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Organizational Network Analyses

Companies and institutions define decision-making authorities, the division and coordination of labour, standard operating procedures and process flows. However, in practice these specifications and regulations are not always followed to the letter; deviations may stem from deliberate neglect, be produced by accident, or even result in «parodies».

Vital organisations are characterised by distinctive informal collaboration on an informal level that is not regulated or steered by management. Informal networks within and between companies compensate for deficiencies in predefined structures (that do not match particular circumstances). But they are far more: They are channels of highly relevant information facilitating the flow of expert knowledge; they create bonds of interpersonal trust, with social influence and power.

Organisational Network Analyses (ONA) help to analyse the dynamics in your company’s informal collaborations and reveal strengths and weaknesses. ONA is a tool to inform joint decision-making by offering a deep understanding of everyday collaboration needs. Valuable insights can be gained into potentially dysfunctional structures, for example those blocking informal collaboration. It will also enable you to identify crucial brokers and hidden stars, important satellites, weak links for dissemination of new information essential for innovation. It can reveal problematic fragmentation and insularities in the informal network. Your company’s balancing (cf. BCD) of informal and formal, tacit and explicit forms of collaboration, as well as internal and external cooperation, will be supported by a completely new source of information.