Case Assignment

Purpose: To provide a basic level of familiarity with some of the key concepts in social network analysis and to get you thinking about how this type of analysis can be useful for decisions in organizations.

There are many online resources that can give you a basic overview of key concepts and terminology for social network analysis. Here is just one example that seems sufficient for the ABB case supplemental using NodeXL Basic. https://www.slideshare.net/gcheliotis/social-network-analysis-3273045

The excel spreadsheet I have provided contains 3 lists of names which represent the vertices we will analyze using a directed graph. Here is what I want you to do:

1. Install NodeXL Basic (free) using the link provided in the assignment.

2. Open NodeXL

3. Open the additional Excel spreadsheet I provided in the assignment “ABB Social Network dataset”

4. Click on the bottom Tab labeled Trust, Copy the names listed in columns A&B

5. Paste those names into columns A&B of a NodeXL template file

6. In the NodeXL tab at the top of the sheet, click Workbook Columns > Show ALL.

7. In the graph menu, change graph Type to Directed

8. In the analysis menu, click Graph Metrics, check mark “Overall Graph Metrics” and “Vertex In-Degree” then click Calculate Metrics

9. On the Vertices worksheet tab, copy all names in column A, and paste those names into the column titled “Labels”

10. Click Autofill Columns, Set Vertex Size to “In-Degree,” click Options > Vertex Size Options > … On the right side, where it says “To this vertex size” increase the number from 10 to 40. Click OK. Click Autofill. Click Close.

11. On the Graph, Change Fruchterman-Reingold to Harel-Koren Fast Multiscale. Click Refresh graph.

12. This should give you a visual graph of the social network indicating who is most (and least) trusted to help get the organization on the right track. If the graph you see is a bit muddled, you can click Refresh a few times until you find clearer version.

13. You can repeat this set of procedures using names from the Formal Chart Sheet and names from the Resources Sheet.

14. You can also change colors of selected nodes (for example, you can highlight the department heads who report to Frank), and just play around with the data.

In case you are having trouble, I have included some example graphs you can use in the supplemental Questions document.

I know that NodeXL basic has very limited abilities, but it is sufficient to make the point that social network analysis is a very useful tool for analyzing qualitiative data and making personnel decisions for organizations. This is the main purpose of the exercise.