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A Modern Guide to Networks
A Modern Guide to Networks highlights the key dimensions of today’s networks, advancing knowledge of how networks operate and how they will likely function in the future. Combining academic perspectives with practice-based insights, it pushes disciplinary boundaries and provides unique insight into researching and participating in social networks.
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Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
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A Modern Guide to Networks identifies five core characteristics of contemporary networks and translates these into ten key pieces of guidance for researchers and practitioners. Arguing that a knowledge–practice gap has emerged due to the lack of contact between network practitioners and researchers, contributors chart a more collaborative future for the field. They identify how research can be effectively translated and implemented to shape the future of social networks.
A Modern Guide to Networks highlights the key dimensions of today’s networks, advancing knowledge of how networks operate and how they will function in the future. It showcases the diversity of these networks through extensive case studies, examining experiments in network structure, governance, management, leadership, and evaluation. Combining academic perspectives with practice-based insights, it pushes disciplinary boundaries and provides unique insights into researching and participating in social networks.
Providing a state-of-the-art overview of modern networks, it will prove invaluable to academics and researchers in organization studies, public administration and management, and social networks. It will also be a useful resource for practitioners seeking guidance on how to adapt to the rapid evolution of networks.
A Modern Guide to Networks highlights the key dimensions of today’s networks, advancing knowledge of how networks operate and how they will function in the future. It showcases the diversity of these networks through extensive case studies, examining experiments in network structure, governance, management, leadership, and evaluation. Combining academic perspectives with practice-based insights, it pushes disciplinary boundaries and provides unique insights into researching and participating in social networks.
Providing a state-of-the-art overview of modern networks, it will prove invaluable to academics and researchers in organization studies, public administration and management, and social networks. It will also be a useful resource for practitioners seeking guidance on how to adapt to the rapid evolution of networks.
Critical Acclaim
‘In this volume, Robyn Keast, Joris Voets, Jack Wayne Meek, Christine Flynn and their co-authors highlight an important feature of contemporary social networks that are convened to pursue collective actions for the public good: that all social networks boil down to relationships between people and between people and things (e.g., organizations, infrastructure). By elevating the importance of relationship, they necessarily define the essence of a network as a set of practices that have, as they note, been an essential, if not the essential feature of human civilization, and certainly core to the practice of public administration since the dawn of organized and intentional collective action. The chapters in this volume examine contemporary cases through a focus on relationships and underscore that networks can, when fostered with integrity, emotional and cultural intelligence, and deep concerns for public value and public values, enhance the resilience of communities and whole societies. This is an important contribution to the fields of network governance and management because it demonstrates the importance of reflective practice to the craft of network cultivation.’
– Christopher Koliba, University of Kansas, US
‘It is very timely that the new book A Modern Guide to Networks has been prepared. Engaging with diverse networks is now the norm in large-complex programmes attempting to achieve policy objectives that require a long-term and broader programme of cultural, behavioural, and systematic change. However, readily available information explaining social networks form and function and how to work with and within social networks has been difficult for practitioners of these programmes to access. Consequently, understanding how to work effectively through and with networks is still poorly understood. By taking a practitioner-centric approach, A Modern Guide to Networks will make a much-needed contribution to translate the science of social networks so that it is accessible to practitioners and will support these programmes to be more effective and meet the modern social and environmental challenges facing local, national, and global communities.’
– Niall Connolly, Queensland Government, Australia
‘This volume examines networks in the modern world, using an excellent and diverse set of contextual chapters and empirical cases from around the globe. It features a fascinating review of these case chapters by academics and practitioners, culminating in a meta-analysis of insights on network dimensions. This novel approach to bringing together academia and practice yields an impressive synthesis which will be welcomed by everyone interested in the work of networks.’
– Jenny Lewis, University of Melbourne, Australia
‘This book is a welcome addition to the researcher and practitioner dialogue. It brings together the thinking, analysis and practice of both researchers and practitioners to provide valuable insight into the many ways researchers and practitioners work together to produce improved outcomes in response to current public management challenges. The chapters represent network practice at its best with reflection by practitioners on research and new concepts.’
– John Diamond and Garth Britton, co-chairs of the IRSPM The Practice Panel
– Christopher Koliba, University of Kansas, US
‘It is very timely that the new book A Modern Guide to Networks has been prepared. Engaging with diverse networks is now the norm in large-complex programmes attempting to achieve policy objectives that require a long-term and broader programme of cultural, behavioural, and systematic change. However, readily available information explaining social networks form and function and how to work with and within social networks has been difficult for practitioners of these programmes to access. Consequently, understanding how to work effectively through and with networks is still poorly understood. By taking a practitioner-centric approach, A Modern Guide to Networks will make a much-needed contribution to translate the science of social networks so that it is accessible to practitioners and will support these programmes to be more effective and meet the modern social and environmental challenges facing local, national, and global communities.’
– Niall Connolly, Queensland Government, Australia
‘This volume examines networks in the modern world, using an excellent and diverse set of contextual chapters and empirical cases from around the globe. It features a fascinating review of these case chapters by academics and practitioners, culminating in a meta-analysis of insights on network dimensions. This novel approach to bringing together academia and practice yields an impressive synthesis which will be welcomed by everyone interested in the work of networks.’
– Jenny Lewis, University of Melbourne, Australia
‘This book is a welcome addition to the researcher and practitioner dialogue. It brings together the thinking, analysis and practice of both researchers and practitioners to provide valuable insight into the many ways researchers and practitioners work together to produce improved outcomes in response to current public management challenges. The chapters represent network practice at its best with reflection by practitioners on research and new concepts.’
– John Diamond and Garth Britton, co-chairs of the IRSPM The Practice Panel
Contributors
Contributors: Marcus Baw, Ingo Bode, Tom Cosentino, Daniela Cristofoli, Maria Cucciniello, Christine Flynn, Bert George, Shawn Granger, Joe Harvey-Jones, Robyn Keast, Yeonjoo Lee, Helen Lynch, Jack W. Meek, Piotr Modzelewski, Helen Morales, David Noble, Mary Lee Rhodes, Bronwyn Richards, Marianne Schapmans, Amanda Scott, Sinead Shannon, Peter Tsasis, Alex Turrini, Laure Vandersmissen, Joris Voets, Mary Wiktorowicz, Louise Wilson, Geoff Woolcott, Barbara Zyzak
Contents
Contents:
PART I SETTING THE CONTEXT
1 Introduction: why a modern guide to networks? 2
Robyn Keast, Jack Wayne Meek, Joris Voets and
Christine Flynn
2 What are networks? A social, relational perspective 15
Robyn Keast and Jack Wayne Meek
PART II CASE EXAMPLES
3 ‘Travelling from 1600 to 2020 in one week’: resilience
and leadership in school networks during the COVID-19
pandemic 33
Maria Cucciniello, Daniela Cristofoli and Alex Turrini
4 The role of communication in public health disaster
management: city–county engagements during COVID-19
in Los Angeles County 53
Shawn R. Granger and Jack Wayne Meek
5 Strategic planning in a governance network: a life cycle approach 76
Laure Vandersmissen, Marianne Schapmans, Joris Voets
and Bert George
6 Integrated service networks in Poland: insights from the
delivery of social assistance in two cities 96
Piotr Modzelewski, Robyn Keast and Geoff Woolcott
7 ‘Coopetition-based’ network governance – mechanisms
and pitfalls: the example of the German rehabilitation industry 123
Ingo Bode
8 A network analysis of a metropolitan affordable housing
network: lessons for policy guidance from the City of Los
Angeles 141
Helen Morales and Jack Wayne Meek
9 The role of shared identity in effective governance networks 166
Sinead Shannon and Mary Lee Rhodes
10 Network bandwidth management in public administration:
definition and mechanisms 191
Barbara Zyzak
11 A modern network gap: a case for the establishment
of formal boundary-spanning organizations to support
innovation policy 211
David Noble
12 Global health networks: fostering convergence in
women’s and children’s health policy 233
Mary E. Wiktorowicz, Yeonjoo Lee and Peter Tsasis
13 Knowing how, knowing who: the role of a UK online
health informatics practitioner network towards
system-wide learning 251
Louise Wilson and Marcus Baw
14 Positioning impact and sustainability under the umbrella
of cultural accumulation theory: framing a novel
conceptualization of modern networks 270
Geoff Woolcott, Robyn Keast, Amanda Scott, Tom
Cosentino, Joe Harvey-Jones, Helen Lynch and
Bronwyn Richards
PART III NEXT PRACTICE AND GUIDELINES
15 Modern network research: insights from network
practitioners in addressing the knowing–doing gap 291
Robyn Keast, Jack Wayne Meek, Christine Flynn and
Joris Voets
16 Conclusion: the practices of modern networks 313
Robyn Keast, Jack W. Meek, Joris Voets and Christine
Flynn
Index
PART I SETTING THE CONTEXT
1 Introduction: why a modern guide to networks? 2
Robyn Keast, Jack Wayne Meek, Joris Voets and
Christine Flynn
2 What are networks? A social, relational perspective 15
Robyn Keast and Jack Wayne Meek
PART II CASE EXAMPLES
3 ‘Travelling from 1600 to 2020 in one week’: resilience
and leadership in school networks during the COVID-19
pandemic 33
Maria Cucciniello, Daniela Cristofoli and Alex Turrini
4 The role of communication in public health disaster
management: city–county engagements during COVID-19
in Los Angeles County 53
Shawn R. Granger and Jack Wayne Meek
5 Strategic planning in a governance network: a life cycle approach 76
Laure Vandersmissen, Marianne Schapmans, Joris Voets
and Bert George
6 Integrated service networks in Poland: insights from the
delivery of social assistance in two cities 96
Piotr Modzelewski, Robyn Keast and Geoff Woolcott
7 ‘Coopetition-based’ network governance – mechanisms
and pitfalls: the example of the German rehabilitation industry 123
Ingo Bode
8 A network analysis of a metropolitan affordable housing
network: lessons for policy guidance from the City of Los
Angeles 141
Helen Morales and Jack Wayne Meek
9 The role of shared identity in effective governance networks 166
Sinead Shannon and Mary Lee Rhodes
10 Network bandwidth management in public administration:
definition and mechanisms 191
Barbara Zyzak
11 A modern network gap: a case for the establishment
of formal boundary-spanning organizations to support
innovation policy 211
David Noble
12 Global health networks: fostering convergence in
women’s and children’s health policy 233
Mary E. Wiktorowicz, Yeonjoo Lee and Peter Tsasis
13 Knowing how, knowing who: the role of a UK online
health informatics practitioner network towards
system-wide learning 251
Louise Wilson and Marcus Baw
14 Positioning impact and sustainability under the umbrella
of cultural accumulation theory: framing a novel
conceptualization of modern networks 270
Geoff Woolcott, Robyn Keast, Amanda Scott, Tom
Cosentino, Joe Harvey-Jones, Helen Lynch and
Bronwyn Richards
PART III NEXT PRACTICE AND GUIDELINES
15 Modern network research: insights from network
practitioners in addressing the knowing–doing gap 291
Robyn Keast, Jack Wayne Meek, Christine Flynn and
Joris Voets
16 Conclusion: the practices of modern networks 313
Robyn Keast, Jack W. Meek, Joris Voets and Christine
Flynn
Index
