Mission
The mission of the LINKS Center is to
promote a social network perspective on the study and management of
organizations. Located at the Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of
Kentucky, our principal activities consist of:
- Research. Conducting and publishing cutting-edge research in the
rapidly expanding field of social network analysis
- Training. We offer seminars, workshops and
extensive training materials to enable others to research and diagnose social networks
in organizational settings
- Consulting. We help organizations to
understand and optimize their intra- and inter- organizational networks
- Lectures. We host a series of presentations by
well-known scholars on network topics
- Conferences. We host the prestigious annual
ION conference that brings together top scholars to present the latest
research on social networks and management
The core insight of the network perspective
is that the pattern of relations among the elements of a system—be they
people, organizations, neurons, or computer servers—has important
consequences for the system's performance. Furthermore, at the
individual level, the position of a node in a structure determines in
part the opportunities and constraints that the node will face.
This focus on structure and
position contrasts with the more
traditional emphasis on intrinsic characteristics of individuals as
determinants of outcomes for the individuals and the groups they
comprise. Network theory and methods are highly versatile
and adaptable to problems across a wide range of academic disciplines,
including Management, Marketing, Information Systems, Sociology,
Psychology, Communications, Physics and Biology.
The Center is directed by
Professor Daniel J. Brass --
one of the most cited authorities on social networks in organizational
studies and management.
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