Making Invisible Work Visible by Andrew Parker, Rob Cross- Article Analysis - Essay Example

The researchers strive to present the recommendations for the firms through which they can attain better support work occurring in informal network of employees. The recommendations are based upon the research work conducted among a consortium Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. The researchers assessed collaboration and work in almost 40 information networks created within 23 different entities. The provided strategic and operational values are studies to find out their role in allowing the employees to collaborate and integrate their expertise with the organization.

The article basically assesses and supports the information network and examines their significance for the organizations. The author believes that the informal social networks allow the employees to deeply understand and reflect the working patterns of the organization in much better way than the employees working in formal structure. The informal special networks however remain invisible and sometimes the managers fail to understand the problems developing within the firms. The authors also describe the background of the evaluation of the social networking techniques and inform that the idea sociogram is credited to Dr. J.T.

Moreno who has been regarded as the inventor of social networks. He paved the way towards new approach of social structure and presents the concept of role and position. The article also stresses upon the importance of informal social network in the context of management challenges in globalization era. The informal networks are influenced from the information design of the organization whereas physical proximity and nature of the work also determine the structure of informal social networks maintained by the organization.

The researchers also identified three specific areas where they believe that social network analysis is uniquely effective. These areas include "promoting effective collaboration within a strategically important group; supporting critical junctures in networks that cross functional, hierarchical, or geographic boundaries; and ensuring integration within groups following strategic restructuring initiatives” (p28). The researchers found that social network analysis is a powerful and effective managerial tool that perform wide array of functions for the organizations.

The patterns of information sharing within and across the networks also became visible through the social network analysis (SNA). Moreover, SNA allows identifying and solving the issues and problems being faced by the group of people within the organization. The specific behaviours of the employees could also be studies better and all this understanding allows taking the appropriate steps for improvement of group efficiency and effectiveness. There is wide variety of benefits of social network analysis identified by the researchers.

They explain that information networks also support the employees' job satisfaction and performance that ultimately benefit the overall productivity of the firms. It is very important for the management to understand the importance of social network because it the highly competitive market place they cannot rely upon the traditional networks and require the support of information social network to foster the process of communication with the employees and to avail wide range of benefits of informal social networks.

The authors conclude that the present era is marked with