In addition to the good suggestions already made, it might be useful to
look at the research and writing of U. of Chicago professor Ron Burt. He's
a sociologist based in the business school there and is doing a lot of
interesting work applying the sociologist's statistical tool kit about
relations among people in networks to corporate settings.
His books (including "Structural Holes", Harvard U. Press, 1992) are
sometimes a little heavy going because they are written for his academic
peers, but worth the effort. He's put together ways to measure the value
of the "social capital" a person have based on their position in a
network. He describes how networks can be structures to give some people
a special competitive advantage - some great research and theory just
waiting to be applied to organization learning issues.
Another b-school professor whose has done useful work applying social
network analysis to understanding what goes on in workplaces is Karen
Stephenson, at UCLA's Anderson School.
Has anyone on the LO list made use of either of their ideas?
Bob Tomasko
RMTomasko@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>