Testing Multitheoretical, Multilevel Hypotheses About Organizational Networks: An Analytic Framework and Empirical Example

Abstract

Network forms of organization, unlike hierarchies or marketplaces, are agile and are constantly adapting as new links are added and dysfunctional ones dropped. We review some of the theoretical and methodological accomplishments and challenges of contemporary research on organizational networks. We then offer an analytic framework that can be used to specify and statistically test simultaneously multilevel, multitheoretical hypotheses about the structural tendencies of organizational networks. We conclude with an empirical study illustrating some of the capabilities of this framework.

Looking Back and Forging Ahead: Thirty Years of Social Network Research on the World-System

“…Early approaches such as QAP regression may work as a first approximation, but they rest on the somewhat dubious assumption of dyadic independence (see Alderson and Beckfield 2004 for a recent application). Recent advances in statistical network models including the exponential random graph (ERG) model (Anderson, Wasserman and Crouch 1999;Contractor, Wasserman and Faust 2006;Holland and Leinhardt 1975;1981, Robins andMorris 2007) or the stochastic block model (see Wasserman and Faust 1994: 675-723 for a general introduction; Nowicki and Snijders 2001;Snijders and Nowicki 1997;Wang and Wong 1987) may take us in the right direction.…”

Interaction, Mediation, and Ties: An Analytic Hierarchy for Socio-Technical Systems

“…This work is clearly sympathetic to calls by Contractor and colleagues [3,14] for multitheoretical and multi-level (MTML) analyses and models of communication networks, but is based on a different conception of layering than MTML. The MTML approach calls for examining (1) the properties of individual nodes (incorporating attributed-based data); (2) properties of the network under consideration (including dyadic, triadic and global properties); and (3) relationships of this network to other relations over the same network constituents or the same relations as they change over time.…”

Levels of Multiplexity in Entrepreneur’s Networks: Implications for Dynamism and Value Creation

“…Methodologically, progress is being made that can enable such empirical research, including multi-method approaches (Jack, 2010;Abreu et al, 2008), multi-level approaches (Shipilov, 2012), set-theoretic approaches (Bliemel, McCarthy & Maine, 2014), and multi-theoretical approaches (Contractor, Wasserman & Faust, 2006;Slotte-Kock & Coviello, 2010).…”