The Role of Social Networks Theory and Methodology

for Project Stakeholder Management

Kon Shing Kenneth Chung, Lynn Crawford

CRITIQUE PAPER #5
CIS101 - Project Management
Joseph Conrado S. Jacer MIT - 11686901

OVERVIEW OF THE PAPER

Stakeholder management, the recently added knowledge area in the first edition
of PMBOK, identifies key players and their significant influence for the success of
projects and programs. Managing stakeholders relationships and interests provides a
clearer picture in identifying people, groups or organizations that influence or could be
influenced by a projects. Thus, the project managers role to identify and manage
various stakeholders plays a crucial role for the success or failure of projects and
programs.
PURPOSE OF THE PAPER
In order to identify key decision makers and influencers, the authors construct a
hypothetical scenario in order to visualize the usefulness and value of stakeholders,
their connections and influence with one another. By using Network theories,
interactions were pointed out through methodologies, and strengths of relations were
identified.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Primary and secondary stakeholders were identified based on traditional

management.
Stakeholders were classified based on their level of authority, concern &
involvement.
Stakeholders were also grouped based on their engagement and
awareness, as well as their impacts and resistant to change.
Three levels of social network thinking were identified with their
corresponding theories and respective authors.
The social network constant were also identified as well as relevance to
stakeholder management.
A 4-way structural classification of stakeholders influences were identified
as compromiser, commander, subordinate and solitarian.
 The authors proposed the use of PMBOKs stakeholders classification, the
power-interest grid, to represent visualizations among network-levels,
actor-levels and tie-levels.

POINTS OF AGREEMENT

1. Stakeholders Influence
The social network among stakeholders is identified according to: Network-level,
Actor-level, and Tie-level. Then, three forms of actor locations: Degree centrality which
indicates actors communication activity; Closeness centrality, which measured actors
ability to reach other stakeholders; and Betweenness centrality, which measured the
distance of path among stakeholders.
In the research of Lim, Quercia and Finkelstein (2010), StakeNet: Using Social
Networks to Analyse the Stakeholders of Large-Scale Software Projects, each
stakeholder is ranked in accordance to their respective relationship with other
stakeholders, using the above three centrality of stakeholders. In additional, three more
measures were used: page Rank, the stakeholders rank in terms of their relative
importance to all other stakeholders. Another one is In-degree centrality. This is the
rank of a stakeholder based on the number of other stakeholders that recommend them.
The third one is Out-degree centrality. In this case, the stakeholders importance is
measured by how many stakeholders they recommend.
Understanding positions and influence to/from other stakeholders provides easier
decision making that will eventually influence rate of success of a project. I believe that
the more options being considered, the better output and more credible measure can be
derived.

2. Communication Activities
Identifying stakeholders concerns and evaluating their impacts is equally
significant in non-IT projects. The research of Mok and Shen (2016), A Network-
Theory Based Model for Stakeholder Analysis in Major Construction Projects, explored
a more detailed study on the stakeholders roles in the construction projects. Their
research further supports the authors discussion on the communication activity of
Degree centrality. Mok and Shen (2016) explored the number of immediate links
directed to (in-degree) or given off by (out-degree) a stakeholder. Under this
constructions projects, they were able to recognize stakeholders concerns, the social
interaction, the cause-and-effects of issues, the roles and positions, and the actions that
will accommodate stakeholders needs. This is similarly discussed in the research of
Lim, Quercia and Finkelstein (2010).

3. Coalition
The authors discussed about density and centrality and proposed PMBOKs
classification on power interest grid, in combination with network visualization and
network metrics. This infographics presents a birds-eye-view of the stakeholders roles,
their relative position from other stakeholders and their degree of influence. This is
beneficial in generating crucial decisions especially on large projects.
 The research of Ding and Liu (2010) on A Social Network Theory of
Stakeholders in Chinas Project Governance corroborates their findings. Ding and Liu
proposes a relatively similar approach using Network configuration. They were able to
establish social network governance structure, network configuration, and analyze
strategies that predict trends and risk.
POINTS OF DISAGREEMENT

1. Actor-Network Theory
The authors research on stakeholders location deals mainly on communication
activity, ability to reach others and the extent of potential control to communication. The
three focus on special, and I think it requires more detailed activity that will better give a
clearer relationship.
The research of Missonier and Loufrani-Fedida (2014), Stakeholder analysis
and engagement in projects: From stakeholder relational perspective to stakeholder
relational ontology addresses this concern. Missonier and Loufrani-Fedida proposed
Actor-Nerwork theory (ANT), a more relevant approach that integrates dynamic and
emergence mechanisms in order to thoroughly improve stakeholder analysis of an
engagement in projects. This method guides project managers about What, How
and When to observe in a stakeholders network in a project. What to observe
includes both humans and non-humans such as computer systems, contracts, or open
source softwares. How to observe implies focusing on the relationships to identify the
stakeholders. When to observe is the dynamic analysis of the product during
occurrence of problems and morphological analysis at the start of the projects.

2. Approaches
The authors approaches to social networking deals with the assessment of how
closely-interlaced the connections of stakeholders are, and the degree to which the
connections focus around a central stakeholders. The approach also allows
identification of stakeholders who have high information flow, brokerage potential,
independence, and/or lack of reach among and between stakeholders. Lastly, the
approach allows assessment of how influential or close or how strong or weak a
connection is of one stakeholder to others.
I think the above approach is a little limited perhaps applicable in general to
medium-large enterprises. But when it comes to smaller businesses, particularly start-
ups, non-IT and family-owned projects, perhaps a simpler approach may be of better
use.
To address the limitation, I found the applicability of the research of Sciearelli and
Tani (2013), Network Approach and Stakeholder Management. The study uses the
following four approaches:
Dyadic Relationship where managers should define the importance of each
stakeholder and answer to the most relevant ones.
Ego-Network where managers should define the whole set of stakeholders and
try to answer to all the relevant requests.
Multiple Interactions where managers should understand how stakeholders
interests and how they relate to their environments.
Complete Network, where managers should understand the structure of the
network the stakeholders act in, in order to find the most relevant interests.
 Chung and Crawfords approach is covered under complete network of Sciearelli
and Tanis study.
I strongly believe that dyadic relationship, ego-network and multiple interactions
would contribute significant reference for future studies as these approaches provides
wider comparison to network structure analysis. More choices on network approach
help project managers more realistic picture of stakeholders role and their relation to
each other. More approaches means clearer picture of the real influence the
stakeholders powers can do to realize respective business goals.

3. Unnoticed Approach
I noticed that Sciarelli and Tanis research on the four approaches to social
network was conducted April 2013. While Chung and Crawfords Network, Actor and
Tie approach was conducted 2015. Chung and Crawford could have maximized their
research had they included related approaches observed by Siarelli and Tani. The
result would have been more interesting as it covers a much wider area of social
network.

REFERENCES

Chung and Crawford (2015). "The role of social networks theory and methodology for
project stakeholder management" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/S1877042816308874

Ding and Liu (2010) on A Social Network Theory of Stakeholders in Chinas Project
Governance. http://file.scirp.org/pdf/IB20110200001_48844172.pdf
Lim, Quercia and Finkelstein (2010), StakeNet: Using Social Networks to Analyse the
Stakeholders of Large-Scale Software Projects.
http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein/papers/stakeneticse.pdf
Missonier and Loufrani-Fedida (2014), Stakeholder analysis and engagement in
projects: From stakeholder relational perspective to stakeholder relational
ontology. http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein/papers/stakeneticse.pdf
Mok and Shen (2016), A Network-Theory Based Model for Stakeholder Analysis in
Major Construction Projects. http://2016.creative-construction-
conference.com/proceedings/CCC2016_45_Mok.pdf

Sciearelli and Tani (2013), Network Approach and Stakeholder Management.

http://www.fundacionseres.org/Lists/Informes/Attachments/668/Network
%20Approach%20and%20Stakeholder%20Management.pdf