Organizational Network Analysis in a Brazilian Telecommunication Company

Telecom session

Ignacio García (Tree Branding Consulting)
Organizational Network Analysis in a Brazilian Telecommunication Company

Fields of interest: Organizational Development and Relational Data Management
Key words: organizational network analysis, organizational development, relational data management, knowledge management, multiplexities, social capital, power and control.

The following paper presents an Organizational Network Analysis case study of one of the biggest telecommunications companies in Brazil. This case summarizes several challenges in the application of SNA techniques into the Organizational Development and Knowledge Management. Most of these topics are not well documented or even inexistent in the specialized literature.

This work was supported altogether by a local branding company, which defined the strategic branding positioning based on the guide concept of the benefits of “Living in a Networked Society”.

At the beginning of the project, the first business aim was to help in the identification of key employees to compose the implementation group of the brand attributes. From a sample of around 300 middle managers, influencer and bridge builder employees emerge from three network dimensions: Cooperation, Energy or Motivation and Innovation.

In the successive meetings with the managers of the company previous to the launching of the mapping, the first business aim was extended.

Sample:

The first topic extended was the people being considered to participate in the mapping. Being aware of this problematic topic in SNA in general and ONA in particular, we consider all the middle and top managers, including the CEO. So, we mapped around 620 employees.

Web-based survey:

With the above extended sample, we gained a technical challenge for the relational data collection procedure.

A favorable point was that in a company where all the employees have edge technology mobiles and impulsive users, the data collection could be done through web-survey.

After several prototypes, we worked together with an IT partner, and achieved a solution based on a database with a search box with add and exclude functionalities, which was a user friendly interface and not extremely time consuming.

Knowledge Management:

Second extension from the original aim was the introduction of knowledge, projects and communication channels networks.

For these new topics – related to the Knowledge Management field of interest – several personal interviews were conducted with the head employees from each area of the whole company. From this “Linnaean” effort, a company knowledge tree of projects was clearly defined into categories and specific topics, which was subsequently added to the web-based survey drop lists.

During the data collection – through web- based survey – the first knowledge & project tree grew organically, because a blank box, at the end of the drop lists, allowed the end user to add new knowledge and projects. At the end of the data collection, we classified new knowledge and new projects data they added.

Organizational Network Pyramid Model:

All the networks were mapped with a model supporting all the decisions we made.

With a huge effort of the HR area, launching emails signed by the CEO, SMSs and follow-ups during 4 weeks, we reached an excellent 84% fill rate.

Since cooperation is fundamental for any organization to be alive, its mapping is the base of the Network Pyramid Model.

However, cooperation can be forced by the “command and control paradigm”, which is still dominant in contemporary management and is summarized by the figure of the hierarchical and inflexible organizational formal chart.

We strongly believe that in the actual macro-social context – full of complexity, uncertainty and interconnectivity demand – the forced cooperation limits the adaptation capacity of organizations to the internal and external environmental challenges. In terms of innovation, the command and control paradigm limits the incremental and radical innovations.

According to the Network Pyramid Model, innovation does not emerge: neither from an individual eureka, nor from a forced cooperation, but from an “energized cooperation”, since interpersonal energy allows a more fluid type of cooperation not confined to the formal chart.

Multiplexity Indexes:

Since individuals are embedded in multiple kinds of relationships and the Network Pyramid Model focuses on the interaction between three of them, we applied the well know Multiplexity principle and adapted it to two complement indexes for the Pyramid relationship patterns.

The first Multiplexity measures direct influence and the second the bridging capacity of the individuals and their formal and informal groups. We believe that both Multiplexity indexes constitute a big picture of the organizational social capital being mapped.

At the end of this work, the RH area starts to contemplate the indexes – in their different compositions – to their strategic decisions.

Ethical issues:

During the whole project, ethical and privacy issues were taken into consideration and discussed with all the team members. A table containing the pros and cons (for instance: how much the results should be showed) was made before the first presentation results presented to the board managers of the company.

Corporative Education:

To manage the ethical issues with maximum care, a progressive educational plan into the meaning and uses of the results was develop as a second step.

Main Results:

A clear pattern of the topography in the main three networks emerged, through the identification of a reinterpretation of some of the classic graph metrics and their proper contextualization to each particular case.

At the Macro or network level, Density follows the basic form of the pyramid, being wide in the cooperation (the less specific base) and more lean as it approaches the top (Energy –Motivation and Innovation) which involves a strongest psychological link).

The goals of improvement in each level were presented to a further organizational development work.

At the Messo or group level, formal and informal groups were identified and, it followed the same patterns for the three main pyramid levels. Separated from the rest of the unique component, two big groups represented more than departments silos, but different sub-cultures who challenged the future integration.

Double entry tables diagnosed the density inside and between departments, providing a full matrix of the departments flow.

“What next” simulations was presented to visualize the impact of the key employee in the hole system.

At the Micro or individual level, we identified and contextualized: direct influencers inside areas, bridge builders between areas, informal leaders, bottlenecks, outsiders and isolated individuals. Together with the multiplexity individual´s approaches, these individual approaches were very promising and should be included in the classics employee’s performance metrics.

Knowledge and Project networks gave a multilevel perspective of the knowledge management possibilities to be improved, which were complemented by the Knowledge Gaps indexes developed.

Power & Control Transitioning:

Finally, we believe that the results of this project will help organizations to understand their social networks and develop a transitional management model from the poorly adaptive Taylorism model (based on the power and control) into a more cooperative, motivated and innovative one.