Teaching social network analysis

Despite innumerable empirical applications of social network analysis reported in management scholarship, peer-reviewed transactions on pedagogic engagement with this field are scarce and inadequate. Management education is at best evasive when it comes to discussing or teaching social network analysis. Simplistic applications, with superficial interpretations of results, are compounded by methodological ambiguities and obfuscations, as well as by misattributions and terminological misascriptions of some consequence. This paper considers a deliberated incorporation of social network analysis into management education. It identifies criteria for suitable textbooks, delineates content that is methodical in its facilitation of studious endeavors, and argues for the adoption of a didactic process of classroom experiential/problem-based learning. In view of the synergistic advantage to be gained by coupling the analytical preciseness of social network analysis with the methodological dexterity of management, the pedagogic strategy is purposely aimed at revealing exploratory possibilities, advancing conceptual understanding, sharpening analytical attention, exercising interpretive adroitness, and thus offering a sound intellectual and practical skill-set for understanding human networks, undertaking social network analysis, and/or underwriting the claims and recommendations of third-party experts in the field.