ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses networks as enactments. As useful units of analysis, networks are identifiable patterns of information flow, each one of which has unique meaning that comes to life through enactments. Information flow through networks is a focal point in organizational analysis. Such analysis focuses on units that are larger than interpersonal dyads, acknowledging that they are a vital means by which networks operate internally and by which they become linked. As focal points of organizational analysis, networks are both very easy and quite difficult to conceptualize and study. It is easy to treat them as a means for describing who communicates with whom and in what frequency; that analysis looks for patterns, like the nerve structure of a human body or its cardiovascular system. Networks are enacted through interpersonal relationships between people who interlock to form a web. Companies consist of formal and emergent networks.
