Francesca Grippa

Measuring social capital in creative teams through sociometric sensors

We describe the results of an experiment capturing the face-to-face ‘honest signals’ of knowledge workers through sociometric badges. We find that collective creativity of teams is a function of the aggregated social capital of members. The higher it is, the higher their creative output. We collected communication data of 14 graduate students and their instructor during a one-week seminar, comparing it against the creative output of their teamwork. As a second component of social capital we also measured the level of trust team members show to each other through surveys. We find that the more team members directly interact with each other face-to-face, and the more they trust other team members, the more creative and of higher quality the result of their teamwork is.

A social network scorecard to monitor knowledge flows across communication media

This paper describes the application of a scorecard, based on social network analysis, to monitor the evolution of knowledge flows. This scorecard helps organizations to identify new ways to optimize knowledge flows by combining communication media that match their working environments. Three case studies were conducted: one within an Italian Research Centre, and two within U.S.-based Research and Education Centres. The interactions of members of these business communities were observed by monitoring multiple communication media over time. This is a departure from the common practice of using only e-mail communications to describe social networks. The goal of this paper is to answer the following question: does e-mail alone represent an accurate approximation of the social network? The results suggest that a better approximation can be found by monitoring multiple media: e-mail, chat, telephone, social networking websites, and face-to-face interactions.

You are who remembers you. Detecting leadership through accuracy of recall

Abstract We measured interpersonal perception accuracy by focusing on the relationship between actors’ centrality and their ability to accurately report their social interactions. We used the network measures of actors’ betweenness centrality and degree centrality to identify the most prominent members by correlating ego-perception and alter-perception in a “non-reciprocity” type of misalignment. We found a positive correlation between actors’ centrality and their centrality as assessed by senior management, and a negative correlation between actors’ centrality and their accuracy in recalling interactions. Underreporting social interactions may represent a third way of measuring the importance of members and finding the most influential actors.

Location matters ? measuring the efficiency of business social networking

This paper contributes to measuring the efficiency of business social networking events and organisations. In particular, we analysed the communication at Swiss House for Advanced Research and Technology (now Consulate of Switzerland/Swissnex Boston; formerly SHARE), an organisation whose mission is to foster collaboration networks between the scientific and entrepreneurial communities of Switzerland and the greater Boston area. The study consists of two parts. In the first part, SHAREs social network growth over more than a year was measured through an analysis of its e-mail traffic. In the second part, growth of social networks of individuals participating in a set of networking events during a collaboration programme over one week was measured through a web survey. Comparing individual social network growth through attendance and individual follow-up at events organised in Boston and San Francisco demonstrated creation of a much denser network in Boston – with an almost even split between academic and industrial participants in Boston, while the majority of participants in the Silicon Valley came from industry. Bostons academic participants acted as information brokers, building bridges between industrial participants from Boston and Switzerland.

Designing, managing and assessing a Web 2.0 learning community to enhance inquiry based learning

This paper develops understanding of how to design, manage and assess learning environments in which traditional and Web 2.0 technologies are integrated to improve the overall learning experience. To provide preliminary evidence, we designed an integrated model of a web based learning community (WBLC), comprising the following components: learning actors (learners, stakeholders, mentors, tutors, staff); learning processes (abstract conceptualisation, active experimentation, reflective observation and concrete experience); learning modes (inquiry based learning) and learning tools (wiki, blog, folksonomies) together with a learning dashboard (social network analysis, knowledge creation, learning satisfaction, IT adoption). The application of the model to the community of an international Masters programme provided evidence of the potential benefits of the model. Preliminary results suggest that Web 2.0 technologies in education have great potential in supporting the acquisition of learner competencies and skills. However, they also require significant effort from students and mentors in changing their attitude towards new ways of interacting.

Forecasting managerial turnover through e-mail based social network analysis

In this study we propose a method based on e-mail social network analysis to compare the communication behavior of managers who voluntarily quit their job and managers who decide to stay. Collecting 18 months of e-mail, we analyzed the communication behavior of 866 managers, out of which 111 left a large global service company. We compared differences in communication patterns by computing social network metrics, such as betweenness and closeness centrality, and content analysis indicators, such as emotionality and complexity of the language used. To study the emergence of managers disengagement, we made a distinction based on the period of e-mail data examined. We observed communications during months 5 and 4 before managers left, and found significant variations in both their network structure and use of language. Results indicate that on average managers who quit had lower closeness centrality and less engaged conversations. In addition, managers who chose to quit tended to shift their communication behavior starting from 5 months before leaving, by increasing their degree and closeness centrality, the complexity of their language, as well as their oscillations in betweenness centrality and the number of nudges they need to send to peers before getting an answer. Turnover can be predicted via email-based social network analysis.Collecting 18 months of emails, we analyzed social network metrics for 866 managers.Managers who quit have lower closeness centrality and less engaged conversations.After deciding to leave, managers tend to invert their communication behavior.

Quantum Modeling of Social Dynamics

In this paper, the authors apply models extracted from the Many-Body Quantum Mechanics to understand how knowledge production is correlated to the innovation potential of a work team. This study is grounded in key assumtpions. First, complexity theory applied to social science suggests that it is of paramount importance to consider elements of non-objectivity and non-determinism in the statistical description of socio-economic phenomena. Second, a typical factor of indeterminacy in the explanation of these phenomena lead to the need to apply the instruments of quantum physics to formally describe social behaviours. In order to experiment the validity of the proposed mathematic model, the research intends to: 1) model nodes and interactions; 2) simulate the network behaviour starting from specific defined models; 3) visualize the macroscopic results emerging during the analysis/simulation phases through a digital representation of the social network.

Measuring creative performance of teams through dynamic semantic social network analysis

In this project we compare communication structure and content exchanged by members of creative, interdisciplinary teams of medical researchers, physicians, patients and caretakers with their creative output. We find that longitudinal social networking patterns and word usage predict creative performance. We collected the e-mail archives of 60 members of a community of researchers working on 12 projects improving various aspects of the daily lives of patients with Crohn’s disease. Our results indicate that more creative projects show a decrease in group density, while more actors are involved, and more e-mails are exchanged, suggesting that a more successful project attracts more attention from many different people. We also found that members of more creative projects use more outspoken language, which gets more focused over time.

Supporting development efforts of clinical care teams

This paper describes the results of a longitudinal study of team communication structure for two distinct interdisciplinary healthcare teams at a large academic children medical centre in the USA. Our goal was to inform teams of opportunities and strategies that strengthen their communication structure. To this purpose we proposed an operational framework based on four steps: observation, measurement, mirroring and design. We analysed the e-mail archives of two teams to monitor structural changes in e-mail communication over one year. Since the first analyses, both teams were designated as strategic priorities by the institution, underwent off site meetings to define and put into execution a strategic plan, initiated processes to improve care delivery and reviewed the results of the initial social network analysis. We found that for both teams the communication network improved over time showing a higher cohesiveness, an increase in density, network resilience and external connectivity.

Fostering Innovation by Nurturing Value-Creating Communities

In a rapidly changing environment, the success of any firm depends increasingly on the ability to continuously reinvent the sources of value creation, adapting rapidly to change to reach a continuous flow of competitive advantage (Teece, 2007; Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998). This ability is based on the organization’s capacity to continuously learn from past experience and to be willing to unlearn and experiment with new ways of solving problems.