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The existence and form of social networks in organisations

Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010.

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Other Authors: Sutherland, Margie
Format: Thesis
Published: University of Pretoria 2013
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access_status_str Open Access
author2 Sutherland, Margie
author_browse Sutherland, Margie
author_facet Sutherland, Margie
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2006 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria
description Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010.
format Thesis
id oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/23698
institution University of Pretoria (South Africa)
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:40:43.775Z
license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
publishDate 2013
publishDateRange 2013
publishDateSort 2013
publisher University of Pretoria
publisherStr University of Pretoria
record_format dspace
source_str UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/23698 The existence and form of social networks in organisations Sutherland, Margie upetd@up.ac.za Zaaiman, Sophia Maria UCTD Social networks Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. The concept of social networks has emerged as a new direction in the theory of organisational behaviour. Informal networks are widely understood to contribute to innovation, collaboration and learning in organisations. Competitive advantage, or social capital from social networks, can greatly aid an organisation in the business environment. The purpose of this research project was to establish whether and in what form social networks existed in South African organisations. Based on the literature review three research questions were developed. In this quantitative research project surveys were conducted in various companies using paper questionnaires. Eighty respondents reported on five of their own contacts providing a contact profile batch of 400 people. Equal numbers of people of different race and gender completed the questionnaire. Descriptive and comparative statistics were used to analyse the data. Importantly the results showed that almost half of the employees felt excluded from social network participation in their companies. Homophily was identified as a strong divider that caused race based networking. Gender was found to be not so strong a divisive factor as anticipated. Despite an abundance of networking biases, a diverse network-context knowledge sharing model was developed. Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) unrestricted 2013-09-06T15:44:36Z 2010-07-02 2013-09-06T15:44:36Z 2007-04-07 2010-07-02 2010-04-01 Dissertation Zaaiman, SM 2006, The existence and form of social networks in organisations, MBA dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://hdl.handle.net/2263/23698 > G10/283/ag http://hdl.handle.net/2263/23698 http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-04012010-140925/ © 2006 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle UCTD
Social networks
The existence and form of social networks in organisations
title The existence and form of social networks in organisations
title_full The existence and form of social networks in organisations
title_fullStr The existence and form of social networks in organisations
title_full_unstemmed The existence and form of social networks in organisations
title_short The existence and form of social networks in organisations
title_sort existence and form of social networks in organisations
topic UCTD
Social networks
url http://hdl.handle.net/2263/23698
http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-04012010-140925/