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30 September 2007

"Marshall Van Alstyne on "Diffusion, Network Structure & Information Advantage"

Tomorrow (Monday Oct 1) Marshall Van Alstyne will be lead off the latest year of The Cambridge Colloquium on Complexity and Social Networks of the Program on Networked Governance. Full announcement below.

"Diffusion, Network Structure & Information Advantage"

Marshall Van Alstyne
Boston University
School of Management

Monday, October 1, 2007
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor Littauer Building

Marshall Van Alstyne, Professor Van Alstyne works in the area of Information Economics. His research interests include the economics of networks, valuing information, equity and growth effects of information sharing, and integration effects of access to technology. The underlying theme is information: how to value it; how does it affect productivity, product design and competitive advantage; how does it alter property rights; what happens when it is shared, and why access alone may not lead to everyone having it independent of preferences. (for more information click here).

Abstract: The talk will be a summary of 2 papers (one on drivers of information diffusion, the other on how social networks affect access to novel information and the effect on productivity). Both papers are currently available below. In these papers we examine relationships between social network structure, information diversity, and individual performance. Specifically, we investigate which network structures influence access to novel information, and whether these relationships explain performance in information intensive work. We trace the word level diffusion using a ten month panel of email communication. Then we build and validate an analytical model of information diversity, develop hypotheses linking size and diversity to the distribution of novel information among information workers. We test our theory using statistical evidence linking message content to project revenue among employees at a medium sized executive recruiting firm.
Our results indicate that: (1) The total amount of novel information flowing to actors increases in their network size and network diversity. (2) The marginal increase in information diversity decreases in actors' network size. (3) Network diversity contributes to performance even when controlling for the positive performance effects of access to novel information. This suggests additional benefits to network diversity beyond those conferred through information advantage. (4) Traditional demographic and human capital variables have surprising effects on access to diverse information, highlighting the importance of network structure for information advantage. The methods and tools developed are replicable and can be readily applied to other settings in which email is widely used and available, opening a new frontier for the analysis of social networks and information content.

Aral, Sinan, Brynjolfsson, Erik and Van Alstyne, Marshall W., "Productivity Effects of Information Diffusion in Networks"
Aral, Sinan and Van Alstyne, Marshall W., "Network Structure & Information Advantage"

Posted by David Lazer at September 30, 2007 1:09 PM

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