Social network (business administration)

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A social network in business administration is a targeted, deliberately loose form of organization in the form of target-related organizations , informal associations and associations or individual people who experience or hope to benefit from the network .

Concept and types of networks

The term initially included cliques and similar informal groups. It was also used to describe (especially flat) hierarchies without reference to “ rule ” by emphasizing forms of non-hierarchical cooperation . However, he lost the character of revealing an unwanted structure .

Nowadays, networks are mostly loosely organized forms of organization that primarily serve the exchange of company experiences and the organization of learning processes or that strengthen cooperation between companies, non-profit organizations and / or regional authorities in some other way (e.g. networks for company health promotion , in-house environmental protection, inter-company training, company pension schemes; also networks of the learning region type that support cooperation in education and training issues.).

The stable, pyramid-like structure around a focal organization , but especially the loosely intertwined, often only temporary, supply and logistics structures are called networks (e.g. supply networks in the automotive industry). Also cluster (economy) can be considered as regional networks. In the case of positive economic development, these interdependencies within value chains can result in the suppliers participating in the positive development of the company being supplied. In the event of a negative development, the crisis of a large company can continue in waves. The danger of crisis dynamics is that the type and extent of the risks often remain undetected because no suitable measuring instruments have been implemented. The problem starts with the fragmentation of the data. The available aggregated data lacks the fine structure to map economic development under crisis conditions in an economically comprehensible manner. Most credit risk models have only industry correlations related to the actual web of relationships and dependencies between companies, households and market segments. This is insufficient for chain reactions. Graph theory offers a way out .

Colloquial language

Network is also called the sum of social contacts to achieve personal advantages in professional life ( career network ). The term network linguistically replaces the negative connotations of rope team and vitamin B , with which various networks of relationships are disqualified.

Management of social networks

Social networking software - i.e. software that offers the possibility to manage one's relationships in a targeted manner on the Internet - is included in the social software category . Since around 2007, social software has also been used more and more frequently by employers and employment agencies in Germany for self-presentation or as a recruiting tool.

With social networking software , the user has the option of creating their own profile, in which they can make their curriculum vitae, their areas of interest or specialist areas, but also their (personal) contact details and a photo accessible to other users and thus present them online is. In addition, a user then specifies the other users with whom he is networked (known) - either directly to specify contacts or indirectly by specifying suitable meta information . He alone decides who he wants to make which data available. It is also advantageous that each user only has to keep their own data up-to-date; the other users' data are updated by them themselves and called up by other users if necessary.

Since the number of internet-based social networking platforms is steadily increasing, open interfaces that should enable ego-centered merging of data from different platforms are currently being discussed. On the one hand, this calls for a technology that facilitates the personal administration of social networks, on the other hand, there are concerns about data protection.

In contrast to the internet-based networking portals, special PC-based programs offer the possibility of efficiently managing your own real network, for example by reminding the user of regular contact with other people and graphically visualizing the relationships within the network.

See also

literature

  • Albert-Laszlo Barabasi: Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life . ISBN 0-452-28439-2 .
  • M. Benz, G. Loepp, J. Hermann: Economic microstructure - models for coping with critical cluster risks in the lending business . 2009.
  • Hermann Bullinger, Jürgen Nowak: Social networking. An introduction . Lambertus-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1998.
  • Mark Granovetter : The strength of weak ties . (PDF) In: American Journal of Sociology , 1973, Vol. 78, H. 6, pp. 1360-1380.
  • Torsten Kleinz: Network acquaintances. New internet services are helping to weave social networks . In: c't , 2004, no. 18, p. 84.
  • Michael Kunze: Intertwined life. Web 2.0 - the next step . In: c't , 2006, no. 1, p. 174.
  • Harvey Mackay: "Networking" - The book about the art of building and using relationships . ECON-Verlag, ISBN 3-430-16257-2 .
  • Tobias Müller-Prothmann: Leveraging Knowledge Communication for Innovation. Framework, Methods and Applications of Social Network Analysis in Research and Development . Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. / Berlin / Bern / Bruxelles / New York / Oxford / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-631-55165-7 .
  • Wouter de Nooy, Andrej Mrvar, Vladimir Batagelj: Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005.
  • Martin J. Waibel: Concepts of the social network, social support and socio-emotional support for the practice of integrative supervision . (PDF) In: SUPERVISION: Theory - Practice - Research. An interdisciplinary internet journal , 2004, no.11.
  • Victor Tiberius: Processes and Dynamics of Network Change . Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-8349-0967-1 .
  • Yochai Benkler: The Wealth of Networks : How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom . Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-12577-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ U. Mill, H.-J. Weißbach: Networking Industry . In: T. Malsch, U. Mill (Ed.): ArBYTE. Modernization of industrial sociology . Sigma, Berlin 1992, pp. 315-342