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Outline

Part 1. Development of a Methodology for Network Research on Social Cohesion

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Part 2. Validation of the Methodology for Network Research on Social Cohesion    The algorithm for finding social embeddedness in nested cohesive subgroups is applied to high school friendship networks (e.g., Fig 2; boundaries of grades are approximate) and to interlocking corporate directorates. The usefulness of the measures of cohesion and embeddedness are tested against outcome variables of school attachment in the friendship study and similarity in corporate donations to political parties in the corporate interlock study. The cohesion variables outperform other network and attribute variables in predicting the outcome variables using multiple regression.    Nearly identical findings are replicated for school attachment measures and friendship networks in 12 American high schools from the AddHealth Study (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth/), Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Concepts and Measurement.  Baruch Fischhoff, Elena O. Nightingale, Joah G. Iannotta, Editors, 2002, The National Academy Press.    2003 James Moody and Douglas R. White, Social Cohesion and Embeddedness: A Hierarchical Conception of Social Groups. American Sociological Review 8(1)

Part 3. Longitudinal Validation of Social Cohesion Dynamics in Biotechnology    To account for the development of collaboration among organizations in the field of biotechnology, four logics of attachment are identified and tested: accumulative advantage, homophily, follow-the-trend, and multiconnectivity. We map the network dynamics of the field over the period 1988-99 (Fig 3 à1999). Using multiple novel methods, including analysis of network degree distributions, network visualizations, and multi-probability models to estimate dyadic attachments, we demonstrate how a preference for diversity and multiconnectivity in choice of collaborative partnerships shapes network evolution. Cohesion variables outperform scores of other independent variables.    Collaborative strategies pursued by early commercial entrants are supplanted by strategies influenced more by universities, research institutes, venture capital, and small firms. As organizations increase both the number of activities around which they collaborate and the diversity of organizations with which they are linked, cohesive subnetworks form that are characterized by multiple, independent pathways. These structural components, in turn, condition the choices and opportunities available to members of a field, thereby reinforcing an attachment logic based on connection to partners that are diversely and differently linked. The dual analysis of network and institutional evolution offers a compelling explanation for the decentralized structure of this science-based field.    2003 Walter W. Powell, Douglas R. White, Kenneth W. Koput and Jason Owen-Smith. Network Dynamics and Field Evolution: The Growth of Interorganizational Collaboration in the Life Sciences, 1988-99.  Submitted to: American Journal of Sociology.

Part 4. Applying the Methodology to Marital Morphogenesis of Social Class

Part 5. Application of Multiconnectivity Methodology to a Kinship Network 2002 Ulla Johansen and Douglas R. White, Collaborative Long-Term Ethnography And Longitudinal Social Analysis of a Nomadic Clan In Southeastern Turkey, pp. 81-99, Chronicling Cultures: Long-Term Field Research in Anthropology, eds. R. van Kemper and A. Royce. AltaMira.

Part 6. Multiconnectivity Theory Applied to Morphogenesis in Kinship Networks    Complexity in Kinship Networks    Visiting patterns and network traversal through strong ties create structures of encounter between potential mates and of morphogenesis of social structure consolidated through marriage (Fig 6) and childbirth (Fig 5b). Middle Eastern societies with patrilineages often have nested segments whose cohesion vary with kinship distance. Study of the Turkish nomads shows that marriage frequency also decays with bilateral kinship distance (Fig 7). The decay is a power-law not an exponential, which indicates preferential attachment with closer relatives (Fig 8), a feature that is typical of societies with preferences for marriage with blood kin.     Power-law distributions of preferential attachment in social networks are an indicator of complex forms of self-organization, as seen with the ability of conflict in segmented lineage systems to escalate to higher levels of opposition.      2003 Douglas R. White and Ulla Johansen.  Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems: Process Models of a Turkish Nomad Clan. Lexington. In Press.

Part 7. Applying the Morphogenesis Methodology to Kinship Networks

Part 8. Generalizing a Complexity Theory of Morphogenesis in Kinship Networks

Part 9. Next Stages in Testing Complexity Theory in Morphogenesis