neighborhood conditions in the addition and loss of kin and non-kin network members, however, has not been fully considered. In this paper, we argue that the residential neighborhood context can either facilitate or prevent the turnover of core network relationships in later life – a period of the life course characterized by heightened reliance on network ties and vulnerability to neighborhood conditions. Using longitudinal data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project linked with data from the American Community Survey, we find that higher levels of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage are associated with the loss of older adults’ kin and non-kin network members over time. Higher levels of perceived neighborhood social interaction, however, are associated with higher rates of adding non-kin network members and lower rates of adding kin network members over time. We suggest that neighborhood conditions, including older adults’ perceptions of neighborhood social life, represent an underexplored influence on kin and non-kin social network dynamics, which could have implications for access to social resources later in the life course.     

Network cohesion and social support

This article analyses the effects of personal network cohesion on different types of social support using two dimensions of cohesion: network closure (defined as a tightly knit set of actors around the ego) and cliquishness (defined as the extent to which an actor is connected with a number of cohesive sub-sets of alters). Data were obtained from a personal networks’ survey conducted in Catalonia (Spain), which was completed by 441 adults and gathered information about exchange of social support in networks made of 30 alters. A multilevel analysis disentangles the effects on support of these two structural dimensions at the network-level from compositional effects at the network and tie-level. The results show that network closure does not play a relevant role in support once confounders at the network and tie levels are controlled for. However, cliquishness has a significant association with labor-related support and housing support, net of statistical controls. Implications of these results in network research are discussed.     

Ethnic segregation of friendship networks in school: Testing a rational-choice argument of differences in ethnic homophily between classroom- and grade-level networks

Adolescents’ school-based friendship networks tend to be segregated along ethnic lines. But few studies have examined whether variation in network boundaries affects the degree of ethnic friendship segregation. We use rational-choice theory to argue that ethnic homophily is more pronounced for friendships between classrooms than for those within classrooms. We empirically test this hypothesis using two-wave German panel data (N = 1258) and stochastic actor-oriented models (RSiena). In line with our theoretical argument, we find that the tendency to form same-ethnic friendships is indeed stronger at the grade level, which translates into stronger ethnic segregation in friendship networks at the grade level than at the classroom level. Implications for research on ethnic segregation in school-based friendship networks are discussed.     

Network sampling coverage II: The effect of non-random missing data on network measurement

Missing data is an important, but often ignored, aspect of a network study. Measurement validity is affected by missing data, but the level of bias can be difficult to gauge. Here, we describe the effect of missing data on network measurement across widely different circumstances. In Part I of this study (Smith and Moody, 2013), we explored the effect of measurement bias due to randomly missing nodes. Here, we drop the assumption that data are missing at random: what happens to estimates of key network statistics when central nodes are more/less likely to be missing? We answer this question using a wide range of empirical networks and network measures. We find that bias is worse when more central nodes are missing. With respect to network measures, Bonacich centrality is highly sensitive to the loss of central nodes, while closeness centrality is not; distance and bicomponent size are more affected than triad summary measures and behavioral homophily is more robust than degree-homophily. With respect to types of networks, larger, directed networks tend to be more robust, but the relation is weak. We end the paper with a practical application, showing how researchers can use our results (translated into a publically available java application) to gauge the bias in their own data.     

Confidentiality,power relations and evaluation of potential harm in the study of the personal and organizational networks of travel agents in Moscow

Network research in organizational contexts faces ethical challenges related to revealing the identity of participants, managing power relations, and managing the interests and potential harms of the different stakeholders. In this article, we review the ethical issues associated with the investigation of the personal and organizational networks of travel agents in Moscow. In our case study, we interviewed 32 tourism agents from Moscow and its region, obtaining information on 45 people with whom they have regular relation as part of their work; and relational data, with a 2-mode matrix, on 15 organizations with which the agency could be linked in the Russian-Andalusian tourism market. Our results highlight the utility of presenting the information of personal networks in an aggregate manner. It also demonstrates the value of cultural adaptation strategies and adjustment to the characteristics of the community. Moreover, the central role of power relations in organizations, within a cultural context with a greater distance to authority was also found.     

Improving performance evaluation based on balanced scorecard with grey relational analysis and data envelopment analysis approaches: Case study in water and wastewater companies

Various approaches are used to measure the firms’ performance. Grey relational analysis is one of the multiple attribute decision-making methods and data envelopment analysis is used to calculate the efficiency. Regarding the importance of water and wastewater companies’ services, the present study, evaluates the performance and rank these companies by using grey relational analysis and data envelopment analysis approaches based on balanced scorecard criteria. Besides, balanced scorecard considers all levels of organization. In this research, statistical population includes thirty-five municipal water and wastewater companies in Iran for the year 2017. In order to ascertain grey relational grade, fuzzy normalization method was used then by subtracting normalized numbers from one, reference sequences obtained and in the next step, grey relational coefficient was calculated and finally, grey relational grade was determined by multiplying relative weight from Shannon entropy to relational coefficients. In order to assess companies’ efficiency in data envelopment analysis, after ascertaining input and output indices, with the assumption of constant returns to scale and output-oriented viewpoint, the efficiency scores were calculated. Also, to rank efficient units Anderson-Petersen model implemented. Results demonstrated that, grey relational analysis is a more accurate method to measure the performance of water and wastewater companies.     

Moral bureaucracies and social network research

In the wake of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), research ethics governance does not just affect the ethical dimensions of social research but also the range of scientific decisions available to researchers. Because of the sensitive status of personal data and the aversion to even minimal risk by what we call “moral bureaucracies”, we are concerned that social network researchers will increasingly limit their research decisions to “safe” options, like reusing anonymized datasets, choosing target populations based on convenience rather than theoretical relevance, and routinely subcontracting fieldwork to professional data collection companies, among others. We also suggest that scientific associations and social scientists in general need to adopt a proactive role in preserving both scientific freedom and genuine ethics advice within this new regulatory framework.     

Double-embeddedness: Spatial and relational contexts of tie persistence and re-formation

Personal relationships are embedded in both spatial and relational contexts. Using data on 60 intentional communities from the Urban Communes Data Set, we examine how such embedding is related to the persistence and re-formation of close personal ties over a thirteen year period, beginning from when most members had been out of their group environments more than a decade. We find that local network structure—the pattern of dyads immediately surrounding any dyad—is extremely weighty in which ties persist, which lapse, and which are re-initiated, but that the precise ways in which local structure affects contact are bound up with the distance between dyad members. We also find asymmetries in these processes that other studies have been unable to uncover—that processes that lead ties to be dropped are not the same as those that lead them to be renewed; that increases in local embeddedness are not opposite of decreases; that change in contact is not the same as change in friendship. Finally, there is evidence of hierarchical effects influencing the retention of friendships more than twenty-five years after most respondents left their groups.     

Identifying regular blocks in valued networks: A heuristic applied to the St. Marks carbon flow data,and international trade in cereal products

While the concept of regular equivalence is equally applicable to dichotomous as well as valued networks, the identification of regular blocks in regular blockmodels is somewhat problematic when dealing with valued networks. Applying the standard procedure for identifying ties in such blockmodels, a procedure perhaps most suited for dichotomous networks, does tend to generate block images and reduced graphs that differ from intuitive notions of such structures.     

Social capital and the added value of social relations

Almost all empirical research reveals that social capital is a factor that enhances public goods, but scholars are divided into two strands of thought. According to the first strand, the enhancement of public goods does not need any network of social relations, while, according to the second, enhancement depends on the existence and good functioning of relational networks, to the point that it consists in the creation of social networks. Which one is right? In order to clarify the issue, one should ask: can a social relation have any added social value? If so, how can we conceive of the added social value of social relations, and how can we measure it? The author claims that the added social value of social relations can be observed in those processes through which social capital and public (relational) goods (re)generate or elide each other. These processes can be analyzed as morphogenetic cycles that work in temporal sequences and are not circular or recursive. By adopting this perspective, we can see and measure the added social value of social relations in primary and secondary networks, leading to the emergence of public goods. The relational approach can give abundant evidence as to how and why different public goods are produced and/or enhanced depending on the different added social value of the social relations that constitute them.     

Social learning about levels of perinatal and infant mortality in Niakhar,Senegal

How individuals develop perceptions concerning the risk of infant and child mortality has important consequences for fertility and demographic transition theory and for understanding broader processes of social learning. The role of learning through social interaction in shaping demographic phenomena has been the subject of intense research in the last decade. Much previous research however has been hampered by inadequate measures of individuals’ personal networks, the proximal context in which learning takes place. Using pilot data employing an innovative social network design in conjunction with demographic surveillance data from Niakhar, Senegal, this research models perception of change in the level of infant mortality over time as a function of the experience of social network associates with perinatal and infant mortality. Results suggest relatively strong effects of network members’ mortality experience controlling for own experiences of child mortality as well as neighborhood and community levels of infant mortality among other controls.     

The powerful relational language of ‘family’: togetherness,belonging and personhood

This article examines the notion of ‘family’ to consider how it may be understood in people's everyday lives. Certain recurrent and powerful motifs are apparent, notably themes of togetherness and belonging, in the context of a unit that the person can be ‘part of’. At the same time, there may be important variations in the meanings given to individuality and family, evoking differing understandings of the self and personhood. I consider these ideas further through globally relevant but variable cultural themes of autonomy and relationality, suggesting the term ‘social person’ as a heuristic device to distinguish the sense of ‘close‐knit selves’ that may be involved in some understandings of personhood. I argue that this version of personhood may be powerfully expressed through ‘family’ meanings, with a significance which can be at least provisionally mapped along lines of inequality and disadvantage within and between societies around the world. These forms of connectedness may be hard to grasp through those theoretical and methodological frameworks which emphasize the (relational) individual. I argue that, in affluent English speaking societies, ¹ there may be little alternative to the language of ‘family’ for expressing such forms of relationality and connection.     

Networks of action and events over time. A multilevel discrete-time event history model for longitudinal network data

Longitudinal network data recording the moment at which ties appear, change, or disappear are increasingly available. Event history models can be used to analyze the dynamics of time-stamped network data. This paper adapts the discrete-time event history model to social network data. A discrete-time event history model can easily incorporate a multilevel design and time-varying covariates. A multilevel design is needed to account for dependencies among ties and vertices, which should not be ignored in a small longitudinal network. Time-varying covariates are required to analyze network effects, that is, the impact of previous ties. In addition, a discrete-time event history model handles constraints on who can act or who can be acted upon in a straightforward way. The model can be estimated with multilevel logistic regression analysis, which is illustrated by an application to book reviews, so network evolution can be analyzed with a fairly standard statistical tool.     

The duality of firms and directors in board interlock networks: A relational event modeling approach

The long tradition of scholarly work on corporate interlocks has left us with competing theoretical frameworks on the causes of interlock networks. Board interlocks are studied either as means to overcome the resource dependence of corporations or as a group cohesion mechanism of business elites. This contrast is due to an empirical divide of the literature where either the firms or the individuals are considered as decision-making bodies. In systematically ignoring the agency of the other group of actors, these literatures suffer from both theoretical and empirical biases in understanding the drivers of new interlocks. In this paper, we employ a relational event modeling technique that allows us to overcome this problem. The analysis of board appointments in Denmark demonstrates how in fact both personal and corporate considerations simultaneously drive the evolution of the corporate networks. The study of the duality of actors is essential for understanding the causes and consequences of corporate networks across time and space.     

The development of stratification and segregation in a new scientific field: A study of collaboration among scientists in neuroblastoma research between 1975 and 2016

Using a new data set on scientific collaboration in neuroblastoma research over a period of 41 years, we study how the structure of collaboration ties in an evolving scientific field changes over time. Guided by concepts from the sociology of knowledge and status theories, we highlight the importance of a field’s size and age for processes of stratification and segregation within it. Our findings suggest that stratification becomes stronger and diversifies as the field of neuroblastoma research expands. Moreover, we find that the occurrence of collaboration between researchers with a similar status becomes more likely as the field matures. While previous work has primarily examined established fields, our study focuses on how scientific fields change their structure over time. More broadly, our article demonstrates the potential analytical merits of adopting a dynamic and relational perspective on the developmental trajectories of organizational and cultural fields.     

Staying connected under fire: Effects of individual roles and organizational specialization on the robustness of emergency-phase communication networks

Communication network connectivity is central to organizational performance, but maintaining connectivity can be difficult during periods of disruption. During the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster of September 11th, 2001, both emergency response-specialized organizations and organizations without such specialization forcibly adapted to a radically altered environment. Their dynamic communication networks necessarily entailed trade-offs between competing demands for efficiency and robustness to disruption. Of particular importance is whether organizations concentrated activity within a small number of “hub” nodes, and whether those with existing coordinative roles were critical to maintaining connectivity. We examine these questions by analyzing seventeen organizational communication networks in the WTC disaster. We find that organizations maintain connectivity through relatively small numbers of coordinators, but the realization of institutionalized coordinative roles depends upon organizational context. Further, we find distinct patterns of robustness, with the removal of key players leading to mass isolation in specialist networks versus a gradual pattern of failure in non-specialist networks. These results suggest that organizations responding to disruptions within their usual domain of operations will be more likely to retain institutionalized roles when building emergent networks, although this increases the network's fragility in the event of the loss of one of those coordinators. Organizations responding to novel threats may reconfigure more radically, limiting vulnerability to the loss of institutionalized—but not emergent—coordinators.