Sunbelt XXXI International Network for Social Network ... - INSNA

Small EU Member States' Export Patterns In An Ego Network Context: Universality Vs. Contingency?Raskovic, Matevz; Udovic, BostjanNetworks and EconomicsEconomic Networks, International Networks, Ego‐centered Networks, International TradeFRI.PM2Economists have long been interested in the impact of country size on myriad international economic indicators, including trade patterns (Holmes & Stevens,2005). Thus, small states have been shown to have a narrower export scope across industries and products (Meilak, 2008), a tendency to geographicallyconcentrate their exports (James, 1980; Udovič & Rašković, 2010), and be more vulnerable to external trade shocks (Briguglio, 1995). While smallstates have been gaining increasing research attention (Easterly & Kraay, 2000), they have often been looked at as a "collective whole” (Liou & Ding, 2002).Similarly, quite some research has looked into foreign trade country patterns in network contexts, yet little of it has focused on the specific issue of universalityvs. contingency of small state trade patterns. This paper aims to fill this gap.The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare export patterns of small EUmember states (5 million people) as network egos in an intra‐EU 27 country export network context. The approach first visualizes the relative importance ofcountry‐to‐country export flows as a valued one‐mode network, followed by analyzing the network from the perspective of small countries as network egos. Inthe analysis phase of these ego networks the approach of tie dichotomization is employed, as proposed by Doreian (1969). This is further complemented byblockmodeling to provide a clearer answer regarding the issue of universality vs. contingency of small EU states’ export patterns.SNA Based Insights For The Development Of Collaborative Research NetworksHayat, Zack ; Lyons, KellyAcademic and Scientific NetworksAcademic Networks, Conference Networks, Co‐authorship NetworkFRI.AM2The networking form of organizations is becoming prevalent and worthy of study in every realm of social structure. In this paper we focus on the way thisstatement holds in the context of collaborative research networks. In order to do so, we analyze a specific network of researchers, CASCON conference paperco‐authorship structure (between 1991 ‐ 2009). CASCON is an annual conference that focuses on the fields of software engineering and computing. For ouranalysis we chose to utilize the SNA (Social Network Analysis) framework. Hence, the various authors are the nodes in our analysis, and any link between nodesindicates a joint publication between the two authors. Our analysis of individual actors (egos) provided us with insight into who is central to the CASCONcommunity. Ten of those central actors were interviewed, and provided us accounts on their involvement in CASCON. Using the data we gathered, weaddressed two research questions (1) What characterizes the social structure of the CASCON research paper network (2) What insights can we gain for furtherdevelopment of the CASCON community based on our analysis. Our preliminary data analysis indicates that the CASCON research community displays a strongsense of social cohesion, a pattern that has gradually increased over the last 19 years. We will discuss this finding within the context of potential actions thatcan be taken to further develop the CASCON and other similar communities.