Social Network

In recent decades, the concept of a social network and social network analysis have attracted considerable attention and curiosity from the social science community (Wasserman

& Faust, 1999, p.2). For introducing a theoretical construction on social network, in this section, the definition of social network, social network analysis, and social network in school are presented.

2.1.1 Definition of Social Network

“Network” in most social network literature is defined by the reason people go to one another (Deal, 2009). There are different definitions of social network which proposed by researchers in social network field. A social network is defined as “a structure composed of a set of actors, some of whose members are connected by a set of one or more relations”

(Knoke, 2008, p. 8). Mitchell (1969, p. 2) explained social networks as “a specific set of linkages among a defined set of persons, with the additional property that the characteristics of these linkages as a whole may be used to interpret the social behavior of the persons involved”. Besides, Knoke (2008, p. 9) stated social network in a practical sense as “the structure of relations among actors and the location of individual actors in the network that have important behavioral, perceptual, and attitudinal consequences to the individual units and to the system as a whole”. In this study, social network refers to interconnected ties of relationship among a group of professionals.

2.1.2 Social Network Analysis

According to Scott (2013), social network analysis (SNA) initially developed in a relatively non-technical form from the structural concerns of the great anthropologist Radcliffe-Brown. While the term social network is applied to Web sites and personal relationships, when researchers in social science mention about social network analysis, it refers to the exploration of the patterns of relationships within a group (Deal et al., 2009, p.8).

Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of network and graph theories. Social network analysis was defined as “the work that describes underlying patterns of social structure and explained the impact of such patterns on behavior and attitudes” (Wellman, 1999, p. 95). The figure 2.1 below shows an example of social network diagram.

Figure 2.1 An example of social network map

2.1.2.1 Fundamental Concepts in Network Analysis

In the discussion of social networks, there are several key concepts of network analysis, that are: actor, relational tie, dyad, triad, subgroup, relation, and network (Wasserman &

Faust, 1999, p.17).

Actor. Actors or node are discrete individual, corporate, or collective social units.

Examples of actors are people in group, teachers in school, department within a corporation, public service agencies in a city, or nation-states in the world system.

Relational Tie. Actors are linked to one another by social ties. The defining feature of a tie is that it establishes a linkage between a pair of actors. Evaluation of one person by

another, transfers of material resources, formal relations, or professional relationship are common examples of ties employed in network analysis.

Dyad. A dyad consists of a pair of actors and the possible ties between them.

Triad. Triad is a subset of three actors and the possible ties among them.

Subgroup. Dyad are pairs of actors and associated ties, triads are triples of actors and associated ties. It follows that we can define a subgroup of actors as any subset of actors, and all ties among them.

Group. A group is the collection of all actors on which ties are to be measured.

2.1.2.2 Types of network

There are many different types of social networks that can be studied. If the focus of study is on the content of what is transmitted through networks rather than aggregating an individual’s overall pattern of ties, networks are divided into expressive network and instrumental networks (Podolny and Baron, 1997; Cole & Weinbaum, 2010). Because this study aims to examine the content of information transmitted among the educators in one university, this method of classification was used.

Expressive networks are defined as non-work-related relationships such as friendship and kinship. Although this kind of relationship may not facilitate the dissemination of

expertise, it tends to generate social support and influence (Lin, 2015). Instrumental networks, on the other hand, refer to work-related relationships that are ultimately aimed to support specific professional purposes. Some researchers believe that, compared to expressive ties, the instrumental networks tend to be less durable and reliable (Cole & Weinbaum, 2010, p. 81), while others suggest that teachers discuss work-related issues more than they relate to personal relationships (Bolivar et al., 2010, Moolenaar & Sleegers, 2010). In this study, instrumental network is applied for exploring ties between educators with professional purposes.

2.1.2.3 Network properties

Based on the research of Tichy, Tushman & Ombrun (1979), there are three ways to categorize the properties of networks with particular interests. They are transactional content, nature of the links and structural characteristics. Firstly, transactional content concerns on what is exchanged when two actors are linked. Four specific types of this category are exchange of affect (liking, friendship), exchange of influence or power, exchange of

information, and exchange of goods or services. Secondly, nature of the links focuses on the strength and qualitative nature of the relation between two actors. It can be described in terms of several characteristics such as intensity and reciprocity. Lastly, structural characteristics refer to the overall pattern of relationships between actors in a system. They consist of a set of indices, for instance, centrality, strength of tie and density. (These concepts were explained later on.)

2.1.3 Social Network and Professional Interaction in School

In recent years, there have been many educational studies building on social network theory for understanding “the complex role of teacher relationships in improving teaching and learning and in facilitating educational change” (Moolenaar, 2012). However, these studies can be divided into two main sections. The first category examines teachers’ interactions by analyzing networks across schools (e.g., Lieberman 2000; Veugelers & Zijlstra, 2002). The other aims to understand teacher relationships by analyzing social networks within schools, or intraschool networks (e.g., Penuel et al. 2007, Moolenaar 2010, and Daly et al. 2011). This study followed the second stream of social network research in education, which was intraschool networks.

This study focuses on a specific social network of teachers in school, which is their professional interactions. Teachers’ professional interactions are defined as interconnected ties of relationship among teachers about their teaching matters. For exploring how teachers’

professional interactions influence their job attitudes, the two network properties, which are outdegree centrality and strength of tie, were examined. The definitions of these properties as well as the reasons for choosing them will be explained as followings.

Degree Centrality. Centrality is a key concept in network studies, which refers to the identification of the most important actor in a network (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). There are

four types of centrality, which are degree, closeness, betweenness and information. Degree centrality measures “the extent to which nodes are directly connected to all other nodes in the network” (Knoke, 2008, p. 63). When studies focus on the direction of centrality concept, the term outdegree and indegree are added in front of the term centrality (Lin, 2015)

Outdegree centrality indicates to the number of relations from the focal node to other nodes (Wasserman & Faust, 1994).

Indegree centrality refers to the number of individuals who has connection to focal actor. The figure 2.2 below illustrates an example of outdegree centrality and indegree centrality

Figure 2.2 An example of Outdegree centrality and Indegree centrality

In this study, outdegree centrality is used to explain how social network affects trust and affective organizational commitment, indegree is not in the boundary of interest. Because this study aims to examine how actively a teacher approach other teachers, using outdegree centrality is more suitable.

Strength of tie. Granovetter’s (1973) stated definition of the concept in terms of indicators, as “a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie”. In addition, literatures on strength of tie are primarily concerned with the nature of the relationship between two or more social nodes and the impact of this link on information sharing activities (Granovetter, 1973; Frenzen & Nakamoto, 1993; Hansen et al., 1999; Uzzi, 1999; Ismail & Kwee, 2003). In this study, the strength of the tie is defined as the degree of professional interaction between the two teachers.

In conclusion, social network in this study is teachers’ professional interactions. The actors are teachers in Da Nang Architecture University, and relational tie is information

transferred through teachers’ professional relationship. In this study, instrumental network is applied for exploring ties between educators with professional purposes was adopted. In addition, outdegree centrality and strength of tie are used for investigating on how teacher professional interactions influence the level of affective organizational commitment through trust.