No abstract

To date, most network research contains one or more of five major problems. First, it tends to be atheoretical, ignoring the various social theories that contain network implications. Second, it explores single levels of analysis rather than the multiple levels out of which most networks are comprised. Third, network analysis has employed very little the insights from contemporary complex systems analysis and computer simulations. Foruth, it typically uses descriptive rather than inferential statistics, thus robbing it of the ability to make claims about the larger universe of networks. Finally, almost all the research is static and cross-sectional rather than dynamic. Theories of Communication Networks presents solutions to all five problems. The authors develop a multitheoretical model that relates different social science theories with different network properties. This model is multilevel, providing a network decomposition that applies the various social theories to all network levels: individuals, dyads, triples, groups, and the entire network. The book then establishes a model from the perspective of complex adaptive systems and demonstrates how to use Blanche, an agent-based network computer simulation environment, to generate and test network theories and hypotheses. It presents recent developments in network statistical analysis, the p* family, which provides a basis for valid multilevel statistical inferences regarding networks. Finally, it shows how to relate communication networks to other networks, thus providing the basis in conjunction with computer simulations to study the emergence of dynamic organizational networks.

This paper extends theories of public goods to interactive communication systems. Two key public communication goods are identified. Connectivity provides point-to-point communication, and communality links members through commonly held information, such as that often found in databases.These extensions are important, we argue, because communication public goods operate differently from traditional material public goods. These differences have important implications for costs, benefits, and the realization of a critical mass of users that is necessary for realization of the good. We also explore multifunctional goods that combine various features and hybrid goods that link private goods to public ones. We examine the applicability of two key assumptions of public goods theory to interactive communication systems. First, jointness of supply specifies that consumption of a public good does not diminish its availability to others. Second, impossibility of exclusion stipulates that all members of the public have access to the good. We conclude with suggestions for further theoretical development.Public goods theories grapple with the age-old problem of how to induce collaborative problem solving and other forms of collective action among self-interested individuals, groups, or organizations, assuming, of course, that they share at least some common goals. When successful, such collective action generates so-called public goods, such as parks, roads, libraries, neighborhood brush removal for fire prevention, beach cleanups, or other organized collective goals. Inducing collective action for interorganizational efforts is also a formidable challenge, applied in such diverse arenas as the United Nations, business cartels, conglomerations of charitable organizations, the Japanese keiretsu, and health service provider networks.Possibilities for collective action have expanded with recent advancements in information and communication technologies such as electronic mail, cellular telephones, and fax machines as well as the increased availability, complexity, and linkages of database systems, electronic bulletin boards, and other public and private information forums. These new capabilities can, in certain contexts and with appropriate inducements, support electronic communities such as the City of Santa Monica's Public 60

This article presents a public goods-based theory that describes the process of producing multifirm, alliance-based, interorganizational communication and information public goods. These goods offer participants in alliances collective benefits that are (a) rlorrescllrdable, in that they are available to all alliance partners whether or not they have contributed, and (b) jointlv supplied, in that partners' uses of the good are noncompeting. Two

Formulation of dynamic theories and process hypotheses is a crucial component in longitudinal research. This paper describes a framework for developing dynamic theory and hypotheses. The procedure require the theorist to address six dimensions of process in each variable: continuity, magnitude of change, rate of change, trend, periodicity and duration. Further, theorists are encouraged to explore the dynamic relations between sets of variables, including rate of change, magnitude of change, lag, and permanence. Consideration is given to the problem of feedback loops. A typology of analytical alternatives for studying dynamic processes and longitudinal research data is provided.

Few topics have received more attention in the management literature of recent years than that of virtual organizations. Articles abound on the possibilities of virtual meetings, work teams, offices, factories, firms, and alliances. Given the burgeoning interest in this emerging phenomenon, it is surprising that very little empirical research exists on virtual organizations. Especially lacking are studies of communication processes within virtual organization settings. To help remedy this situation, this special issue provides an early window into several important communication processes that occur in virtual contexts. We are pleased to provide readers with a compendium of six articles that, collectively, advance current knowledge of communication processes for virtual organizations. Both single and multifirm studies are included here, with analyses covering such diverse topics as communication content, communication structure and effectiveness, tradeoffs in electronic and face-to-face relationships, and the use of communication in formation of organizational identity. All of the studies include rigorous analysis and careful measurement of communication, and all take place within naturally occurring organizational contexts, not laboratory settings.

No abstract

Studies of job attitudes hove traditionally been conducted on the correspondence between individuol needs and objective job chorocterisiics. A recently developed theory, however, suggests thotjob ottitudes may be o function ofsocialinformotion received (Soloncik & Pfeffer, 1978). This investigation used social informotion processing theory as the bosis for ostudy of antecedents to employee onxiety about o move to on open office environment. The structural equation model developed from social information processing theoryprovedto be ogoodfit to the doto, and o revised version of the modelprovided an even better occouniing for the vorionce in the doto. Anxiety about orgonizotionol change was determined by social informotion, individuol needs, ond job characteristics, with need for privacy having the lorgesi impact on onxieiy. The model is discussed in terms of its support for informotion processing iheory, its individuol sign$cont linkages. and the implications for need satisfaction models of job attitudes ond other reseorch on outcomes in orgonizoiions. Although it has thus far been applied sparingly by organizational communication scholars, a theoretical framework that makes an important link between communication and individual and organizational outcomes is the social information processing theory of job attitudes (Salancik& Pfeffer, 1978). This theory, a response to weaknesses of the traditional need-satisfaction models, proposes that job attitudes are a function of the communicative activities of employKatherine I. Miller is a doctoral candidate, and Peter R. Monge (Ph. D., Michigan State University, 1972) is Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School of Communications, University of Southern California. We would like to thank Mary Zalesny and Julia Crystler for assistance in the study and Vince Farace, Gerald Miller, Judee Burgoon, and Jim Stiff for comments on earlier drafts of this article.0