Network Effects on Individual Contributions

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Network Effects on Individual Contributions

• Frans N. Stokman
• ICS, University of Groningen

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Main Messages

• Behavior of individuals and social actors should
  be seen as goal directed and social relationships
  as instrumental.
• SNA microfoundations should include other goals
  than gain, in particular normative (behaving
  appropriately) and hedonic goals (feeling
  good).
• SNA should be process driven derive and test
  explicitly which relationships and which
  structures produce what.
• SNA should focus on multiple relationships, under
  which conditions they interact positively or
  negatively with each other.
• SNA should explicitly deal with the fact that
  relationships and networks vary in terms of
  common and opposed interests.

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Social capital

• Access to resources of others.
• Amount of social capital dependent on
• Amount of resources of others
• Their value for my goal realization
• The willingness of the other to mobilize the
  resources for me

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Exchange processes in social networks

• Negotiated exchange (explicit and binding
  agreements)
• Reciprocal exchange (Tacit, non-negotiated
  exchanges)
• Generalized exchange (providing resources to some
  while receiving from others)
• Productive exchange (combining resources)

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Social Networks and Production Where Do We Stay?

• Burtian Broker

• Simmelian Broker

Burt, Research in Organizational Behaviour 22
(2000) 345-423
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Networks from the perspective of Joint
Production Microfoundations Heuristic
Based on Lindenberg, Advances in Group Processes
14 (1997) 281-331
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JP Open networks in Service Specification And
closed networks in Service Delivery
Source Dekker Dissertation 2001 Dekker,
Stokman, Franses 2006 Submitted for Publication
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JP Role Ambiguity(Dekker, Stokman, Franses 2006)

• Simmelian brokers in trust network experience
  more role ambiguity, whereas Burtian brokers do
  not
• Role ambiguity reduces contribution to performance

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Koster, Stokman, Hodson and Sanders (2007)
Solidarity Through Networks, Employee
Relations (accepted for publication)
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Policy Networks (PN)
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PN Where Do We Stay?

• Spatial autocorrelation models of influence
  (Friedkin, Johnsen, Marsden)
• Network extensions of Colemans exchange model
  (Marsden, Laumann, Knoke, Pappi, König)
• Network Exchange Theory
• Cooperative (coalition) and non-cooperative
  (procedural) models in political science

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PN Whats Missing?Instrumental and higher
ordered goals
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PN Bargaining Processes

• Three fundamental processes to build a coalition
  around the own policy position
• Management of meaning, oriented towards a
  cooperative solution for all stakeholders
  (information and trust networks dominant)
• Logrolling, oriented towards profitable bilateral
  deals (exchange networks dominant)
• Non-cooperative, enforced solutions (power and
  hierarchical networks dominant)

Source Stokman, Van Assen, Van der Knoop, Van
Oosten, Advances in Group Processes 17 (2000)
131-153
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Overall Model Performance
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Conclusions on EU Policy Networks

• Inclusive and cooperative solutions generate the
  most accurate predictions
• Bilateral exchanges with serious negative
  externalities for others are not seen to
  contribute to creative common solutions, but to
  serve parochial interests

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Nash Bargaining Solution for all actors

• If
• Reversal point is very undesirable (very high
  costs of no agreement)
• The grand coalition is possible but firm
  coalitions among subsets are difficult to
  construct
• Actors are risk averse (quadratic loss functions
  around policy position)
• The weighted average of the positions of the
  actor is a first-order approximation of the Nash
  Bargaining Solution (NBS)

Source Achen, Chapter 4. Institutional Realism
and Bargaining Models. In The European Union
Decides (Forthcoming)
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EU Presidential Powers(Tallberg, The Power Of
The Chair, CUP, forthcoming)

• Agenda Setting
• Brokerage
• Representation

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EU Presidential PowerSchalk, Stokman,
Torenvlied, Weesie (submitted)
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Conclusions

• The relevant networks in a certain context should
  be derived from a careful analysis of the
  underlying processes, leading to the joint
  production of outcomes
• The combination of functional and cognitive
  dependencies determine which of the alternative
  processes is dominant
• The other processes in the background remain
  relevant and it is important to determine the
  conditions under which they support or undermine
  the dominant process