Informal Social Networks amongst Administrative Staff at a University Hospital

In this study we apply Social Network Analysis and Agent Based Simulation techniques to visualize and explore informal social networks amongst staff at the Akdeniz University Hospital to assess and evaluate properties of the organization in terms of its ability to share knowledge and innovate, which is crucial for healthcare organizations delivering a health service. We first prepared an e-mail-based questionnaire, and asked administrative staff at Akdeniz University Hospital, a number of questions including (i) who they would contact if they had an innovative idea regarding their work (ii) who they would consult if they wanted to implement their idea, and (iii) to whom they would talk when they wanted to find out what is going on socially in the work place. We use a bespoke software tool called Organizational Forms Simulator to visualize and analyze informal social networks obtained from the questionnaire. The analysis reveals hubs, lynchpins, and unknown leaders as well as communications bottlenecks, and overall connectivity in the organization. The software tool we use also allows us to run what-if scenarios, to see how long it would take for an 'epidemic' of a good idea to spread across the staff social networks, using the informal links obtained from the questionnaire. We believe the study will help us to assess the current state of informal social networks amongst staff, and help the hospital management to improve connectivity in the organization.