Non-response in social networks: The impact of different non-response treatments on the stability of blockmodels

► Blockmodeling results can be affected by both actor non-response and treatments of non-response in complex ways. ► There is no one best treatment of actor non-response. ► The symmetry of a network has a dramatic but complex impacts on determining best treatments for actor non-response. ► Overall,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social networks 2012-10, Vol.34 (4), p.438-450
Main Authors: Žnidaršič, Anja, Ferligoj, Anuška, Doreian, Patrick
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actor non-response
Actor-network theory
Actors
Blockmodeling
Data analysis
Error
Imputation
Indicators
Membership
Missing data
Network
Networks
Social Networks
Treatment Methods
Vulnerability
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Summary:► Blockmodeling results can be affected by both actor non-response and treatments of non-response in complex ways. ► There is no one best treatment of actor non-response. ► The symmetry of a network has a dramatic but complex impacts on determining best treatments for actor non-response. ► Overall, blockmodeling results based on structural equivalence is very stable. Discerning the essential structure of social networks is a major task. Yet, social network data usually contain different types of errors, including missing data that can wreak havoc during data analyses. Blockmodeling is one technique for delineating network structure. While we know little about its vulnerability to missing data problems, it is reasonable to expect that it is vulnerable given its positional nature. We focus on actor non-response and treatments for this. We examine their impacts on blockmodeling results using simulated and real networks. A set of ‘known’ networks are used, errors due to actor non-response are introduced and are then treated in different ways. Blockmodels are fitted to these treated networks and compared to those for the known networks. The outcome indicators are the correspondence of both position memberships and identified blockmodel structures. Both the amount and type of non-response, and considered treatments, have an impact on delineated blockmodel structures.
ISSN:0378-8733
1879-2111
DOI:10.1016/j.socnet.2012.02.002