Guang Ying Mo

Connected seniors: how older adults in East York exchange social support online and offline

ABSTRACT How do older adults mobilize social support, with and without digital media? To investigate this, we focus on older adults 65+ residing in the Toronto locality of East York, using 42 interviews lasting about 90 minutes done in 2013–2014. We find that digital media help in mobilizing social support as well as maintaining and strengthening existing relationships with geographically near and distant contacts. This is especially important for those individuals (and their network members) who have limited mobility. Once older adults start using digital media, they become routinely incorporated into their lives, used in conjunction with the telephone to maintain existing relationships but not to develop new ones. Contradicting fears that digital media are inadequate for meaningful relational contact, we found that these older adults considered social support exchanged via digital media to be real support that cannot be dismissed as token. Older adults especially used and valued digital media for companionship. They also used them for coordination, maintaining ties, and casual conversations. Email was used more with friends than relatives; some Skype was used with close family ties. Our research suggests that policy efforts need to emphasize the strengthening of existing networks rather than the establishment of interventions that are outside of older adults’ existing ties. Our findings also show that learning how to master technology is in itself a form of social support that provides opportunities to strengthen the networks of older adults.

Advice Giving and Receiving Within a Research Network

One of the central components of research-related networked work is the exchange of advice through which researchers are expected to share useful information, especially critical information that others might not possess. A key enabler for advice exchange is the minimizing of structural constraints in the organizations. In this study, we wish to gain a better understanding of how structural constraints, in the form of social and network structure, interplay with advice exchange. Our study’s focal point is the Graphics, Animation, and New Media (GRAND) network, a national research organization in Canada. By conducting a social network survey (N = 101), we were able to study advice giving and receiving among GRAND members. Our findings indicate that the centrality of researchers in the communication network positively correlates with both advice giving and receiving. However, the effective network size of communication networks more strongly correlates with advice giving and receiving, especially for the researchers who hold higher hierarchical positions in GRAND. Overall, our findings indicate that both the communication network and the hierarchical structure are strongly correlated with advice giving and receiving. Furthermore, by looking at the combined correlation between social and network structures with advice exchange, we can offer a better understanding of researchers’ interactions. Our findings are then discussed within the context of their potential implications for other studies on the topic of research collaboration.

NAVEL Gazing: Studying a Networked Scholarly Organization

Many North Americans now work in a global economy where corporations foster networked work – with employees participating in multiple teams and often for multiple purposes – and they do so in networked organizations – whose workers may be physically and organizationally dispersed. We analyze networked workers in one networked scholarly organization: the GRAND Network Centre of Excellence. Drawing on qualitative and social network data, we present our preliminary findings at the early stages of GRAND. Early discussions viewed networked organizations as the antithesis of traditional bureaucratic organizations and expected bureaucratic characteristics such as hierarchy, centralization and formalization to be absent and cross-boundary flows – the hallmark of networked organizations – to be prominent. Our research shows that reality is more complex than the early deductive expectations for networked organizations. The GRAND network is well positioned for cross-boundary flows but they are not yet extensive. In the distributed GRAND network, researchers communicate mostly via now-traditional email although in-person contact is almost as frequent. GRAND is designed with few formal hierarchical differences. Yet hierarchy matters when it comes to communication – researchers in higher positions have higher centrality in communication structures, both GRAND-wide and within projects, suggesting consistent advantages in their communication. Cross-disciplinary exchanges in GRAND are low at the network’s early stages, with little collaboration between Computer Science and Engineering, on the one hand, and Social Sciences and Humanities, on the other. Researchers in Arts and Technology emerge as the most active collaborators in the network both internally and externally. Work within provinces is still the norm.

Networking Scholars in a Networked Organization

Abstract Long-standing traditions of long-distance collaboration and networking make scholars a good test case for differentiating hype and reality in distributed, networked organizations. Our study of Canadian scholars in the GRAND research networks finds that they function more as connected individuals and less as members of a single bounded work group, often meeting their needs by tapping into diversified, loosely knit networks. Their internet use interpenetrates with in-person contact: the more they use one, the more they use the other. Despite digital networking, local proximity is important for collaboration and seniority for inter-team and interdisciplinary boundary spanning.

Examining cross-disciplinary communication's impact on multidisciplinary collaborations: implications for innovations

ABSTRACT Many research organizations are shifting to networked structures to foster the creation of innovation. However, the study of the network form of research organizations is rare and the collaborative process in such networks has yet to be revealed. This study analyses the relationship between networked structure, disciplinary diversity, and multidisciplinary outputs. Using social network, co-authorship, and interview data collected from the GRAND NCE, a Canadian research network, this paper examines how researchers’ memberships in multiple projects, diversity in their communication networks, and researchers’ personal interests in developing cross-boundary ties with other GRAND members influence the production of multidisciplinary outcomes. Using a new framework to study the complex relationships between factors at the organizational, project, and individual levels, this study shows that the diversity in the communication network has a direct impact on the number of multidisciplinary outputs and the diversity in co-authorship networks, which could be the source of future innovation. The analyses also indicate that the network structure can facilitate boundary-spanning communication, and this allows researchers who are interested in multidisciplinary collaborations to carry out their desires. Furthermore, the qualitative data show that collaborators would work together in cross-disciplinary ties to identify common research topics, exchange advice, and help solve problems. Such activities are considered to be the activities that lead to multidisciplinary outcomes.

How Far can Scholarly Networks Go? Examining the Relationships between Distance, Disciplines, Motivations, and Clusters

Abstract This study aims to understand the extent to which scholarly networks are connected both in person and through information and communication technologies, and in particular, how distance, disciplines, and motivations for participating in these networks interplay with the clusters they form. The focal point for our analysis is the Graphics, Animation and New Media Network of Centres of Excellence (GRAND NCE), a Canadian scholarly network in which scholars collaborate across disciplinary, institutional, and geographical boundaries in one or multiple projects with the aid of information and communication technologies. To understand the complexity in such networks, we first identified scholars’ clusters within the work, want-to-meet, and help networks of GRAND and examined the correlation between these clusters as well as with disciplines and geographic locations. We then identified three types of motivation that drove scholars to join GRAND: practical issues, novelty-exploration, and networking. Our findings indicate that (1) scholars’ interests in the networking opportunities provided by GRAND may not easily translate into actual interactions. Although scholars express interests in boundary-spanning collaborations, these mostly occur within the same discipline and geographic area. (2) Some motivations are reflected in the structural characteristics of the clusters we identify, while others are irrelevant to the establishment of collaborative ties. We argue that institutional intervention may be used to enhance geographically dispersed, multidisciplinary collaboration.

The effects of multiple team membership on networking online and offline: using multilevel multiple membership modeling

ABSTRACT When organizations use multiple team membership (MTM) to enhance efficient use of resources, workers in multiple teams develop networks that expand across team boundaries and are linked to teams at a higher level. On such complexity in multilevel networked organizations, we investigate how MTM and team characteristics shape individual-level networks both online and offline. We explain and use the relatively new approach of multilevel multimember modeling (MMMM) to consider how the diversity of teams is related to individual behaviors and networks. Studying a large trans-Canadian network of scholars making and studying digital media, we find that MTM and diversity in teams have a positive impact on the development of diverse ego networks online (email) rather than offline (in person). We also discuss the broader implications of MMMM for understanding the ways in which networked organizations operate.