The Power of Networks: A Pre-Requisite to Social Network Analysis

Abstract

Social network analysis has attained significant attention in recent times. It is a contemporary data driven technique which maps and measures social structures using network and graph theory for people analytics. A pre-requisite to social network analysis is to explore the network genesis and its evolution. Most of the social network studies in the past have focused primarily on the impact of social networks on employees but none of the studies have identified the reasons why do employees bond with specific network members in the first place and what are the different types of workplace social networks. For this reason we wanted to conduct a systematic literature review for identifying the reasons why specific workplace social networks exists, classify different types of workplace networks and highlight network ties which are beneficial for achieving organizational goals. By employing social network theory, this study investigates the intra-organizational networks of corporate business environment. Multiple databases were used to extract relevant papers for this review such as Science Direct, IEEE Xplore, Scopus and Web of Science databases and Directory of Open Access Journals. Some of the major trends identified from the 48 past papers included in this review are: (1) different types of workplace social networks are created based on specific employee interdependency; (2) strong and weak ties both are beneficial for fast information diffusion; (3) negative ties have a stronger impact on organizational outcomes then positive ties. This review will provide a new broader conceptualization of social networks and its influence on employees.