Movement without mobility: Adolescent status hierarchies and the contextual limits of cumulative advantage

This paper develops a theory of interpersonal status hierarchies that builds on and challenges traditional models of cumulative advantage. Cumulative advantage models predict stability in interpersonal status hierarchies, where status is defined by asymmetries in social relationships. According to strict cumulative advantage, initial status differences are exaggerated over time, making upward or downward mobility unlikely. We argue that interpersonal status hierarchies are instead quite fluid, with individuals regularly moving up or down the hierarchy. Individual status gains do not, however, disrupt the status order as the upwardly mobile are often pulled back to their original positions. This drag of the past generates the same long run status outcomes as cumulative advantage models, but through very different means: sustained upward mobility is rare because the upwardly mobile fail to maintain their status gains, and not because initial gains are impossible. More generally, the effect of the past limits sustained mobility in most, but not all, status hierarchies, and we expect sustained mobility where ties are stable and the expectations for reciprocity are low. We test our model using longitudinal data on adolescents, finding strong support for the theory. We end the paper with a reflexive discussion about measurement error, hypothesis testing, and “messy” longitudinal network data.     

The structure of online social networks mirrors those in the offline world

We use data on frequencies of bi-directional posts to define edges (or relationships) in two Facebook datasets and a Twitter dataset and use these to create ego-centric social networks. We explore the internal structure of these networks to determine whether they have the same kind of layered structure as has been found in offline face-to-face networks (which have a distinctively scaled structure with successively inclusive layers at 5, 15, 50 and 150 alters). The two Facebook datasets are best described by a four-layer structure and the Twitter dataset by a five-layer structure. The absolute sizes of these layers and the mean frequencies of contact with alters within each layer match very closely the observed values from offline networks. In addition, all three datasets reveal the existence of an innermost network layer at ∼1.5 alters. Our analyses thus confirm the existence of the layered structure of ego-centric social networks with a very much larger sample (in total, >185,000 egos) than those previously used to describe them, as well as identifying the existence of an additional network layer whose existence was only hypothesised in offline social networks. In addition, our analyses indicate that online communities have very similar structural characteristics to offline face-to-face networks.     

Migrant Children,Social Capital and Access to Services Post‐Migration: Transitions,Negotiations and Complex Agencies

For migrant children, moving to a new country is marked by excitement, anxiety and practical challenges in managing this significant transition. This paper draws upon the concepts of social capital and social networks to examine migrant children's access to services post‐migration. Using data from a qualitative study with Eastern European families in Scotland, we identify a range of cumulative barriers that limit children's access to services and illustrate how their experiences are shaped by ethnicity, social class and place. The study shows that migrant children are often disadvantaged post‐migration and develop their own mechanisms to mitigate the impact of migration on their lives. We argue that migrant children's own social networks are relevant and they need to be analysed through a more individualised approach.     

自组织、创新网络和路径创造

基于自组织理论,本文认为复杂的自组织创新网络是对以前简单的、等级的组织结构和过程,面对复杂技术的创新无能为力的一种反映。技术创新是一个自组织进化的过程,网络和复杂性技术共同进化,复杂性技术导致技术创新的自组织进化,从而导致自组织创新网络的产生、发展和演化,自组织创新网络的不断演化,形成了路径创造的各种方法和工具。最终使得技术创新产生根本性创新或者技术创新范式的变化。     

集群内合作网络构建中的政府作用：欧洲经验

产业集群是区域竞争力的主要载体,而集群内企业合作网络建设是产业集群持续发展的关键要素,政府在其中扮演着重要的推动力量.文章梳理了欧洲各国政府在支持集群合作网络建设方面的主要政策措施,并以奥地利上奥州为例,详细考察了政府在集群内企业合作网络构建中的角色定位、政策重点和采取的具体工具,最后通过总结欧洲国家的经验,为中国地方政府更好地发展产业集群提供有益的借鉴.     

宗族网络与传统手工技艺保护——闽南永春漆篮技艺调查

传统手工技艺保护作为一项正式制度已得到了国家的推行,而宗族网络能够发挥非正式制度的有效功能,执行规范约束能力,降低正式制度的执行成本,提高管理效率,促进传统手工技艺的保护。通过对闽南永春漆篮技艺的调查,分析传统手工技艺保护与宗族网络的关系,揭示村庄精英如何利用宗族网络的力量动员相关人士参与传统手工技艺保护,体现正式制度与非正式制度的融合。     

‘The confidence to know I can survive’: resilience and recovery in post-quake Christchurch

This paper explores the relevance of terms such as resilience and recovery when analysing earthquake stories recorded for the Women's Voices/Ngā Reo o Ngā Wahine Project after the sequence of earthquakes and aftershocks in Christchurch, New Zealand's second-largest city, in 2010–2011. While the media focused on stories of victims, the heroic work of rescue teams, policy, army and firefighters, or the deliberations of national and local politicians, the National Council of Women of New Zealand wanted to ensure that women's everyday quake experiences were recorded for posterity. The outcome was an oral history project that documented the stories of women all over the city, both beneficiaries of earthquake support and those active in assisting others. Their narratives illustrate how resilience in the face of natural hazard events, such as this earthquake sequence, requires effort, ingenuity and imagination, but also the activation of multiple actor networks and relevant technologies. These ‘insider stories’ also highlight the ways in which expectations of ‘resilience’ can obscure vulnerability after natural hazard events and the complex and uneven processes associated with ‘recovery’. The relevance of critical reflections on discourses of resilience is explored through attention to the stories of specific women.     

Network effects on organizational decision-making: Blended social mechanisms and IPO withdrawal

This paper develops a new approach to the study of network effects in organizations and markets by proposing that structural influences on social and economic action result from contingent blends of well-understood social mechanisms. We emphasize the interplay of three different network processes: resource and information transfer, status signaling and certification, and social influence. Different mixes of these mechanisms characterize disparate networks because the obligations imposed by ties and the capacities of partners result in situations where mechanisms amplify or diminish one another. We test hypotheses about mechanism interactions using four years (1997–2000) of data on high-technology IPOs that situate organizational decisions about whether to withdraw an offering in two distinct networks. We find that network mechanisms exert multiple moderating effects on one another and that those effects vary systematically across venture capital syndicate and director interlock networks. These findings help to explain why different networks exert disparate effects, why the effects of some structures change as their larger contexts shift, and why even very successful organizations can sometimes find themselves hamstrung by their connections.     

Local Experts in the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies

Research into the adoption and use of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) pays increasing attention to social context; however, the social fabric of contexts of use is often poorly theorized. This paper presents an investigation into the formation and operation of informal local networks of collaboration and knowledge exchange. It highlights the role of local experts in sustaining these informal networks and helping individuals and groups adopt and cope with new ICTs. The paper draws on a range of analytic traditions, including domestication and consumer research, to assess how local experts transfer knowledge, ideas of use and even new technologies across social networks and across the boundaries between home, work and education and other domains of life. The methodology deployed attempts to overcome the limitations of many studies of the adoption and diffusion of innovations in sample selection, especially the inclusion of non-adopters. It addresses the social dynamics of engagement with new technologies and proposes a move beyond a simple individualistic adopter/non-adopter model, with consequent implications for understanding digital inclusion and exclusion.     

Dynamic exchange networks

Considering the theoretical and empirical untenability of static exchange networks, researchers have asked how exchange outcomes change when links are added or deleted. The present paper assesses the validity of seemingly sensible propositions concerning the effects of adding and deleting a link on (i) the payoffs of the actors in the link, (ii) the payoffs of actors in neighboring links and (iii) the variance of payoffs in the exchange network. The propositions were examined by applying expected value theory (EVT) to all 13,597 networks up to size 8. All propositions were falsified. Some falsifications of propositions could be attributed to EVTs prediction that actors use sub-optimal exchange relations. Since other well-known theories of exchange, like power-dependence theory and network exchange theory, also predict that actors use sub-optimal relations, these results are robust to selection of the theory of exchange.