BUS346 Social Network Analysis

The experiment that Stanley Milgram conducted in the 1960s provided empirical evidence in favour of what is now referred to as the “small-world effect”, namely the fact that the average geodesic distance is small even for very large networks. Critically discuss Milgram’s experiment, and assess the extent to which the “small-world effect” can be found in the random Poisson network, in the Barabási-Albert “scale-free” network, and in the WattsStrogatz “small-world” network.

Learning Objectives:

The objective of the project is to allow students to develop the ability of undertaking independent work, while applying and extending ideas and methods introduced in the course.

Learning Outcomes:

Depending on the selected subject and approach, students should be able to:

• start up or redirect a line of inquiry;

• employ diverse methods, including qualitative, field, survey, archival, laboratory and computational methods;

• focus on different kinds of networks including acquaintance networks, coauthorship networks, inter- and intra-organizational networks;

• make a theoretical contribution;

• provide new empirical findings;

• achieve genuine integration of theory and data; and

• provide a theoretically-driven review and integration of an important research area.

Project Format:

The project must be word processed or typed on A4 paper, double-spaced, 11-point font, with 1-inch margins all around.

The maximum length will be different depending on group size:

• Group of 4 students: maximum length of 8,000 words

• Group of 3 students: maximum length of 6,000 words

• Group of 2 students: maximum length of 4,000 words

• Individual project: maximum length of 2,000 words

These maximum length constraints reflect the idea that, either individually or in groups, each student is expected to contribute 2,000 words. Pages must be sequentially numbered.

Sections and sub-sections must be clearly identified and sequentially numbered. The project must include:

– The title;

– Students’ ID numbers;

– An abstract (up to 200 words): The abstract should summarise the project and conveying its broader implications and be devoid of mathematical symbols, acronyms, citations, or technical jargon;

– Keywords (up to five);

– An introduction;

– A final section with a critical discussion of the main findings