Organisational or Social Network Analysis

What is it?

Organisational or Social Network Analysis is a methodology which allows the representation and valuation of the informal links and collaborative flows of information and knowledge between people within an organisation. These informal links are a major asset to organisations and are relevant because of the impact they have on an organisation’s performance. Social network maps can illustrate different aspects of informal interactions including collaboration, information exchange, trust, individual support, personal relations, etc.

Why conduct an Organisational or Social Network Analysis?

There are a number of different reasons why an organisation might carry out an Organisational or Social Network Analysis including:

To compare the informal relations with the formal organisational structure to identify the critical points where harmonisation between the informal and formal will benefit the organisation
To identify a Community of Practice or the constituents of a social network
To identify experts or brokers of knowledge and the information and knowledge that has been hidden from the organisation
To identify trust relationships within the organisation
To identify and support the growth of links between the organisation and its external stakeholders (clients, suppliers, partners…)

Our approach

Our approach to projects includes:

A partnership with Optimice (Australia) that builds on ten years of experience and excellence in social network analysis
Specific tools dedicated to the collection of information to build Organisational and Social Network maps: ona.open-knowledge.it
Benchmarking with metrics relevant to clients’ organisations
Tried and tested processes.