Anita Zbieg

Heuristic for Network Coverage Optimization Applied in Finding Organizational Change Agents

Authors compare different ways of selecting change agents within network analysis paradigm and propose a new algorithm of doing so. All methods are evaluated against network coverage measure that calculates how many network members can be directly reached by selected nodes. Results from the analysis of organizational network show that compared to other methods the proposed algorithm provides better network coverage, at the same time selecting change agents that are well connected, influential opinion leaders.

Studying Diffusion of Viral Content at Dyadic Level

Diffusion of information and viral content, social contagion and influence are still topics of broad evaluation. As theory explaining the role of influentials moves slightly to reduce their importance in the propagation of viral content, authors of the following paper have studied the information epidemic in a social networking platform in order to confirm recent theoretical findings in this area. While most of related experiments focus on the level of individuals, the elementary entities of the following analysis are dyads. The authors study behavioral motifs that are possible to observe at the dyadic level. The study shows significant differences between dyads that are more vs less engaged in the diffusion process. Dyads that fuel the diffusion process are characterized by stronger relationships (higher activity, more common friends), more active and networked receiving party (higher centrality measures), and higher authority centrality of person sending a viral message.

Studying paths of participation in viral diffusion process

Authors propose a conceptual model of participation in viral diffusion process composed of four stages: awareness, infection, engagement and action. To verify the model it has been applied and studied in the virtual social chat environment settings. The study investigates the behavioral paths of actions that reflect the stages of participation in the diffusion and presents shortcuts, that lead to the final action, i.e. the attendance in a virtual event. The results show that the participation in each stage of the process increases the probability of reaching the final action. Nevertheless, the majority of users involved in the virtual event did not go through each stage of the process but followed the shortcuts. That suggests that the viral diffusion process is not necessarily a linear sequence of human actions but rather a dynamic system.

Polska adaptacja testu Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) – TIPI-PL – wersja standardowa i internetowa

Najpopularniejszą krotką metodą pomiaru cech „Wielkiej Piątki” jest „Ten-Item Personality Inventory” (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, Swann Jr., 2003). Efektem zaprezentowanych prac jest powstanie polskiej wersji inwentarza osobowości - TIPI-PL - w dwoch wersjach – papierowej i internetowej.

How to Select Change Agents in Organizations? A Comparison of the Classical and Network Approaches

The dynamic business environment forces companies to change and adapt constantly. The process can be organized with help of change agents. We develop a simple network approach to spreading information and delivering feedback in organizations. We suggest selecting employees with a role of change agents, focusing on the coverage they can obtain in the network – minimize the number of involved agents and maximize the size of their overall communication area. To explore and pre-verify the proposed approach, we compared and examined several network and classical methods of selection. Data includes networks of collaboration from three medium-sized companies. Agents selected according to network betweenness centrality obtained the best and significantly broader reach than agents selected as employees with high hierarchy levels. Moreover, selected change agents reach impressive coverage; even 5% of company employees engaged as agents may directly reach up to 70% of company staff, compared to 40% for agents selected randomly. A large coverage of a company organizational network can increase the success of change initiatives as vital for spreading reliable, first-hand information and feedback about implemented change. On the other hand, engaging only a limited number of influential employees in a company’s network should keep costs of implementing change relatively low.