Social Network Research in Strategy and Organization: A Typology

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to systematize what has been published in the field of social network research applied to strategy and organization. The main goal is to identify the dimensions along which social network studies vary. However, the terminological and conceptual confusion, together with the increase in the volume of social network research, makes such studies not easily accessible. Thus, in order to map and assess the existing intellectual territory, the paper aims at synthesizing scientific articles on network research in a systematic and reproducible manner through the adoption of a complex data analysis approach, content analysis in conjunction with multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. Articles are classified according to dimensions extracted with multiple correspondence analysis, then a typology of network studies is created. Considering together the research streams emerged from this typology could be interpreted as specific dimensions of the more general research stream of social capital. In other words, social capital seems to be the very trait of union among social network studies in strategic and organizational research.

Keywords: social networks, social capital, multiple correspondence analysis, content analysis, cluster analysis