Egocentric, Sociocentric, or Dyadic? Identifying the Appropriate Level of Analysis in the Study of Organizational Networks
No Access Until
Permanent Link(s)
Collections
Other Titles
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper examines the use of individual, dyadic and system-level analyses in the study of relational data in organizational networks. We argue that dyadic analyses are particularly appropriate when the dependent variable is quantitative and/or involves multiple behaviors. We show that system-level analyses, by aggregating potentially signi?cant information, provide a less grounded account of the relations across networks than do dyadic analyses. Using examples from a study of corporate political behavior, we contrast dyadic analyses with those at both the individual and system-levels. Variables measured in raw dyadic form consistently perform better in accounting for similarity of corporate political behavior than do variables measured by taking system-level properties into account. Our ?ndings suggest that although individual and system-level analyses are useful in a number of situations, dyadic analyses are a ?exible means to examine the effects of multiple networks at multiple levels.