Ethics and Social Network Analysis
Via Graham Durant-Law this extremely valuable paper from Stephen Borgatti and Jose-Luis Molina – not just looking at the ethical issues in social network analysis but giving very clear practical guidance on how to navigate them, suggesting a management disclosure contract for “the researcher and the organization to agree in writing on exactly what data management will be allowed to see, and what kinds of decisions management will be allowed to make based on these data. This management disclosure contract (MDC) should be signed by management and by the researcher, and a copy of the signed form can then be included with the consent form signed by the respondent.”
The paper also provides a sample contract. Really nice to see this grounded serious response to a real issue rather than the flippant pot shots against a valuable tool (or the breathless adoration for it) that we more often see.
1 Comment so far
Page 1 of 1 pages
Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (<strong>, <em>, <a>) Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. URLs are automatically converted into links.
Hi Patrick.
I couldn’t agree more! It’s not often one comes across an inspirational and practical paper, but Stephen Borgatti and Jose-Luis Molinas’ paper is one of them. I just wish a few more people would read and digest its content. I also think it has application well beyond SNA.
Regards Graham
Posted on January 09, 2008 at 07:49 PM | Comment permalink