Norms Network Members Use: An Alternative Perspective for Indicating Network Success or Failure

ABSTRACT

In this article it is argued that one approach to learn more on network success is by studying the norms network members use to control their own network. The results of this study in four health care networks indicate three norms to be central: the norm of network legitimacy, the norm of activating capacity, and the norm of network climate. By comparing the four networks it was explored if and why networks differ in the accomplishment of their own norms. Explanations for the reasonable success of networks can be found in the way the networks were initiated and the legitimacy of the networks. Moreover, only if networks are initiated by the network participants themselves does the network's age positively correlate with the network's activating capacity.

Notes

Symbols:

++Norm achievement at each dimension & in each network group.

+Often norm achievement at each dimension & often in each network group.

−Hardly any norm achievement at any dimension or in any network group.

−−No norm achievement in any network group.

Norms are considered to be a statement made by one individual or a group—not necessarily all of them—participating in the network that the network ought to function in a certain way in certain circumstances (for Homans's definition see Gibbs 1981, 8).

“The general procedure of theoretical sampling […] is to elicit codes from raw data from the start of data collection through constant comparative analysis as the data pour in. Then to use the codes to direct further data collection, from which the codes are further theoretically developed with respect to their various properties and their connections with other codes until saturated” (Glaser 1978, 36).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Denise P. A. M. van Raaij

Denise P. A. M. van Raaij ([email protected]) is a PhD student at the Department of Organisation Studies at the Tilburg University. Her current research examines control processes in networks, the conditions under which specific types of network control occur and the effects of network control on network development.