Architecture and leadership in knowledge intensive networks: the case of internet forums on photo

1. Architecture and leadership in knowledge intensive networks: the case of internet forums on photo Paul Muller, Claude Guittard, Julien Pénin  GRANEM, University of Angers, France  BETA, University of Strasbourg, France DIME workshop on distributed networks and the knowledge based economy - Juan les Pins - May 10th-11th

2. 1.1. Context of the paper • Emphasis commonly put on the reciprocal relationship between communities of practice and networks in the frame of: • The dynamics of clusters (Benner, 2003; Dibiaggio and Ferrary, 2003) • Territorial development (Filippi et. 2006) • The trade-off exploration/exploitation (Nooteboom, 2006) • The relationship between science and technology (Gittelman and Kogut, 2003) • Case studies commonly treat CoPs as objects with ‘‘fuzzy’’ frontiers • Questions to be adressed: • How can we identify the borders of communities of practice in social networks? • How do they organize their relationship with their social environment?

3. 1.2. Objectives • Social network analysis (hierarchical clustering) can help identifying potential communities of practice within knowledge intensive networks • Leaders play an important role in regulating the interaction of the community of practice with its environment

4. 2. Theoretical framework:2.1. Communities of practice • Circles of Individuals engaged in common practices and interacting in order to solve common problems. • Characterized by: • A domain of focus • Interactions • A Practice • Hypothesis : leaders (ie individuals characterized by higher activity levels) responsible for: • the internal coordination of members • Organizing the interactions of the CoPs with the environment

5. 2. Theoretical framework: 2.2. Internet forums as networked communities • Virtual forums: facility on the WWW for holding discussions through the exchange of messages among individuals • Some internet forums may be considered as knowledge intensive networks in which coexist several communities of practice (Guittard, 2006): • Disclosure of technical knowledge and information related to a specific practice • Evidence of the development of virtual cognitive platforms in support of collective learning (Cohendet et al. 2006)

6. 2.2. Organization of a forum • Hierarchical organization of forums: • Forums treating of a broad issue (eg photo) => gather several topics • Topics treating of specific subjects (eg a model of digicam) <=> discussion involving several members who post messages • Messages possibly including technical information and knowledge • Possibly: a message may include reference to messages posted by other members

7. 3. Methodology : identification of potential communities of practice • Step 1: generate the network of interactions (based on messages posted in the forum and citing other members) • Step 2: isolate clusters characterized by higher interaction intensity - Newman/Girvan procedure • Step 3: analyse the characteristics of clusters and compare them with the features of communities of practice

8. 3. Methodology: the Newman/Girvan procedure • Methodology based on hierarchical clustering for identifying potential communities of practice: • Compute the betweeness for each tie of the network • The tie with the highest betweeness is identified and removed from the network • Compute a ‘‘modularity index’’ accounting for the accuracy of the partition => optimal partitions are associated with highest modularity values • Restart from 1: recalculate betweeness for each tie.

9. 4. Data: extracted from the HardWare.fr forums on digital photo • 2 forums: ‘‘Digital camera and objectives’’ and ‘‘shooting technique’’ • 110 different topics gathering 3649 messages • 1579 / 3649 messages containing pieces of knowledge or of information related to the practice of photo • 900 / 1579 messages containing citations and forming the basis of the construction of the network • Data extracted in the period 31/01/07-02/02/07

10. 5.1. Basic results • 497 identified participants to the forum • Network including 397 individuals and 1350 ties • 26 components identified: • 25 components: 2 to 9 members (total of 67 members) • 1 main component: 330 members • => Application of the Newman/Girvan procedure on the main component

11. 5.2. Identification of potential communities of practice: results of the N/G procedure Graph generated using UCINET VI (Borgatti et al., 2002)

12. 5.2. Identification of potential communities of practice • Identification of 15 distinct clusters of varying size (1 to 54 members) • Clusters don’t correspond to topics but either aggregate them or spread over them => relevance of the social network approach • Clusters characterized by very specific fields of interest=> focus clearly put on a brand of digital camera (more marginally on shooting technique) => potential communities of practice

13. 5.3. Identification of leaders • High degree of heterogeneity in the contribution levels: few very active members => existence of leaders in clusters (see Muller, 2006) • Leaders also characterized by high levels of interactions with other members • Different types of leaders (see Merton, 1949): • Local: only interacting with members of the same cluster => favour local coordination • Cosmopolitan: interacting with members inside and outside the cluster => favour coordination across communities

14. 6. Conclusion • Application of the Newman/Girvan procedure to the internet forum on photo allowing to highlight: • The existence of several clusters focusing on specific subjects (ie a specific brand or model of digital camera and related equipment) => potentially communities of practice • Different characteristics of leaders: • Local leaders dedicated to the local coordination of communities of practice • Cosmopolitan leaders regulating the interactions with the environment

15. 7. Next steps • Test of the robustness of the methodology: • Confronting it with alternative methodologies (survey among the forum) • Confront the methodology with other types of relational data: • Copublications (as in Levy, Muller, 2007)