The centrality of groups and classes

1999/01/01 by Martin G. Everett, M. G. Everett, Stephen P. Borgatti +1 · 11 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Decision Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Business Strategy and Innovation #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Game Theory and Applications

paper · doi:10.1080/0022250x.1999.9990219

crossref issued 1999/01/01 · crossref published 1999/01/01 · crossref published-print 1999/01/01 · openalex publication_date 1999/01/01 · crossref created 2010/08/26 · crossref deposited 2021/11/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

This paper extends the standard network centrality measures of degree, closeness and betweenness to apply to groups and classes as well as individuals. The group centrality measures will enable researchers to answer such questions as ‘how central is the engineering department in the informal influence network of this company?’ or ‘among middle managers in a given organization, which are more central, the men or the women?’ With these measures we can also solve the inverse problem: given the network of ties among organization members, how can we form a team that is maximally central? The measures are illustrated using two classic network data sets. We also formalize a measure of group centrality efficiency, which indicates the extent to which a group's centrality is principally due to a small subset of its members.

Citations

• Factoring and weighting approaches to status scores and clique identification
• Centrality in social networks conceptual clarification
• The Effects of Group Longevity on Project Communication and Performance

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• The Structure of Effective Governance of Disaster Response Networks: Insights From the Field
• A combined network and machine learning approaches for product market forecasting
• ‘Entanglement’ – A new dynamic metric to measure team flow