Architecture and leadership in knowledge intensive networks: the case of internet forums on photo

Paul Muller, Claude Guittard, Julien Pénin

GRANEM, University of Angers, France BETA, University of Strasbourg, France

DIME workshop on distributed networks and the knowledge based economy - Juan les Pins - May 10th-11th

2

1.1. Context of the paper Emphasis commonly put on the reciprocal relationship between

communities of practice and networks in the frame of: The dynamics of clusters (Benner, 2003; Dibiaggio and Ferrary, 2003) Territorial development (Filippi et. 2006) The trade-off exploration/exploitation (Nooteboom, 2006) The relationship between science and technology (Gittelman and Kogut,

2003) Case studies commonly treat CoPs as objects with ‘‘fuzzy’’

frontiers Questions to be adressed:

How can we identify the borders of communities of practice in social networks?

How do they organize their relationship with their social environment?

3

1.2. Objectives

Social network analysis (hierarchical clustering) can help identifying potential communities of practice within knowledge intensive networks

Leaders play an important role in regulating the interaction of the community of practice with its environment

4

2. Theoretical framework:2.1. Communities of practice

Circles of Individuals engaged in common practices and interacting in order to solve common problems.

Characterized by: A domain of focus Interactions A Practice

Hypothesis : leaders (ie individuals characterized by higher activity levels) responsible for: the internal coordination of members Organizing the interactions of the CoPs with the environment

5

2. Theoretical framework: 2.2. Internet forums as networked

communities Virtual forums: facility on the WWW for holding

discussions through the exchange of messages among individuals

Some internet forums may be considered as knowledge intensive networks in which coexist several communities of practice (Guittard, 2006): Disclosure of technical knowledge and information related to

a specific practice Evidence of the development of virtual cognitive platforms in

support of collective learning (Cohendet et al. 2006)

6

2.2. Organization of a forum Hierarchical organization of forums:

1. Forums treating of a broad issue (eg photo) => gather several topics

2. Topics treating of specific subjects (eg a model of digicam) <=> discussion involving several members who post messages

3. Messages possibly including technical information and knowledge

Possibly: a message may include reference to messages posted by other members

7

3. Methodology : identification of potential communities of practice

Step 1: generate the network of interactions (based on messages posted in the forum and citing other members)

Step 2: isolate clusters characterized by higher interaction intensity - Newman/Girvan procedure

Step 3: analyse the characteristics of clusters and compare them with the features of communities of practice

8

3. Methodology: the Newman/Girvan procedure

Methodology based on hierarchical clustering for identifying potential communities of practice:

1. Compute the betweeness for each tie of the network

2. The tie with the highest betweeness is identified and removed from the network

3. Compute a ‘‘modularity index’’ accounting for the accuracy of the partition => optimal partitions are associated with highest modularity values

4. Restart from 1: recalculate betweeness for each tie.

9

4. Data: extracted from the HardWare.fr forums on digital photo

2 forums: ‘‘Digital camera and objectives’’ and ‘‘shooting technique’’

110 different topics gathering 3649 messages 1579 / 3649 messages containing pieces of

knowledge or of information related to the practice of photo

900 / 1579 messages containing citations and forming the basis of the construction of the network

Data extracted in the period 31/01/07-02/02/07

10

5.1. Basic results 497 identified participants to the forum Network including 397 individuals and 1350 ties 26 components identified:

25 components: 2 to 9 members (total of 67 members)

1 main component: 330 members => Application of the Newman/Girvan

procedure on the main component

11

5.2. Identification of potential communities of practice: results of the N/G procedure

Graph generated using UCINET VI (Borgatti et al., 2002)

12

5.2. Identification of potential communities of practice

Identification of 15 distinct clusters of varying size (1 to 54 members)

Clusters don’t correspond to topics but either aggregate them or spread over them => relevance of the social network approach

Clusters characterized by very specific fields of interest=> focus clearly put on a brand of digital camera (more marginally on shooting technique) => potential communities of practice

13

5.3. Identification of leaders

High degree of heterogeneity in the contribution levels: few very active members => existence of leaders in clusters (see Muller, 2006)

Leaders also characterized by high levels of interactions with other members

Different types of leaders (see Merton, 1949): Local: only interacting with members of the same cluster =>

favour local coordination Cosmopolitan: interacting with members inside and outside

the cluster => favour coordination across communities

14

6. Conclusion Application of the Newman/Girvan procedure to

the internet forum on photo allowing to highlight: The existence of several clusters focusing on

specific subjects (ie a specific brand or model of digital camera and related equipment) => potentially communities of practice

Different characteristics of leaders: Local leaders dedicated to the local coordination of

communities of practice Cosmopolitan leaders regulating the interactions with the

environment

15

7. Next steps Test of the robustness of the methodology:

Confronting it with alternative methodologies (survey among the forum)

Confront the methodology with other types of relational data: Copublications (as in Levy, Muller, 2007)