A network centrality bias: Central individuals in workplace networks have more supportive coworkers

Combining the results of two empirical studies, we investigate the role of alters’ motivation in explaining change in ego’s network position over time. People high in communal motives, who are prone to supportive and altruistic behavior in their interactions with others as a way to gain social acceptance, prefer to establish ties with co-workers occupying central positions in organizational social networks. This effect results in a systematic network centrality bias: The personal network of central individuals (individuals with many incoming ties from colleagues) is more likely to contain more supportive and altruistic people than the personal network of individuals who are less central (individuals with fewer incoming ties). This result opens the door to the possibility that the effects of centrality so frequently documented in empirical studies may be due, at least in part, to characteristics of the alters in an ego’s personal community, rather than to egos themselves. Our findings invite further empirical research on how alters’ motives affect the returns that people can reap from their personal networks in organizations.     

试析新媒介环境下的网络问政

网络问政已经成为政府执政的重要补充方式,且作用日益显著。本文界定了网络问政的内涵,分析了网络问政的三种主要形式,并进而对政务微博的发展概况和运用中的关系把握做了尝试性探讨。     

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.     

Structural holes and managerial performance: Identifying the underlying mechanisms

Structural holes theory suggests a variety of possible explanations for the empirically observed relationship between structural holes and individual managerial performance. However, little has been done to disentangle one mechanism from another. This paper empirically tests a mediated moderation model that distinguishes between the five different theoretical mechanisms: autonomy, competition, information brokering, opportunity recognition and innovativeness. The findings suggest that of these five theoretical causal motors, innovativeness plays a key role in linking network structure and network content to performance.     

网络新闻道德失范问题研究

伴随着互联网技术的不断发展,网络新闻以其独有的传播方式,逐渐改变着传统媒体的传播格局,并且也由此逐渐产生了侵权与虚假新闻等网络新闻道德失范方面的问题,这些问题阻碍了网络新闻的健康发展。针对网络新闻道德失范中存在的具体问题,在对其原因进行充分分析的基础之上,提出了有实效性的应对策略,以期推动网络新闻道德建设不断向前发展。     

Reinforced structural holes

Holes in social structure are variably reinforced by the social organization around the hole. The more reinforced the hole, the greater the difficulty in bridging it, but the more likely a successful bridge will carry information novel, and so potentially valuable, to people on the other side. To study how reinforcement varies with access to structural holes, and the achievement associated with access, I propose a measure of access to reinforced structural holes (RSH), and present results predicting achievement in an integrated banker organization and a balkanized supply-chain organization. In both study populations, the people who have access to structural holes also have access to reinforced structural holes, and all measures of access have a statistically significant association with achievement. However, there is no consistent prediction advantage from incorporating reinforcement in measures of access to structural holes. The reinforced-holes measure predicts compensation better or as well as network constraint and betweenness, but is weaker or no better than a count of nonredundant contacts. I do not infer from the results a rank-order of alternative measures so much as substitutability. I expect achievement to be associated with access to structural holes, but I expect the association to vary across alternative measures depending on how achievement is achieved in a specific population.     

Spatial effects on individual social capital: Differentiating the constraints of local occupational structures

Recent studies have paid more attention to how position-generated social capital varies by an individual’s characteristics, and less to how geographical distributions of occupations may constrain position-specific connections. By integrating two national surveys from the United States, we differentiate the extent to which individual social capital fluctuates by occupational compositions at the county, metropolis, and state levels. Multilevel analyses show that when more people at all three levels work in education, training, and library occupations, residents have a greater chance to gain access to professional-type resources. Similar spatial effects on farming and production resources, however, are more apparent at the county level. Not only does the association between individual social capital and local occupational structures vary across different occupations, but the magnitude of such spatial effects also differs by the scope of the geographical areas. The findings underscore how contextual factors and geographical location may contribute to building occupation-specific network resources.     

From “an open field” to established “waves”: Public relations scholarship through the lens of Public Relations Review

Public Relations Review is the oldest academic journal of public relations, celebrating its 45th year in 2020. This research analyzes the journal through a bibliometric census and co-citation analysis of every article in its history. Initial findings were shared with 17 senior scholars, who provided their insights on the history of the journal and its impact on the growth of the discipline. The interviews produced multiple themes regarding the impact of the journal and the evolution of research. Findings from the mixed-methods analysis include that research in the journal has grown exponentially and become more cohesive over time, that Public Relations Review has been a responsive vehicle for scholarly growth, that a wide variety of economic incentives have driven the agendas of the journal (and of researchers), and that fostering healthy disagreement among researchers is among the next steps forward for the discipline.     

基于局部社团结构平衡的双模符号网络链路预测研究

随着互联网产业的高速发展,双模符号网络已经成为一类常见的复杂网络,然而针对此 类网络的分析较少。本文在传统非符号网络局部社团理论和符号网络结构平衡理论的基础上,首次提出了双模符号网络下的局部社团理论。这一理论不仅考虑了符号网络中共同邻居的信息,还引入了共同邻居间存在的连接。进一步地,本文推导出符号网络中基于局部社团信息的加权平衡回路增益指数,该指标可以表示双模符号网络中用户节点和产品节点间的符号关系。为了将该指标更好地应用于双模 符号网络链路预测问题,本文提出了加权平衡回路增益分类器算法。实验结果表明,相比其他经典链路预测算法,新算法具有更好的预测能力。