Quantifying and Improving Resilience in the Informal Social Networks of Organizations

J. D. Caddell, Roshanak Nilchiani

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Organizations spend a considerable amount of time designing their organizational structure. These structures generally reflect the priorities and functions of the organization and deserve attention. However, research has reinforced the power of informal networks to affect performance and communication. The ability of a person to leverage their weak ties to build a coalition, find a key piece of information, or signal a warning has appreciable impacts on an organization's ability to perform. This paper explores an informal structure and offers methods to re-enforce its resilience. In this unique network, the nodes represent people and their edges represent the overlap of tenure throughout their career. We define the resilience of this organization by exploring its error tolerance and offer a procedure that leverages the ClusterRank centrality for improving resilience through targeted internal assignments and the strengthening of informal ties. Interventions demonstrate promising results with appreciable shifts in the critical threshold with minimal adjustments. By utilizing these tools, organizations can better understand and address possible deficiencies in their informal structure's resilience and remain better postured to respond to perturbations.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSysCon 2023 - 17th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, Proceedings
ISBN (Electronic)9781665439947
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023
Event17th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, SysCon 2023 - Vancouver, Canada
Duration: 17 Apr 202320 Apr 2023

Publication series

NameSysCon 2023 - 17th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, Proceedings

Conference

Conference17th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, SysCon 2023
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityVancouver
Period17/04/2320/04/23

Keywords

  • complex systems
  • resilience
  • social network analysis

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