A social network scorecard to monitor knowledge flows across communication media

This paper describes the application of a scorecard, based on social network analysis, to monitor the evolution of knowledge flows. This scorecard helps organizations to identify new ways to optimize knowledge flows by combining communication media that match their working environments. Three case studies were conducted: one within an Italian Research Centre, and two within U.S.-based Research and Education Centres. The interactions of members of these business communities were observed by monitoring multiple communication media over time. This is a departure from the common practice of using only e-mail communications to describe social networks. The goal of this paper is to answer the following question: does e-mail alone represent an accurate approximation of the social network? The results suggest that a better approximation can be found by monitoring multiple media: e-mail, chat, telephone, social networking websites, and face-to-face interactions.