(1985). Levine's Atlas of Corporate Interlocks. Connections ... - INSNA

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J . Clyde Mitchell (Nuffield College, Oxford)
SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS IN GREAT BRITAIN
Introduction
The phenomenal increase of interest in formal methods of social network analysis in
the last decade in North America has apparently not been paralleled in Great Britain .
ironically the initial impetus for the use of the notion of the social network in the
analysis of sociological as against social psychological data arose in Britain in the
1950's but the formalization of analytical procedures could only come about when the
procedures based originally on graph theory could be incorporated in computer programs .
In the United States the stimulus for the development of both the mathematical bases for
network analyses and the production of computer programs to execute analyses in respect of
them, came from the work of the sociometrists . It is however only since the 1970's that
Computer programs have become generally available for network analysis -- a reflection
perhaps of the widespread provision of computing facilities in universities after that
date . Both the leading journal i.n the field (SOCIAL NETWORKS) and the house journal of
INSNA, the International Network of Social Network Analysts (CONNECTIONS) currently carry
notices of new programs available for network analysis .
The extent to which interest in social networks exists in Britain as against in
particular in North America is reflected in the'membership of the International Network of
Social Network Analysts . In the most recent issue containing the directory of members
Spring 1984) the percentage of members coming from North America is 83 whereas that from
Great Britain is only 5 percent . Clearly membership to an organization of this kind is
only a crude indicator of the interest but the disparity between 83 and 5 is sufficiently
great to confirm the subjective impressions that those of us in Britain active in social
network analysis have been aware of for some time .
We can only speculate about why there should he this disparity of interest . One
possible reason is that information about what can he achieved using network analysis
programs is not easily available in Great Britain . At present, for example, there seems
to be no single register of network analysis programs available to potential users in
Britain . As a contribution to the beginning of such a register I append in an Appendix a
listing of some programs for network analysis that Prof Coxon and I are aware of' . These
are available to users in Britain through the university computer communications network
system .JANET) .
It. was with considerations of this kind that Prof A .P .M . Coxon at Cardiff, and I at.
Oxford, both of whom have been long interested in network analysis, decided that it would
be worthwhile to bring together people who have been working on the formal analysis of
networks and some of those whose main interest was substantive in order to exchange
information about existing programs and procedures and to discover where needs most.
urgently lie .
At the outset we were confronted with difficulties since no list . of persons
interested in network analysis was available to us in Britain . We had in effect to
generate such a list . from our own contacts . This list, inevitably, was only partially
complete . Coxon and I decided that there were likely to be two rather different audiences
in a meeting of this kind and that accordingly we should arrange for two sessions with
rather different emphases . The first would be essentially a 'work in progress' session
necessarily rather technical in character . This session would be concerned with
theoretical work which was likely to have some application in the future . We expected
that those with methodological interests or applied interests would dominate in this
session . A second session would be designed to cater for those interested mainly in
substantive issues but who may be interested in learning about ways of analysing social
network data . We tried to arrange for examples of analyses using currently available
programs to tie presented in this session . We applied to the ESRC and were given a small
grant to enable us to mount a workshop at which these aims could be effected .
The Social Networks Workshop_ Nuffield College . 2 June 1984
A workshop was duly arranged . Between 18 and 26 people attended the sessions .
In the 'work in progress' session in the morning the following papers were delivered :
J . CLYDE MITCHELL (Nuffield, Oxford) . "Monte Carlo Runs of some Blocking Measures" .
One of the unresolved problems in one of the popular methods of network analysis--
i .e . of block--modelling whereby a set of elements are partitioned into subsets which share
patterns of relationships with other elements in the set as against those in other