EXPLORING MULTIPLEXITY MULTI-CORE PATTERN OF NETWORK ORGANIZATIONS

摘要

Organizational elements and their interactions have been mapped into the form of networks in current research studies. A number of network structures had been proposed over the years but few, has involved the identification of cores, their overlapping relationships and the super-dyadic relations within network organizations. This paper discusses the multiplexity, multi-core pattern of network organizations (MMCP). This emerging structural paradigm can better illustrate the multi-level connections among network members and the impact of changing status and roles of network members on the organization. In exploring the multi-dimensional coreness of network organizations, the paper proposes the use of a hypergraph approach as previous methods recommended by other researchers were not able to identify the context-dependent core; neither were they able to adapt to the overlapping nature of relations. The hypergraph method extends the eigenvector centrality to reveal the multi-dimensional coreness of an organization. The proposed approach is tested by way of a case study on a network structure and the types of interactions among network members of a network organization over three time periods in a span of twelve years.