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research What Makes Networks Tick JUST WHAT DRIVES social network- ing relationships? How do they con- nect? And what kinds of relationships on social networks will lead to oth- ers? In a recent study, researchers at Columbia Business School in New York, New York, and the University of Zürich in Switzerland set out to dis- cover whether they could predict how social network connections form. The researchers include Asim Ansari, professor of marketing, and Oded Koe- nigsberg, associate professor of business and marketing, both of Columbia; and Florian Stahl, assistant professor of business economics at the University of Zürich. The group studied social net- working among two groups: managers involved in product development in the workplace and musicians connecting via a Swiss online social networking site. The researchers studied three types of relationships among musicians on 50 March/April 2012 BizEd Asim Ansari the Swiss site: individual friendships between musicians, relationships based on the exchange of information, and downloads of other artists' music. They found that they could predict the likelihood that each type of relation- ship would form based on factors such as geographic location of users, online popularity of artists, and whether a user was an individual artist or the member of a band. A combination of these factors determined the strength of the connection. The researchers then studied the networking activity among managers in the workplace. They moved all the manager participants into a single facility, and then they studied the types and strength of relationships before and after the move. They found that the model they had developed in their study of the Swiss site accurately pre- dicted how relationships formed among managers in an actual workplace. Oded Koenigsberg Florian Stahl These results can help those responsible for their organizations' marketing and customer relationship management in two ways, the researchers say. They can use the study's framework to better spot the most influential individuals in a social network and predict their future connections, and they can better manage the communications among employees, increasing effi- ciency and productivity in the workplace. "Modeling Multiple Relationships in Social Net- works" was published in the August 2011 issue of the Journal of Marketing Research. WESTEND61/GLOW IMAGES