LATEST NEWS (last update: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 20:55 )

In reaction to two emails on what is part of the exam: see the "Exam material" part below. The wording was perhaps not very clear. Now it is.

This is the accompanying website for the courses:

The Network Society (0em15, 6 ects)

Innovations in networks and alliance management (0zm05, 5 ects)

Social entrepreneurship (0a150, 3 ects).

first semester 2011/2012

course lecturers: Uwe Matzat, Rudi Bekkers, Gerrit Rooks (0a150 mainly) Chris Snijders (+coordination)

In this course we consider the theory and empirics of innovation and technological change from a network perspective. In what kind of networks can innovation and technological change prosper? The course considers how networks, including personal networks, can hamper or facilitate innovation and technological change, focusing primarily at the meso- and micro level. Innovation processes as well as knowledge and technology spillovers are driven by the interactions between actors such as producers, suppliers, customers, knowledge institutes, and are constrained by institutional arrangements and market structures. Over time, networks between these actors evolve. The shape and structure of these networks affect the ease with which innovation processes and technology spillovers occur and develop.

In this sense, it is not only the characteristics of the actors themselves that drive innovation and technology spillover, but also the way in which the ties between these actors are shaped. The course covers the theories explaining the general effects of networks and applies the theories to several empirical examples, with an emphasis on business networks.

The course follows the schedule outlined below and consists of assignments and an exam at the end. We have tried to be as accurate as possible in the schedule below but some changes might occur based on how the course is evolving along the way.

Literature

Papers, slides and lecture notes as supplied on this page and (occasionally, although we will try to keep this to a minimum) during lectures.

Grading

Assignment(s) and a written exam, weighed 50% (average of assignments) + 50% (exam). The minimum for each separate assignment and the exam must be at least a 4.0.

Being there

Your attendance, attention, and active participation during lectures is much appreciated, and counted on. The material that is being discussed during the lectures is exam material even if not provided on this site.

Please note: presence at the lectures for 0a150 students is mandatory.

Exam material The exam material consists of all the literature, slides, and the lecture content, except for the papers explicitly marked "extra". So papers that belong to the assignments are also exam material. The exam is paper-and-pencil, no laptop.

The exam itself will be different for 0em15 vs 0zm05 vs 0a150.

Both 0zm05 and 0em15 have assignments and a written exam. The 0em15 course has an extra assignment, as indicated in the course schedule below. Both 0zm05 and 0em15 have the same exam material though, and that includes the papers on patents that accompanied Bekkers' lectures.

The exam: the first part of the exam will be multiple choice, about 15-20 questions. The second part will be open questions. Part of the open questions can be that you have to manually calculate some network measures on a smaller network (not the hugely complicated network measures, of course). You have 1,5 hour for the exam which we know from experience is usually more than enough.

The 0a150 course has a separate workshop part and no exam, just assignments, but attendance is mandatory for the lectures for the 0a150 students.

Any questions? Give me (CS) an email

Study guide

The table below shows you, on a weekly basis, what you are supposed to do.

LECTURE

FOR

DATE

If you have not done so, register in Studyweb!

slides

Bookmark the site by Hanneman, and download his "Introduction to social network methods" (download the pdf version). We will not study all chapters in detail, but it provides a useful general background. Read chapters 1-3.

Extra: The link to the 2 minute tutorial

Extra: Lots of stuff about social networks at the International Network of Social Network Analysis, including a comprehensive overview of books on Social Network Analysis.

Extra: the article in Wired that I showed during the lecture.

Try out Christakis' talk on (among others) the obesity data

slides

read (available through the library or Google Scholar):

Granovetter, M. S., "The Strength of Weak Ties" American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360-1980 (1973). [try here]

slides

Read:

Hanneman (2005) "Introduction to social network methods":

• Chapter 6
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10: intro, degree centrality, closeness centrality, summary
• Chapter 11: intro, cliques, n-cliques, n-clans, summary.

Download:

-an example data set: talk01.dl

-the software Ucinet and try it out with the data: import the data, analyse it (structural holes, density, centrality, cliques, etc). Visualize the data set with NetDraw which is part of Ucinet.

-Play around with the data! We expect you to be able to use Ucinet for the assignments. That is, you should be able to do the following with Ucinet:

...to import data
...to conduct data analyses
...to understand and interprete the results
...to export parts of the output into SPSS

_______

Extra (not mandatory): More about the collection of (ego-centered) network data via web surveys (paper).

slides

Many of the issues dealt with in class can be read back in the 2003 paper by Wang & Chen. 

Read the following papers (and understand the main message) on small world networks:

* Travers and Milgram (1969) An experimental study of the small world problem. Sociometry, 32, 4:425-443.

* Watts and Strogatz (1998) Collective dynamics of small-world networks. Nature, vol 393, 440-442.

* Dodds, Muhamad, Watts (2003) An experimental study of search in global social networks. Science, 301, 827-828. DOI: 10.1126/science.1081058 (when you are interested, have a look at Dodds' technical supplement as well).

Extra

Think about applications of small world networks to innovation and alliance networks. One such application (more complicated than you need to do actually), is a paper by Hidalgo (=extra material):

Hidalgo (2007) The product space conditions the development of nations. Science 317, 482. DOI 10.1126/science.1144581

Have a look at  Wikipedia on Small worlds.

If you want to run the network simulation as in this lecture, download NetLogo (choose "Networks" in the models-library)

Intro business networks

Assignment 1

slides on personal and business networks

Required reading:

Dyer & Nobeoka. Creating and managing a high performance knowledge-sharing network: the Toyota case. Strategic Management Journal, Vol 21: 345-367

Ahuja. Collaboration networks, structural holes, and innovation: A longitudinal study. Administrative Science Quarterly; Sep 2000; 45, 3, pg. 425

Hite & Hesterly. The Evolution of Firm Networks: From Emergence to Early Growth of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Mar., 2001), pp. 275-286

- - -

Assignment 1: One big zip with the slides, the first assignment, and the data that you need to use for this assignment. Oops - and the Burt paper that is mentioned in the assignment.

NO CLASS

workshop

Your personal network (I)

Interesting stuff: take 18 minutes and watch Nicholas Christakes on social networks (TED talk).

[Deadline assignment 1: NOVEMBER 4]

workshop

Your personal network (II)

First hour: (feedback on 1st assignment)

Second hour:

0ZM05 and 0EM15 will get their second assignment

RB

The lecture series continues: check your mail for the material that Rudi Bekkers sent you (links to) three papers that you should read:

Bekkers & Martinelli 2011

Fontana etal 2009

Hummon & Doreian 1989

Assignment 3 for 0em15 (deadline to be announced).

[deadline assignment 2]