Identifying sets of key players in a social network

Stephen P. Borgatti

doi:10.1007/s10588-006-7084-x

Identifying sets of key players in a social network

Stephen P. Borgatti

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932 Scopus citations

Abstract

A procedure is described for finding sets of key players in a social network. A key assumption is that the optimal selection of key players depends on what they are needed for. Accordingly, two generic goals are articulated, called KPP-POS and KPP-NEG. KPP-POS is defined as the identification of key players for the purpose of optimally diffusing something through the network by using the key players as seeds. KPP-NEG is defined as the identification of key players for the purpose of disrupting or fragmenting the network by removing the key nodes. It is found that off-the-shelf centrality measures are not optimal for solving either generic problem, and therefore new measures are presented.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	21-34
Number of pages	14
Journal	Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-006-7084-x
State	Published - Apr 2006

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This research is supported by Office of Naval Research grant number N000140211032. Thanks to Scott Clair for leading me to this problem, Mark Newman for suggesting reciprocal distances, Kathleen Carley for useful discussions, and Valdis Krebs for providing illustrative data.

Funding

Acknowledgements This research is supported by Office of Naval Research grant number N000140211032. Thanks to Scott Clair for leading me to this problem, Mark Newman for suggesting reciprocal distances, Kathleen Carley for useful discussions, and Valdis Krebs for providing illustrative data.

Funders	Funder number
Office of Naval Research	N000140211032

Keywords

Centrality
Cohesion
Social networks

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Decision Sciences
General Computer Science
Modeling and Simulation
Computational Mathematics
Applied Mathematics

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10.1007/s10588-006-7084-x

Cite this

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Identifying sets of key players in a social network

Abstract

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Keywords

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