ENRON Transorganizational Network

oops, you can't do Java ...but you can do aGIF image map

Source: SOCIAL NETWORK of ENRON CORPORATION CHARACTERS (CLICK HERE) See http://www.pir.org/enron/

You Can sort through the above Cast of Bush Characters and their relation to Enron characters below in Figure 4: Enron and White House Characters NOTE: Figure is Interactive - click on a CHARACTER to make them CENTER or on SCALE at left to play with DENSITY

A good next Enron analysis is NEGOPY "One of the oldest network analysis programs, NEGOPY finds cliques, liaisons, and isolates in networks having up to 1,000 members and 20,000 links. In use at over 100 universities and research centers around the world.

INTRO TO TD Network Organizing

Network organizing is challenging the hierarchies and markets approach of Williamson (1975). The basis for networks is cooperation, trust, and reciprocity whereas for markets it is free and supposedly open competition to minimize transaction cost and contracts to control for mistrust and managers' opportunism.  For Weber, the excuse for bureaucracy is its positional authority and division of labor to control for efficiency and professionalization of roles to control for mistrust of managers who would otherwise be coercive. Weber also saw in bureaucracy the iron cage. Networks of organizations organize, it is said, to gain economies of scale and to coordinate activities that affect their joint fate (i.e. cooperative research and development, joint insurance pools, supply chain management, etc.). Member firms form cooperative TD networks in order to get beyond the limitations of hierarchies and markets. They also form network organizations to change market dynamics, such as when artisans form networks to distribute their wares. What is less clear is how do networks evolve and what are network dynamics?  Do they becomes hierarchies or markets or are networks a mix of all these forms? Further, just how do organizations who may be bureaucratic, quest, chaos, or postmodern organize and coordinate their networking? (press here to see all four ideal types at once).  Network Organizations is a term to describe four popular approaches to TD. Without critical review, the first three TD network approaches can become the servant of the fourth, Cyberwar games. What Deleuze & Guattari (1987) term the War Machine.

I have added a paper to give Transorganizational Network Organizations some applications - "Chaos and Complexity in Supply Chain Transorganizational Development Networking"  {October  9, 1999e} (press here).
For more on Chaos/Complexity -- relation to -- Postmodern Theory (press here).

Approach 1: Social Network Structures
Approach One applies Social Network Structuration Theory to assess and in praxis change the centrality, density, and differentiation of a network of organizations. The Interorganizational architecture of Figure One. The focus of this network analysis is on the overall structure and interdependence of positions and constraints in the network.

• Guy Hagen, Dennis K. Killinger and Richard B. Streeter "An Analysis of Communication Networks Among Tampa Bay Economic Development Organizations" 1997. This is an empirical network study with variables of centrality and density based in an open systems model (Katz & Kahn, not Emery). "Clusters" of organizations (as indicated by structurally equivalent sets) are differentiated by color and shape. (press here). Good overview of structural approach to networks.
• A similar analysis looking at centrality in IO networks in Illinois. Boje, D. M. and Whetten, D. A., "Effects of Organizational Strategies and Constraints on Centrality and Attributions of Influence in Interorganizational Networks," Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, pp. 378-397, September 1981. (We used Negopy to develop measures of network centrality).
• Example: Inter-System Penetration: organizational domains and industrial access. "Policy today is made in a process involving a plurality of both private and public organizations. Of special interest are networks at system boundaries, here between
  research and industry." (Press here) for color visual display.
• Example: Control Networks: The political control of an organizational system is visualized above. "two groups of government agencies have been fitted to two lines on the top while the controlled organizations are fitted to a circle." (press here) for visual display.
• Example: World Trade Networks -The structure of world trade of between 28 OECD countries in 1981 and 1992. (Press here) for visual transnational graphics and paper in German. .
• For bibliography of Network Graphic Analysis (press here).
• Excellent Network Social Analysis Packages and examples- Linton Freeman-(press here). The recent approaches allow for simulations, changes in visual displays, and transformations of networks over time.
• ARTICLE: Visualizing Social Networks by Linton C. Freeman 2000 vol 1 (1) Journal of Social Structure (press here).
• ARTICLE: Eigen Analysis of Networks by William Richards and Andrew Seary -  vol 1 (1) Journal of Social Structure (press here).

Weak or Strong Ties? Granovetter (1993) has a theory of weak and strong social network ties that has implications for TD networks. For example #22 in Figure One has direct or indirect weak ties with three different clusters. Within each cluster there are strong ties.  To gain new ideas and contacts it is the weak ties that are more important than strong ties. Why? Because a weak tie, might for example, span very different clusters of strong relationships in various sectors of a network (See Figure One).  Burt (1982) continued developed the idea a bit further by looking at "structural holes" in the network.  Structural holes are defines as buffers between two non-redundant contacts. So there is a difference between a network of strong ties to similar others and one that has a lot of weak ties across many structural holes throughout a very diverse network.  More and better ideas comes from a variety of different information ties.  

Beyond the Architecture of Networks - The structural aspects of weak, strong, centrality or diffuse relations do not capture, for me, the most critical aspects of network. While it is important to look at how networks adapt and evolve over time it is equally important to look at process issues. For example, in Mythmaking, Meyer and Rowan (1977) argued that interorganizational relations (and networks) transfer institutional myths and rituals between complex organizations through imitation. See "Institutional organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony." American Journal of Sociology. 83: 929-984.  We therefore want to amend the structural approach to include processes of story networking:

• Sociogram that allows you to display alternative views - (press here)
• A biology display of Spider Monkey behavior over time - (press here)
• 3D Display that allows user rotation of image by mouse click (press here) Another (press here)
• You can program your own Node line drawings with weights (press here).
• KrackPlot is a program for network visualization designed for social network analysts. It runs on DOS systems, but there is now an experimental web interface using forms (press here).
• MultiNet is a data analysis package that can be used for ordinary data (in which you have a file that has one line of data for each case) and for network data (in which there are two files -- the "index" or "node" file describes the individuals and the "link" file describes the connections between individuals). (press here).

NET-SIM will allow us to to collect multiple readings of a system change effort over time to give clients and
consultants and understanding of the on-going unfolding impact of their network change strategies. 

Embeddedness and TD Networking. The reason why storytelling and the history of relationships is so important to study is because of what Granovetter (1985, 1992) and Uzzi (1997), building upon the work done by Polanyi (1944) call "embeddedness." (Granovetter, 1985) argues that the embeddedness of collaboration is accounted for in wider institutional structures. The embeddedness of networks in the institutional, social and political contexts explains how the power of mutual obligations in networks is an alternative to market mechanisms. And to study it requires narrative and historical theory. Even among the most profit and greed-driven markets in capitalism, the social embeddedness of networking transforms organizational behavior. 

Why postmodern and Networking - Pescosolido and Rubin (2000) and White (1992) argue that while the rational choice theorists pursue the "embeddedness" theory, the postmodernists focus on "contextualization" i.e. how people experience the world of chaos.  

White (1992:287) argues that two myths characterize our culture and our social science-the myth of the person as free-standing entity, and the myth of society as an embracing whole. Ironically, at present, solutions at both intellectual extremes embrace the first myth and reject the second. Both the
postmodernists' focus on letting the "data speak for themselves" and the rational-choice theorists' focus on the individual's internal complex cost-benefit analysis celebrate the individual over the collective, even if the former focus emphasizes contextualization and the latter emphasizes embeddedness. They differ in why they do so, with the former focus seeing individuals' experiences as the only "real" subject of study in a chaotic world and the latter struggling valiantly to impose a rational order on social life and individuals' actions in that chaotic world. Both are important, but neither captures the complex interplay of context and behavior (Pescosolido and Rubin, 2000).

Postmodernists demand a deeper textual understanding of the nature and meaning of networking, while structuralist apply architectural metaphors and rational choice theorists modify market models with explanations of embeddedness.

Trust and TD Networking. Another key issue is trust.  The "existence of these trust relationships will mean that the individual or collective actions of the group differ from the behavior associated with either pure market-contracting or hierarchically organized relationships" (Gordon & McCann, 2000).  Trust and history are both important to study in networks because "socially embedded in the sense that these depend upon norms, institutions and sets of assumptions shared among a group of actors and are not, in themselves, simply the outcome of economic decisions" (Gordon & McCann, 2000). Networks, unlike markets, have their own rituals, norms, and stories.  Scott and Lane (2000) argue:

"Through embeddedness in this organizational community, people instantiate its values, outsiders are transformed to insiders, social entanglements and commitments are formed, and ingroup members reinforce each other's beliefs and participation." 

References in this section

Gordon, Ian R  & Philip McCann (2000) "Industrial clusters: Complexes, agglomeration and/or social networks?  Urban Studies.  Volume: 37 (3): 513-532. 

Granovetter, M. S. 1973. The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology 78:1360-80. 

Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3),481-510. 

Keeble, D. Lawson, C., Lawton Smith, H., Moore, B., and Wilkinson, F.. (1997) Internationalization processes, networking and local embeddedness in technology-intensive small firms, in M. RAM, D. DEAKINS and D. SMALLBONE (Eds) Small Firms.- Enterprising Futures, pp. 60-72. London: Paul Chapman. 

Pescosolido, Bernice A & Beth A Rubin (2000) "The web of group affiliations revisited: Social life, postmodernism, and sociology." American Sociological Review.   Volume:  65 (1): 52-77. 

Scott, Susanne G & Vicki R Lane (2000) "A stakeholder approach to organizational identity" 
Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review.  Volume: 
25 (1): 43-62. 

Uzzi, Brian. (1997) "Social Structure and Competition in Interfirm Networks: The Paradox of Embeddedness." Administrative Science Quarterly 42:35-97. 

 

• Rupert F. Chisholm in his recent book (1998) Developing Network Organizations: Learning for Practice and Theory. Addison-Wesley OD Series (Reading, Mass.).
• Powell, WW (1990) "Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization."  In L. L. Cummings and B. Staw (Eds), Research in organizational behavior. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, pp. 295-336. 
• Powell, WW, Koput, K.W & Smith-Doerr, L (1996). Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation- Networks of learning in biotechnology. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41, 116-45. 
• Considine, Mark, and Jenny M. Lewis. (1999). Governance at Ground Level: The Frontline Bureaucrat in the Age of Markets and Networks. Public Administration Review 59(6): 467-80. 

Powell (1990) also proposes a theory of network organizations, based on trust, reputation, and friendship, emerged in response to the
need for long-term interdependent organizational exchanges whose commodity values are not easily measured. In a study of Biotech firm networking, Powell et. al.(1996) found a 'sea of informal relations of knowledge exchanges' that embedded more formal relations. 

• There is an upcoming conference on The Networking, Emergence and Complexity Studies Initiative (press here). February 2000.
• Learning networks (press here).
•  Maggellans of the Web - ABC News. 1999 - Network models of how the Internet is structured in physical space.  greatest concentration of  Internet addresses are in the United Kingdom.  In the end, such maps could help solve the  classic “traveling salesman” problem in cyberspace  — finding the shortest physical distances between two servers to direct data with greater efficiency. In a study released last week, found that pages on the World Wide Web are so closely linked that any two given pages are only an average of 19 clicks away (click here) for article and maps.
• World Trade Organization Structures - A different take on Social Network Structures is Global Exchange's 10 Reasons to Oppose World Trade Organizations. (press here). Follow-up (press here)

Networking across organizations is also applied by many of the current Knowledge Work approaches. The work is rooted more the Tom Peters Seminar and Hammer Reengineering approach - see TD Gameboard.

• Unland, Brendon - The Knowledge Revolution and the Future of Organizations First Quarter 1998 - If the networked computer is not the cause of the Knowledge Revolution, what is? In Reengineering the Corporation, Hammer and Champy enumerate three forces, which they call the ``three Cs"7 that are spurring business forward (press here) for more.--
• " Autonomous work explains why networking has become so important." Tom Peters, guru of management. (press here) for the Global Networking Game.
• Virtual Conference at Collaborate  on Organizations of the Future and Virtual Teamwork Nov. '99. This is a large group meeting process based on Open Space. Someone starts a conversation by posting in writing  and then everyone that arrives can respond (press here).
• Networking emergence and complexity studies initiative complexity based exploration of health care Boston 28 – 30 October 1999 (press here).
• CRITICAL REVIEW
• September 22, 1999  What Price Will Be Paid by  Those Not on the Net? By PAM BELLUCK "The latest Federal survey of who is using the  Internet presented some sobering results. The "digital divide" is widening" between haves and have nots along racial and economic lines (press here).
• FOR MORE ON CHAOS/COMPLEXITY RELATION TO POSTMODERN ORGANIZATION THEORY (PRESS HERE).

• Navy's Slideshow on Network Warfare (press here). "Information Technology for the 21st Century."  Slide 2 is "7 habits of highly effective information technology" (press here).
• Source of figure shown above (press here)
• White paper on Netcentric Warfare (press here) by Raymond J. Christian & Robert Manke. "The revolution is the exploitation of the technologies to establish information dominance and subsequent battlespace dominance through the conduct of network centric warfare."
• Cebrowski's presentation on Network Centric Warfare (1998). (press here) for article and (press here) for unclassified information grid.
• Army's - Information-Age Warfare: A Working Bibliography by Timothy L. Sanz (press here). Cyberwar, info-war, information-based warfare, cyberterrorism, netwar, cyberpunks, information (or digital) warriors, information dominance, cyberspace defense, information chaos-these are just a few recent coinages reflecting the language dealing with the very broad topic of information-age warfare (I-AW). Published in Army Military Review (1998).
• (Press Here) for chart of U.S. Government Cyber Defense Structure.

The DOD Evaluation of  Cyberwar Information Warfare on the Internet By Jon Elliston, Dossier Editor (press here).

• Cyberwar Threatens Indonesia By David Legard, 1999 IDG-Net online (press here).

                 SINGAPORE – Supporters of independence for the
                 province of East Timor plan to bring Indonesia to a
                 standstill through viruses and hacker attacks on
                 critical computer systems if the Indonesian
                 government sabotages the Aug. 30 ballot on the
                 province's future, two Asia-Pacific newspapers
                 reported today.
• Cyberwar, The Threat of Chaos - Bob Sullivan MSNBC News 1999
• MURRAY HILL, N.J., Aug 6 —  Ever since the film “War Games” in 1983, techno-doomsayers have added fuel to the fiery idea of a digitally driven Armageddon. The image is simple and seems almost irresistible.
• ‘We are the most technologically advanced country in the world,  which means we have the most to lose.’   — FRANK CILLUFFO Information warfare specialist. Big Brother-like electronic monitoring system - Maria Seminerio and Margaret Kane MSNBC News July 28th1999 (press here). The govenment plan (press here).
• Declaration of Cyberwar by French nut on Canada (press here).
• Cyber Terrorism: All's Fair In Love And Cyberwar   (03/15/99; 9:00 a.m. ET) By Jeffrey R. Harrow, TechWeb (press here). List of more articles (press here).

Research and Theory Critical of Cyberwar Genre of TD

• Cyberwar: Proper Vigilance Or Paranoia? By Will Rodger, Inter@ctive Week Cover Story  October 5, 1998 (press here). "The last war was on land, air and sea. The next one may be on your computer. Armed with reams of data showing dramatic increases in computer crime since 1995, a wide-ranging but little-noticed federal working group is moving swiftly to try to knit together a  private and public partnership against armies of hackers, government spies and terrorist agents that could make cyberspace unsafe for democratic."
• Cyberpunk article in Cyberwar (press here).
• February 27, 1996 Cyber war's Literary Fallout Rivals Cyberwar - By DAVID GELERNTER New York Times (press here).
• The New Postmodern War is the  politics of industrial digital war and the international strategies of Cybernet war games.
• Cyber-communist Manifesto - Are free-software hackers undermining capitalism and the free-market economy with their code giveaways? (press here) for paper BY ANDREW LEONARD.

• Cyberwar : Security, Strategy, and Conflict in the  Information Age   by Alan D. Campen (Editor), Douglas H. Dearth (Editor), R.Thomas Goodden May 1996, 2nd printing 1997. (press here).
• The First Information War : The Story of  Communications, Computers, and Intelligence Systems in the Persian Gulf War by Alan D. Campen (Editor) 1992 (press here).
• Strategic Information Warfare : A New Face of War  by Roger C. Molander, A. S. Riddile (Contributor), P. A. Wilson (Contributor) 1996 (press here).
• Information Warfare : Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway by Winn Schwartau 1996 (press here). More on cyber terrorism (press here).
 

"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being  taught mathematical concepts...A  graphical representation of data  abstracted from the banks of every   computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of  light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..." --William Gibson, Neuromancer

 

• Cyber Space & Critical Theory: The Savior of Humanity or the Fall From Grace? (press here) - List of Cyberspace and Critical theory links (press here).

 Press to return to TD TD Game Board or TD for a TD narrative.