The agenda of this chapter is to conceptualize how to work towards social ends by recognizing and acting on the role of meaningful social knowledges in the pursuit of knowledges for economic gain. The context is the emergence of new production dynamics and labor recruitment strategies amid dramatically increasing socioeconomic polarization and exclusion. To date, crowdsourcing associated with open innovation has proven to be lucrative for fi rms but also highly exploitative and exclusive. Recognizing insidious dimensions of the market, the underlying suggestion here is to make use of the market, not to work against it, with public and private support for social as well as economic objectives. If the social and the economic as well as the cultural and political are mutually constituted, then it is sensible to refuse the conventional privileging of one dimension, the economic, at the expense of another, commonly the social. I have privileged social over economic goals to encompass strategies that might otherwise be jettisoned, but economic goals remain nested in the broader project. At this critical juncture in the global economy, the agenda I have in mind entails nothing less than reconfi guring the values that govern our lives.

 **Acknowledgments** I thank Johannes Glückler and his team at the University of Heidelberg for organizing and graciously hosting the symposium on "Topographies and Topologies of Knowledge," and their invitation to me to participate. I also thank Johannes as well as Alistair Fraser and Kath Gibson for their thoughtful and constructive comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

#### **References**

Netfl ix Prize challenge. *Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 19,* 42–77. doi:10.1007/s10588-012-9137-7

 **Open Access** This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

 The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work's Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or reproduce the material.

# **Chapter 3 Interpersonal Networks in Foreign Assignments and Intercultural Learning Processes**

 **Erika Spieß**

#### **Globalization and Foreign Assignment**

 Due to the pressures of competition resulting from the globalization of markets , international experience has gained importance, and in fact become a vital asset (Carpenter, Sanders, & Gregerson, 2001 ; Landy & Conte, 2008 ). Multinational companies, in particular, regard foreign assignment experience as a market advantage (Spreitzer, McCall, & Mahoney, 1997 ). For employees, international professional experience in this context has become a prime prerequisite for becoming an executive (Daily, Certo, & Dalton, 2000 ).

 This growing trend to send staff on foreign assignment is accompanied by a need to know what has to be done for expatriates to adjust successfully. Employees working in a foreign country are confronted with major changes in various areas, changes requiring their preparation prior to the foreign sojourn and support during it. If this does not occur, there is a risk that employees may feel stressed, be unable to work effectively, and, if worst comes to worst, have to end their sojourn prematurely.

 The different phases of a foreign assignment (Kühlmann & Stahl, 2001/ 2006 ) preparation, sojourn, and return—harbor certain risks. Due to time constraints, preparation is often inadequate or does not occur at all. The risks associated with the assignment are country-specifi c as well as of a private nature. Western expatriates in China experienced a "classic" culture shock (Selmer, 1999 ) and transferees uninterested in the country of assignment had diffi culty adapting and, consequently, being effective for the company (Selmer, 2001 ). The larger the cultural distance to the country of origin the more diffi cult a foreign assignment may turn out to be (Wang, 2002 ). There is the danger of culture shock limiting an expatriate's ability to do

E. Spieß (\*)

Department Psychologie , Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) , Leopoldstraße 13 , 80802 Munich , Germany e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
his or her job. A lack of appreciation for returnees by company and home colleagues has been observed as a problem during the return phase (Kupka, Everett, & Cathro, 2008 ; Szkudlarek, 2010 ).

 To facilitate adjustment during the sojourn, some large corporations institute comprehensive mentoring programs embedded in personnel development measures and processes (Noe, Greenberger, & Wang, 2002 ). Hechanova, Beehr, and Christiansen's ( 2003 ) meta-analysis described the antecedents and consequences of the adjustment of transferees on foreign assignment. Self -effi cacy —the belief in one's ability to act, the frequency of interaction with people from the host country, interpersonal skills, and family support proved to be the main predictors for successful adjustment to the entire environment.

 For instance, Wang and Kanungo ( 2004 ) demonstrated that the role of interpersonal networks is often neglected, although it has a direct and signifi cant positive infl uence on the transferee's well-being. Caligiuri and Lazarova ( 2002 ) developed a model showing the relationship between social network, social support, and adjustment. They assumed that social interaction and social support (e.g., family members, coworkers in the country of sojourn, transferees from home and other countries) could help activate psychological resources with the capacity to intensify recognition and confi rmation, attributes that in turn can substantially improve intercultural adjustment . Social support can act as a buffer against stress that usually occurs as the transferee tries to adjust to the new environment. Successful intercultural adjustment is closely related to network partners and social support.

 In the following I present Kurt Lewin's fi eld theory as a theoretical framework for my discussion of networks, social support in different fi elds of application, and personal initiative and for my examination of the relationship between social support and work adjustment. In conclusion results are considered regarding their specifi c meaning for the intercultural learning process and within the framework of fi eld theory.

#### **Theoretical Framework**

 Lewin's fi eld theory is an important model for explaining economic action in signifi cant fi elds of application. The central idea of Lewin's theory is that people are drawn to some things in their environment and repelled by others. In the Lewinian sense, all actors are situated in a fi eld: They act, bring things into motion, infl uence others, launch campaigns, and are, for their part, exposed to various, even antagonistic behavioral forces. The advantage of the concept of *fi eld* is its understanding that a person exists in a fi eld of tensions, with the tensile and pressure forces within the fi eld enabling a description of human behavior. In contrast to behaviorism's mechanistic image, fi eld theory assumes that a person is active, perceiving and assessing his or her surroundings (Lewin, 1943 , 1951/ 1963 ). Lewin ( 1939 ) regards the psychological environment functionally as "a part of one interdependent fi eld, the life-space, the other part of which is the person" (p. 878). He expresses this in his famous formula: " Behavior = Function of person and environment = Function of life-space" (p. 878).

 "Lewin's fi eld theory states that it is possible to understand the basis for changing the behavior of individuals and groups by constructing a 'life space' comprising the psychological forces infl uencing their behavior at a given point in time" (Burnes & Cooke, 2012a , p. 409). According to Burnes and Cooke ( 2012a ), fi eld theory played a central part in all of Lewin's work by allowing him to understand the forces that would need to be either strengthened or weakened in order to bring out desired behavior. Burnes and Cooke ( 2012a ) reviewed and reevaluated fi eld theory, arguing that the main reason for the decline of fi eld theory was Lewin's pursuit of mathematical rigor over practical relevance. In psychology, fi eld theory is closely associated with Gestalt psychology.

 Six fundamental characteristics underpin Lewin's fi eld theory (Burnes & Cooke, 2012a , p. 411; Lewin, 1943 ):

Lewin saw fi eld theory as a way of combining scientifi c rigor and practical relevance by offering a rigorous, theory-based method for analyzing behavior and as a practical approach to changing behavior by allowing individuals to understand their actions better. He saw behavior as the product of the environment and of the way in which individuals interpret external stimuli (Burnes & Cooke, 2012a , p. 412). Five of the fundamental principles were derived from Gestalt psychology; the sixth principle was inspired by Cassirer's philosophy of science .

 After Lewin's death in 1947, his work on group dynamics , action research, and his three-step model of change was taken up by other scholars and became the basis of organizational development (OD). His work on fi eld theory went into decline until the 1990s, when it once again began to attract the attention of scholars and practitioners to behavioral and organizational change (Burnes & Cooke, 2012a , p. 416). There is "a growing recognition of the relevance of Lewin's work to contemporary organizational concerns, especially change, ethics and values" (p. 418).

 **Fig. 3.1** Expanded metaphor of the fi eld theory (Design by author)

Burnes and Cooke ( 2012b ) asserted that the core components of OD have strong connections with the work of Kurt Lewin, summarizing that " Lewin's fi eld theory was a signifi cant break with the contemporary view of human behavior. It offered a holistic view of human behavior that focused on the entirety of a person or groups perceptual or psychological environment" (p. 420).

 Bourdieu's ( 1983 ) sociocultural approach points out the different assumptions of active actors in an economic fi eld. He differentiates between economic, cultural, and social capital. Economic capital comprises material resources such as income and money; social capital comprises relations and social networks; and cultural capital comprises resources such as cultivation, education, and lifestyle. Bourdieu stresses the specialness of cultural capital, whose transmission occurs within the family. Incorporating this cultural capital takes a lot of time (e.g., education). An economic fi eld is distinguished by especially high dynamics, with the situation and individuals characterized by rapid change, competition, and quick action. Additional features are limited rationality and acting under great uncertainty. Typical in the Lewinian sense is the analysis of the interaction between the actors and the situation at hand. In Bourdieu's ( 1983 ) extension of fi eld theory, the actors' social, cultural, and economic resources must also be considered. Figure 3.1 is simply an abstract metaphor for the forces interacting in an economic context (Spieß, 2006 ).

 Lewin's fi eld theory provides a suitable framework, representing a metaphor and a model for the process-like course of psychoeconomic fi elds of topics. The inclusion of actors' assumptions—their economic, social, and cultural capital—in Lewin's fi eld theory offers a more precise and differentiated view. Among the various applications of fi eld theory, Elsass and Veiga ( 1994 ), for example, used fi eld theory as a way to explain acculturation within organizations.

#### **The Role of Networks**

 The concept of fl exible, open organizations, which are willing to learn, continues to replace rationalistic and rule-oriented notions of appropriate behavior in organizations. In this regard, networks can be seen as structures that are more suitable than bureaucratic organizations.

 A network is defi ned by the cooperative work of its participants, as well as by stability, voluntariness of participation, trust, individual objectives, and the objectives of the network partners, including autonomy and interdependency (Borgatti & Foster, 2003 ). The *ego-centered network* is a distinct type of network, focused on an actor (ego), who then identifi es the network partners (alteri). This is the conceptual basis for the coauthored studies by Stroppa and Spieß ( 2010 , 2011 ) discussed in this chapter.

 The participants in a network are infl uenced by group processes, which leads to network partners interacting primarily with people similar to themselves (regarding race, gender, and status). This produces fewer confl icts, but also results in less diversity (e.g., creativity in terms of product development). Networks have unique structural forms that offer certain advantages over those of hierarchies and markets (Powell, 1990 ). They are fl exible and fast-working, offer favorable terms for learning processes and knowledge exchange, and reduce the level of uncertainty, which is particularly high for market-related transactions.

 The development and sustainability of networks relies heavily on trust. Networks facilitate access to specifi c resources and information (Borgatti & Foster, 2003 ). According to Sydow ( 1992 ), networks establish a link between organizational and interorganizational fl exibility, with openness forming one of their core characteristics.

 Making organizations more effi cient by decentralizing and restructuring them reduces the existing division of labor, so an objective is to form networks of equal, self-regulating organizational entities. However, these networks can only work if decision-making processes and employee cooperation are successful (Cross, Kaše, Kilduff, & King, 2013 ).

 One functional characteristic of networks is social support, which offers network participants reliability and gives them backing. Social control, however, is also a functional network characteristic linked to social support—for example, in terms of norm orientation and the transmission of values. Networks can play an important role regarding foreign assignments.

 **Fig. 3.2** The interpersonal networks during foreign assignment. Solid lines represent stronger relationships and dotted lines weaker ones. From Spieß (2009, p. 172) (Copyright 2009 by Oldenbourg. Reprinted by permission)

 In a coauthored qualitative study focusing on interpersonal networks of expatriates (Spieß, Schaaf, & Stroppa, 2009 ) I considered the network partners present during the different phases of the foreign assignment who form the social net and grant social support. The procedure and instruments of the qualitative study were guided interviews with expatriates of small and medium-sized companies from April to July 2006. Guidelines were developed for each of the phases of preparation, sojourn, and return. The participants were 16 respondents: male, between 27 and 47 years old, working in medium-sized companies in Munich and surroundings in the fi elds of electronics, conveyor systems, paper manufacturing, engineering, and mechanical engineering. Their destinations were China, Japan, Thailand, and Indonesia.

 In the preparation phase of an assignment the network partners are different than those during the sojourn or return, including, for example, family, friends, colleagues, superiors, and the organization itself. During the sojourn the network expands to include contacts with host-country nationals, other expatriates, and the organizations that provide support to the expatriates—contacts that can then continue to exist as part of the network after the return. The interpersonal networks are further divided into sub-networks, with the respondents in the study viewing the professional network as separate from the private network. Family and friends form part of the private network, whereas colleagues, superiors, and the organization itself are part of the professional network.

 Figure 3.2 illustrates interpersonal networks during foreign assignment. Results of the 2009 study showed that all respondents attached great value to their families. In the phase of sojourn a change could be noted. The expatriate employees lost contact with their old friends and colleagues, but formed contacts with other expatriates and host-country nationals, as well as receiving help from support organizations. When they returned, this constellation changed again and they lost contact with their new friends and other expatriates.

 Respondents regarded family as highly important in every phase of the assignment, which is why the concept of *family* is located adjacent to the expatriate employee in Fig. 3.2 . This does not imply that the family always stands by the expatriate's side. Rather, the fi gure refers to the ideational value of family as such, a perspective that is even more compelling when one is separated from the family. During the preparation phase family is followed in precedence by friends, colleagues, superiors, and the organization itself. Respondents also pointed out that keeping in contact with family members demanded additional effort during the sojourn. Contacts with friends, in particular, suffered due to the lack of time. This was refl ected in statements such as "One can only work, eat, and sleep," or, if the expatriate was accompanied by a spouse, "Only a busy wife is a good wife, a bored wife is torture *.* "

 During the sojourn, this list expands to include new colleagues, other expatriates, and host-country nationals, as well as the supporting organizations. The relationship with friends from home becomes less important (indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 3.2 ). In the phase of returning, the expatriates try to reestablish contact with the network partners from the preparation phase and to maintain relationships newly formed during the sojourn, but these, too, lose importance. It is, therefore, crucial to point out that there is hardly any networking activity between the network partners themselves. The connecting lines in Fig. 3.2 show relationships between the expatriate employee and various network partners, but only a single link among the network partners. In their review of organizational social network research, Kilduff and Brass ( 2010 ) emphasized its focus on relations between actors.

#### **The Role of Social Support**

 In recent years, a number of research projects have focused on social support in various contexts, including family, friends, and work (e.g., Glazer, 2006 ; Stroebe & Stroebe, 1998 ). The concept of social support is founded in various research traditions that also deal with the interrelationship of social support and mental health.

 From the standpoint of a resource concept (Udris, 1997 ), social support is not only an external resource that a person receives but also an internal resource that an individual can develop (Udris & Frese, 1999 ). Dücker ( 1995 ) describes various forms of support experienced by members of a network: material support (e.g., fi nancial), support in the form of helping behavior (e.g., care in the case of illness), emotional support (e.g., affection, trust, or sympathy), feedback (e.g., social confi rmation), informative support, orientation assistance (e.g., advice), and positive social activities (e.g., fun and recreation.

 Many studies (overview in Cohen & Wills, 1985 ) have shown a positive infl uence of social support at work on the well-being of those receiving it. Frese and Semmer ( 1991 ) named further social support mechanisms. First, social support is a primary need expressing humans' phylogenetic urge to work in a social group. The lack of social support automatically leads to a diminution of well-being. And second, the positive feedback connected with social support directly affects selfconfi dence and, thus, other components of mental well-being. Social support and the formation of networks are, therefore, closely related. The network concept is considered broad and multidimensional (Inkpen & Tsang, 2005 ) and consequently suited as an umbrella concept for social support.

 In the case of foreign assignment, various relationships within the interpersonal network of an expatriate are of interest, including those with the spouse, friends, and coworkers, mattering in both the home country and the country of sojourn. These networks may be considered an objective reality within which there are dyadic relationships of different strengths.

 Social support is an essential component of our daily lives and takes on a special signifi cance in the context of assignment to a foreign country. Adelman ( 1988 ) expressed it as follows: "Our ability to cope with daily stressors, critical life transitions and environmental or cultural change is inextricably tied to the social ecology in which we are embedded" (p. 183). The entire social network and the accompanying social support of family, friends, and coworkers are of eminent importance in eliminating the risk of failure of the foreign assignment.

 The mentioned risks and the antecedents for successful adjustment have been primarily studied in large corporations (e.g., Mendenhall & Oddou, 1985 ; Ward & Rana-Deuba, 1999 ). The situation in small and medium-sized companies remains unclear, but it may be assumed that it is especially diffi cult, because small companies do not have the corresponding resources at their disposal. In this context, interpersonal networks for small and medium-sized company transferees on foreign assignment are gaining signifi cance, although the involved company often underestimates their effect.

#### *Social Support and Firm Size*

 A study published in " Expatriates' Social Networks: The Role of Company Size" by Stroppa and Spieß ( 2010 ) extended and tested Caligiuri and Lazarova's ( 2002 ) model for the infl uence of support provided by different network partners (supervisors, coworkers, friends, spouses) on received socioemotional and instrumental support. This model was extended by examining the impact of company size on effectiveness of support. Ninety expatriates were questioned during their foreign assignment: 45 from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 45 from large companies. As expected expatriates who received support from their network partner coworkers during their foreign sojourn also received more instrumental support. In addition, the study confi rmed that the type of company moderated the  relationship between the network partner (friends) and socioemotional and instrumental support. The type of company had more infl uence on that support when there were no network partners (friends) available for the expatriates, and less when those contacts did exist. SMEs and their expatriate employees had less experience with environmental factors in different countries, less power to withstand the demands of host governments, and less reputation and fi nancial resources, as well as fewer resources for managing international operations. In the future, therefore, it is very important that fi rms, especially SMEs, develop concepts for the effective support of staff on foreign assignment.

#### *Social Support and Host-Country Nationals*

 Social support can be regarded as especially signifi cant in the context of sojourners. Sources of support are wide ranging and can include many different social groups, such as family, friends, peers, coworkers, and supervisors.

 A study published in " Social Support on International Assignments: The Relevance of Socioemotional Support From Locals " (Podsiadlowski, Vauclair, Spieß, & Stroppa, 2013 ) identifi ed the importance of support from host-country nationals. Using the matching or specifi city hypothesis, which suggests that the right match between type and source of support is needed to increase well-being (Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fisher, 1999 , p. 318), the authors postulated that sojourners' satisfaction would increase if there were an optimal match between the type and source of social support (Madjar, 2008 ). One hundred thirty-one English-speaking participants living in New Zealand were sampled via a snowballing technique (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013 ). The results showed that both types of social support instrumental and socioemotional—were positively related to satisfaction with the sojourn, with socioemotional support being more important in predicting satisfaction with a sojourn than instrumental support, and support from host-country nationals being the most important source of social support. Furthermore, there was partial support for the matching specifi city hypothesis. Only the amount of support from host-country nationals was a signifi cant moderator and only the relationship between socioemotional support and satisfaction with a sojourn was moderated. The authors found only partial support for the matching or specifi city hypothesis. The study's fi ndings showed that it did not apply to instrumental support. Additionally, results showed that the right match between socioemotional support and source of support was more specifi c than expected. Only socioemotional support provided by hostcountry nationals increased satisfaction with the sojourn. Support from home did not moderate the relationship between socioemotional support and satisfaction. This indicates that only host-country nationals are able to provide relevant socioemotional support if individuals are faced with un controllable stressors .

 To summarize, the most important predictors for satisfaction with a sojourn were support from host-country nationals and perceived socioemotional support. Not only did socioemotional support from host-country nationals have a positive effect,

support received from other foreigners living in the respective country was not suffi cient to assure a sojourner's well-being. Support from home was actually counterproductive for satisfaction with the sojourn. Findings (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013 ) emphasized the importance of receiving considerable socioemotional support from host-country nationals for a successful international assignment.

#### **The Role of Personal Initiative**

 Personal Initiative is defi ned as a behavioral syndrome relating to individuals with an active, self-initiated approach to work that exceeds normal work behavior. Personal initiative is characterized by the following aspects (Frese, Kring, Soose, & Zempel, 1996 ): it is consistent with the organization's mission, has long-term focus, is goal-directed and action-oriented, is persistent in the face of barriers and setbacks, and is self-starting and proactive. Social support and personal initiative have a strong relationship with successful work adjustment.

 A study carried out by Stroppa and Spieß in 2011 adapted components of Fay and Frese's ( 2001 ) nomological network of personal initiative and Caligiuri and Lazarova's ( 2002 ) model for the infl uence of social support on adjustment. On this basis the authors developed and tested a model for the relationship between personal initiative, social support, and work adjustment. One hundred twenty-seven respondents answered an online questionnaire during and after their foreign sojourn. The study demonstrated that personal initiative moderates the relationship between social support from coworkers and job performance . Results showed that personal initiative of the expatriates and social support received from supervisors—but not from their coworkers—predicted job satisfaction, job stress, and job performance of the expatriates. The fact that personal initiative had a main effect on all three indicators of successful work adjustment indicates that it is a very important predictor for successful adjustment.

#### **Consequences for the Intercultural Learning Process**

 Increasing internationalization demands intercultural action. From a psychological point of view, this interaction is special because it involves an overlapping situation. When meeting people of another culture one is in one's own culture as well as in another culture. The paradox is to adapt in a situation in which one becomes particularly aware of belonging to another culture (Lewin, 1963 ). This requires special preparation and training workshops.

 The intercultural learning process can be described by the construct of intercultural sensitivity. Bennett's ( 1998 ) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) consists of three ethnocentric stages (denial, defense, minimization) and three ethnorelative stages (acceptance, adaptation, integration) constituting a continuum ranging from denial of difference to integration of difference. Denial of cultural difference is the state in which one's own culture is experienced as the only real one. Other cultures are either not perceived at all, or they are construed in rather vague ways. Defense against cultural difference is the state in which one's own culture is experienced as the only viable one. Minimization of cultural difference is the state in which elements of one's own cultural worldview are experienced as universal. Acceptance of cultural difference is the state in which one's own culture is experienced as just one of a number of equally complex worldviews. Adaptation to cultural difference is the state in which the experience of another culture yields perception and behavior appropriate to that culture. Integration of cultural difference is the state in which one's experience of self is expanded to include the movement in and out of different cultural worldviews (Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003 , p. 424–425).

 Hammer et al. ( 2003 ) summarized that, in general, the more ethnocentric orientations can be seen as ways of avoiding cultural difference, either by denying its existence, by raising defenses against it, or by minimizing its importance (p. 426). The more ethnorelative worldviews are ways of seeking cultural difference, either by accepting its importance, by adapting perspective to take it into account, or by integrating the whole concept into a defi nition of identity.

 This theoretical framework provided conceptual guidance for Hammer et al. ( 2003 ) as they undertook the construction of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to measure the orientations toward cultural differences described in the DMIS. The result of this work is a 50-item, paper-and-pencil instrument (with 10 additional demographic items).

 Referring to Lewin's fi eld theory it is important to consider individual points of view and competencies as well as the social network, social support, cultural processes, and the current economic and political environment. The intercultural learning process, as well as intercultural sensitivity, is also important for foreign assignments and can help establish and connect networks more successfully. For this purpose, psychologists offer a measuring instrument, for example, the intercultural development inventory (Hammer et al., 2003 ). In addition to further intercultural learning and sensitivity, suitable trainings are also interesting and helpful.

 The process of a foreign assignment can be viewed within the framework of Lewin's fi eld theory, with the interaction between people and their environment clearly recognizable. According to the cited research (Stroppa & Spieß, 2010 , 2011 ; Podsiadlowski et al., 2013 ), a personal characteristic such as personal initiative is important, with it moderating the relationship between social support from coworkers and job performance. Environmental factors such as the size of the company also play a role.

 Social support importantly involves a social interaction between the provider of support and the recipient, who can not only ask for support or aid, but also reject it. In the context of foreign assignments the support of superiors and colleagues and especially of host-country nationals (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013 ) has proven to be very important. Social support can also be seen as an aspect of networks, which can form connections within the fi eld, possibly bringing together different strengths. I would therefore recommend a stronger coordination between the existing networks. My viewpoint also corresponds with Kilduff and Brass's ( 2010 ) observation that organizational social network research assumes dyadic relationships do not occur in isolation. However, the fi eld of foreign assignments, which is marked by attracting and repelling forces, includes far more. Global development and climatic, economic, and cultural infl uences also have to be taken into consideration as highly relevant factors.

#### **References**

Asia]. In T. Kühlmann & H. D. Haas (Eds.), *Internationales Risikomanagement* — *Auslandserfolg durch grenzüberschreitende Netzwerke* . [International risk management—success in foreign assignments through crossbordering networks] (pp. 155–183). Munich: Oldenbourg. doi:10.1524/9783486592719

 **Open Access** This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

 The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work's Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or reproduce the material.

# **Chapter 4 Family Networks for Learning and Knowledge Creation in Developing Regions**

**Pengfei Li**

#### **Social Learning Processes in Developing and Developed Contexts**

With the rise of the knowledge economy, learning and knowledge creation rather than material resources and assets are becoming competitive advantages of regions and countries. Unlike concrete inputs, which are produced mechanically, intangible knowledge is created through agents' interaction and communication, which are structured by social relations and norms within organizations, communities, and societies. Accordingly, knowledge-creating regions both in traditional sectors (e.g., the Third Italy) and high-tech industries (e.g., Silicon Valley) are characterized by intensive interaction of professionals and accommodating business culture in local communities. It has thus become widely accepted that the long-term success of regional economies increasingly depends on social learning processes—localized and globalized—of individuals and organizations. Daily practices of agents develop specialized language, frameworks, and conventions as codes of communication and rules of interaction by which individually, organizationally, and regionally embedded knowledge can be mobilized and cross-fertilized in continuous codification and internalization processes (Amin & Cohendet, 2004; Bathelt & Glückler, 2011; Malmberg & Maskell, 2006; Saxenian, 2007).

As significant as these knowledge-based theories of regional economies are, developing regions have received scant attention in the theoretical discussion of social learning processes. In those contexts formal institutions such as the legal

I am grateful to the East China Normal University, Department of Urban and Regional Economics as well as the University of Toronto, Department of Political Science for supporting my work on this chapter.

P. Li (\*)

Department of International Business, HEC Montréal, 3000 Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal H3T 2A7, Canada e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
system usually do not function well. It is the *in*formal norms and social structures (e.g., family networks) that tend to be more important for communication and collaboration. However, some researchers have long argued that these informal networks contribute to the backwardness of developing regions (Banfield, 1958; Putnam, Leonardi, & Nanetti, 1993). These divergent arguments about the part that social networks play in developing and developed economies raise the question of why local informal relations in developing economies cannot generate the social learning process that occurs in a developed context.

Focusing on family ties, I aim to provide a provocative answer to this question by arguing that family networks can facilitate technology diffusion but not knowledge creation. My purpose is not to investigate family and friendship ties in social and political arenas. Family and friendship networks are discussed in this chapter only in terms of social learning mechanisms. I argue that ties between family members, though strong, can—unlike ties between friends—act as bridges in local and global knowledge networks. Compared to open networks of friends, family ties tend to be exclusive and hierarchical. Structured differently, friendship and family networks generate heterogeneous and homogeneous knowledge pools within themselves, respectively. This observation implies that friendship networks supplant family ties as local economies upgrade.

Exploration of family networks in developing regions may advance the discussion of knowledge in space in three ways. First, it offers a knowledge-based explanation for the advent of many industrial clusters and agglomerations in developing countries. Drawn from common features of innovative regions, traditional cluster theories do not have much power to account for localized industries in developing contexts. Many clusters in those contexts develop endogenously from intensive learning through kinship networks (Henn, 2012; Li, Bathelt, & Wang, 2012; Meagher, 2007; Nadvi, 1999). Second, this chapter's inquiry into different structures of family and friendship networks in a dynamic perspective adds to an evolutionary understanding of networks and knowledge in economic geography (Glückler, 2007). Rather than viewing regions in developing and developed contexts as two different worlds, I look at how developing regions with family-based learning networks can transform into innovative economies with open and dynamic social structures. I suggest that many developing and developed areas are facing similar challenges when it comes to socially restructuring themselves to improve their ability to mobilize local and global knowledge. Third, I shed light on the role that family structure plays in developing regions and argue that family ties as strong bridges can accelerate technology diffusion in local communities rather than hamper economic development.

I begin by summarizing the contradictory evaluation of family organization over the course of economic development. In the section thereafter I revisit Granovetter's (1973) argument of the strength of weak ties and examine the basic structure of family networks, asserting that strong family ties can be bridges for intensive interaction and technology learning in local settings. My study of family networks then continues by turning attention to the weakness of kinship connections as compared to another kind of social network, friendship ties. I illustrate why the two kinds of network differ structurally in terms of knowledge creation and why localized learning in developing communities can be expected to evolve from closed to open networks.

#### **Family Ties and Economic Development**

The family is a basic social organization in both traditional and modern societies. Family and kinship groups, connected biologically, constitute a natural association of individuals and influence economic behaviors to different degrees from one society to the next. In traditional communities, where family structures predominate, individuals are both economically and socially affiliated to their families. These family networks become an institution through which seniors are empowered with authority over resource allocation and the resolution of disputes among family members. Societies of this kind are by nature composed of families rather than individuals because individuals in these contexts cannot freely make choices and take actions. Family control reduces labor participation, geographical mobility, and civil engagement and results in low economic development (Alesina & Giuliano, 2013; Bertrand & Schoar, 2006). Strong family structure has therefore long been generally regarded as an obstacle to the development of capitalism. The point is illustrated by the underdevelopment of capitalism in some family-dominated societies such as traditional China and southern Italy (Banfield, 1958; Weber, 1951) and by the fact that family and kinship networks declined with the ascendance of modern corporations and economic development in Europe (Greif, 2006). Strong family structures are still found to be related to the low development of some European regions (Duranton, Rodríguez-Pose, & Sandall, 2009). These arguments on the incompatibility of family ties in capitalism depend on the idea that activities of individuals cannot be organized beyond the family level in a society with excessively strong family structures and, hence, that civic spirit and public institutions cannot take root therein.

Unlike western individualistic societies, Asian societies tend to emphasize family values strongly. The successes of several Asian economies in the past decades therefore defy the understanding that family ties inhibit the development of capitalism. In these economies a keen sense of family obligation motivates individuals to work hard and reduce consumption in order to support family members, especially the next generation, and to increase their education. Strong family ties, as an important kind of social capital, help develop human capital (Coleman, 1988). Besides improving the labor market, strong commitment to the family also accelerates capital accumulation because family workers tend to consume less and save more than singles do. Family structure thereby contributes to the growth of Asian economies (Whyte, 1996). Since the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s, however, it has been recognized that family involvement in Asian economies is, to a large extent, responsible for the weakness of those economies (Perkins, 2000). At the national level, cronyism—family networks among political authorities such as Suharto's family in Indonesia—brings about severe corruption and thwarts efficient investment (Kang, 2003). At the firm level, family ties discourage the participation of nonfamily professionals in family firms and restrict the growth of those enterprises (Cai, Li, Park, & Zhou, 2013; Weidenbaum & Hughes, 1996).

Although contradictory, the preceding arguments generally focus on the relationship between family structure and market development in that family ties affect resource allocation and labor participation. The presumption in those negative understandings of family ties is that individuals would make right and rational choices without family bonds and that market economies would therefore develop efficiently. In the positive evaluation of family values, family considerations force labor into the production process of capitalism and contribute to capital accumulation. In general, these arguments contextualize family ties in the neoclassical framework of economic development and have not directed much attention to the role of family structure in knowledge-sharing and learning. From a historical perspective, these arguments make sense because family economies often emerge in the early stages of capitalism and are regarded as irrelevant to the knowledge economy. However, this view of family ties can be questioned. Because acquisition of technical and business know-how is always crucial in economic development processes even in their early periods (Mokyr, 2004), it becomes important to discuss whether family networks can promote knowledge-sharing and creation.

Empirical investigation of this question in the context of regional economies has led to contradictory findings. In an exploration of high-tech industries in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina (near Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill), Renzulli, Aldrich, and Moody (2000) suggested that family ties can aid the diffusion of homogeneous information but are of little help to technological entrepreneurship. By contrast, research on start-ups in traditional industries in developing economies shows that entrepreneurs' family networks convey industrial information and professional advice, which are crucial for the establishment of small businesses (Anderson, Jack, & Drakopoulou-Dodd, 2005; Jack, 2005). Indeed, some research on industrial clusters in developing contexts shows that family and kinship networks can act as important learning channels for local entrepreneurs and firms. In a cluster producing surgical instruments in Pakistan, extended family ties were found to stimulate technical knowledge-sharing between firms and encourage interfirm cooperation in local business communities (Nadvi, 1999). Li et al. (2012) also documented how family-based learning has transformed some rural villages in South China into a large cluster of aluminum-processing activities over the past 20 years. Munshi (2011) and Henn (2012) further showed that kinship and ethnic networks in an Indian diamond cluster not only functioned as a localized channel of learning but also acted as a transnational knowledge bridge connecting local communities with global diamond centers in Europe and America.

As noteworthy as these empirical studies on family ties in regional contexts can be, they do not yield a coherent framework for explaining why family ties can channel learning in some settings but not in others. There is also little theoretical knowledge about the structure of family networks and how knowledge can diffuse within them.

#### **Strong Family Ties as Knowledge Bridges in Local Communities**

The manner in which knowledge can be shared among individuals and firms depends largely on the structure of the social networks within which they are embedded (Granovetter, 1973). Characterized by intensive interaction and high intimacy between two agents, strong ties involve much, sometimes perhaps too much, communication. The result is that understandings, ideas, and judgments on issues of mutual interest become homogenized in strong ties. Groups connected by strong ties tend to be closed. This characteristic—the closeness tendency—makes reputation reliable and punishment enforceable (Coleman, 1988). It is easy to illustrate: Given that agents B and C are both strongly connected with A, it is most unlikely that B and C will not be connected with each other. With this reasoning Granovetter (1973) deduced his famous argument: For a bridge that is the only path between two agents, "except under unlikely conditions, no strong tie is a bridge" (p. 1364). As the only form of bridges, weak ties turn out to be highly significant in the knowledge economy because they can provide varieties of information and connect different groups and communities. Applying this idea to community development, Granovetter (1973) argued that communities would be fragmented into cliques if only strong ties existed within them.

Granovetter's argument on the significance of weak ties rests on the closeness tendency of strong ties. In defending this concept, he generally interpreted social ties as friendships,1 which can be measured by the amount time that individuals spend together. He admitted that "implicit here is Homans's idea that 'the more frequently persons interact with one another, the stronger their sentiments of friendship for one another are apt to be'" (Homans, 1950, p. 133, as cited in Granovetter, 1973, p. 1362). Granovetter's argument of the strength of weak ties is thereby cast within the framework of friendship networks, relations that people create and sustain through intended actions.

However, there is another, unique kind of social network, the family tie, which develops in a different way. If one measures the strength of social ties by trust and the emotional commitment of individuals, ties within the family can be strong even without its members being together for a long time. For instance, the bond between long-separated family members is usually very strong when they unite. As a biological and social association of individuals, family ties entail many meanings. For example, family members can be those whom an individual can trust, from whom that person receives emotional support, for whom she or he is responsible, and with whom he or she consults before making decisions. In many ways family can be interpreted as a social structure of economic actions. Because this chapter focuses on learning and knowledge generation, the following discussion centers on family ties as a mode of social interaction for sharing *economic* knowledge. Although husband and wife usually do not work in the same field and individuals may prefer not

<sup>1</sup>Granovetter's (1973) understanding of social networks does not include family ties.

**Fig. 4.1** Structure of family networks (Design by author)

to talk about work with family members, the high level of trust commonly present in family networks makes the exchange of economic knowledge virtually inevitable. How does this family-based knowledge-sharing come about?

Figure 4.1 depicts the structure of a typical family network.2 Unlike friendship ties, family networks are hierarchical like trees, stratified in generations. Within family trees a husband and a wife, linked horizontally, constitute a pair of nodes in the network. Family ties develop vertically by birth and horizontally by marriage. Created primarily through birth and marriage, all family ties are strong in terms of trust, intimacy, and emotional commitment. As in friendship networks, the strength of a relationship between two individuals in family networks depends on the length of the path between them. In Fig. 4.1, for example, brothers A and D are closer (only two steps between them) than cousins A and E (four steps). Given the different strengths of the relations between brothers and cousins, why are A, D, and E not connected directly in Fig. 4.1? The reason is that brothers, cousins, and other kinship connections are *derived* ties; their relationships are derived from the basic structure of the family networks shown in Fig. 4.1. A and D are brothers because they have common parents, and A and E are cousins because they have common grandparents. Family connections among A, D, and E are created by virtue of their ties with common parents or grandparents. Direct links between A and D or E will be redundant because their connections through parents and grandparents already show their relations. The same consideration also applies to other kinship relations in Fig. 4.1. In fact, distant relatives, especially those between extended families, such as E and F, have few chances of being together and knowing each other.

<sup>2</sup>Specifically, Figure 4.1 shows a biological structure of family networks (a map of the biological relationships between family members) and their social structure (a pattern of interaction and communication). Social practices in family networks vary in different cultural contexts and time periods. The arguments formulated in this chapter rest on my own observations, which apply to developing economies (especially China) and should not be overgeneralized. I thank Johannes Glückler for this point.

Although they can be contacted through some family members, they are more likely to be as distant as strangers. The fact that they are mutually accessible suggests the role that some family members and ties have as bridges.

In Fig. 4.1 the marriage of A and G creates a bridge between two extended families. Before the marriage, the two extended families were unconnected. After the marriage, although most family members in the two groups still do not know each other,3 they are connected through the sole tie between A and G. In this sense every marriage acts as a bridge in family networks. This bridging function of marriage can partly explain why marriage is so important in traditional societies: It may be the only bridge to leverage resources and knowledge beyond families in such a low-trust context (see Padgett & Ansell, 1993, for an analysis of the Medici family network in the Renaissance, for example). Through marriage, hierarchical family ties, too, can be bridges. For instance, if D marries, then the path between A and D, together with their marriage ties, becomes the bridge between their wives' families.

Knowledge and information can be quickly and reliably shared across family groups through bridges. Suppose that D has some information or opportunity that can be of interest to F. In daily conversation between A and G, A may accidentally divulge this information to G, who, realizing the potential of the information for her brother F, would facilitate information flows between F and D. If further communication and interaction between F and D is required, A and G will endorse these actions. The advantage of family bridges is that, as strong ties, they can be particularly effective for repeated interaction and learning, not just one-time informationor opportunity-sharing. Such intensive learning is extremely important for technology diffusion because manufacturing know-how and technical skills are learned in a systematic way by trial and error.

Having described the structure of family networks, I now turn to probe the role that family bridges can play for knowledge-sharing in industrial communities. If strong family ties can be bridges—in contradiction to Granovetter's (1973) conclusion that no strong tie is a bridge—then local communities, even those with only strong ties, can be closely connected rather than fragmented into cliques. At this point a difference in focus has to be clarified. Not everyone in local communities is highly relevant to economic development, which is primarily related to agents with a spirit of entrepreneurship and an interest in technological and business learning. As an economic geographer, I thus focus this chapter on social networks of a specific local group—entrepreneurs and professionals—rather than on the general social structure of local communities. This perspective narrows the argument derived from the concept of family bridges. I assert that local *business* communities can be closely connected through family bridges. Tentative evidence tends to suggest that at least this connection is possible in developing regions in which family relations of entrepreneurs are a notable feature. For example, 35% of the entrepreneurs in a diamond cluster in India and 57% of their children married within the local industrial community (Munshi, 2011). In the early development stages of an industrial cluster for aluminum extrusion in China in the 1990s, many entrepreneurs

<sup>3</sup>They may meet once at A and G's wedding.

were from a local clan whose members shared a rare family name (Li et al., 2012). Both cases suggest that cluster development in developing economies can be promoted by family ties of entrepreneurs. Indeed, industrial communities in developing countries rely more heavily on family ties than clusters in developed contexts, which are embedded in networks of friends, alumni, and ethnic groups. A key question, then, is why family networks matter in industrial communities in developing regions? Particularly, what is the structure of family networks that can give rise to knowledge diffusion to sustain local industrial development?

Before theoretical and empirical exploration of these questions, it should be recognized that communities with a single kind of tie are imaginary. Local business communities actually consist of different kinds of relations encompassing both families *and* friends, both strong and weak ties. Figure 4.2 shows a theoretical social network in an industrial community of entrepreneurs, for whose interconnections family bridges are pivotal. This social network has four components. Entrepreneur H, who has three family bridges and one friendship bridge, occupies a central position linking the four components of the local business community. Now suppose H learns new technology or business know-how from the outside of the community. Through family and friendship bridges, this knowledge can quickly spread across the whole local community (through eight steps in Fig. 4.2), suggesting that entrepreneurs in closely connected communities can rapidly learn new knowledge through family networks. This family-based learning may explain why many industrial clusters in Asia have been able to develop swiftly over the past decades, even in areas with poor industrial bases. For example, most of the entrepreneurs in the aluminum extrusion cluster in China did not initially know how to extrude the metal, but technical know-how was soon shared with them by an engineer who, just like H in Fig. 4.2, established family bridges in the local business community (Li et al., 2012).

Family-based localized learning can be paramount in the development of industrial clusters in developing economies. Given the increasing global brain drain, it is, with few exceptions, hard for most developing regions to attract highly skilled people worldwide. A dynamic learning community of educated immigrants and professionals tends to be beyond the capacity of many developing areas, at least for the time being. People thus often believe it is almost impossible for traditional communities to generate and support a learning economy. Family-based learning suggests that this conviction may not be true. In developing regions, family networks are usually social structures that exist before local industrial development. Channeled by family bridges, business and technical knowledge can be quickly shared in wellconnected traditional communities. That dissemination is conducive to entrepreneurship and endogenous economic growth. From a knowledge perspective, theoretical and empirical investigation affords evidence that family ties can encourage economic development and suggests that the chances of successful industrialization will substantially increase if it is compatible with local social structures such as family networks (Woolcock & Narayan, 2000).

**Fig. 4.2** A community well connected by bridges between family members and friends (Design by author)

#### **From Families to Friends: Building Knowledge-Creating Economies in Developing Contexts**

The role of family ties as bridges for localized learning should not be overemphasized, because family bridges have important weaknesses. First, stability of family ties is at odds with what dynamic learning requires in some fields. Family ties created through marriage and birth tend to be a lifetime commitment, meaning that family networks develop very slowly and selectively. The fact that they emerge only gradually implies that the number of bridges each individual or family can have through the strong ties of kinship is restricted by the size of the family. At the individual or community level, effective family bridges as knowledge pipelines therefore cannot increase substiantially in a short period. In sectors such as high-tech industries, where short life cycles of products and technologies require a consistent combination of new ideas from various sources, family networks are incapable of channeling the needed knowledge flows. Stable family ties work best for learning from certain sources in a mature technological field (e.g., traditional industries) or in trading activities that require a high level of trust rather than technological innovation (e.g., the diamond sector).

Second, localization of family networks reduces the variety of knowledge that family bridges can provide, since geographical proximity of family members restricts their function as pipelines for external learning. In developing contexts traditional family networks generally do not go beyond local communities. The chances that family bridges will become global pipelines are quite low in such

**Table 4.1** Comparison of family and friendship networks

settings. Even in cases where family connections extend internationally through emigrant entrepreneurs, external knowledge tends to confine itself to some groups in the family rather than to diffuse throughout the locale (Henn, 2012).

Third, family networks as hierarchical structures foster knowledge diffusion rather than knowledge creation. Unlike other social connections, family ties entail an imbalanced distribution of power between individuals, usually in favor of seniors and males in traditional communities. Economic knowledge within families thus usually flows either horizontally (across families) by means of marriage bridges or vertically from the old to the young (Sussman, 1959). In that kind of learning process, the roles of agents as knowledge transmitters or receivers are assigned ex ante by their positions in family structures. Knowledge thereby tends to diffuse in a unidirectional manner in family networks. Because family ties are strong, such knowledge diffusion processes can be quick; because family networks are stable, the variety of knowledge in local communities can shrink rapidly.

In contrast to this process of knowledge diffusion, knowledge *creation* comes from collision of different ideas and from reflection on traditional thinking. Knowledge creation requires dynamic interaction of individuals, which is inconsistent with the structured flows of knowledge in family networks. Although useful for technology diffusion at the individual or community level, family networks may therefore be unhelpful to knowledge creation.

If family ties do little to build an innovative regional ecosystem, how can developing regions that industrialize through family-based learning transform into a knowledge economy? Another basic kind of social network, friendship ties, will gain increasing significance in the transformation process because friendship networks constitute a more open and dynamic structure for learning than family ties do (see Table 4.1). Unlike family ties created by marriage and birth, friendship is built from a sharing of common experience, an agreement on common rules, and an attraction between personalities. Friends are chosen independently, made through mutual acceptance, and endorsed by personal trust. Friendships are thus an autonomous association of individuals, open in structure and flexible in duration and strength. The easiest way to make friends is to be introduced by common friends. Granovetter (1973) argues this point by demonstrating the closeness tendency of strong friendship ties. In friendship networks only weak ties with acquaintances can become bridges, which elicit new information and opportunities. Therefore, heterogeneous knowledge can be cross-fertilized for innovation in societies through weak friendship bridges. Furthermore, the mutual obligation inherent in friendship enables friends to organize, disband, and reorganize in technical communities. These dynamic combinations of relations offer possibilities for knowledge creation and disruptive innovation. As Fukuyama (1995) put it, friends represent a spontaneous sociability of individuals and constitute an important kind of social capital in a modern society:

The most useful kind of social capital is often not the ability to work under the authority of a traditional community or group, but the capacity to form new associations and to cooperate within the terms of reference they establish. (p. 27)

If the preceding theoretical constructs of family and friendship networks are correct, then the significance of family ties for business and technology learning is likely to wane as regional or national economies upgrade, while friendship networks will gain momentum. This transformation is consistent with Giddens's (1990) view of the modernization process, in which individuals experience intimacy less from families than from friends. The evolutionary framework of family and friendship networks is supported by provocative evidence as well. Using world social survey data, Bertrand and Schoar (2006) and Alesina and Giuliano (2013) found strong family connections to be related to a lack of generalized trust and weak formal institutions in societies. More directly, an international comparison of entrepreneurs' social networks (Drakopoulou-Dodd & Patra, 2002) suggested that, in a fairly developed economy, entrepreneurs' social connections consist more of friends than of families and relatives.

Although the rationale of the evolution from families to friends is clear in theory, this transition is not easy in reality because the breakdown of family networks and the construction of generalized trust for friends are two different processes (Fukuyama, 1995). Family ties stable over one generation can decline quickly across generations. Increasing geographical mobility of new generations decreases connections among family members in traditional communities whether this effect is desired or not. Talented young individuals may even intend to disconnect from their families in order to avoid commitment to less able relatives (Munshi & Rosenzweig, 2005). Members of new generations who are more mobile than those of previous ones may also be unable to connect closely with each other or the rest of their families because of a lack of time spent together (Li et al., 2012). The transition from family ties to ties of friendship is complicated further by the challenge of developing generalized trust and creating autonomous associations in societies (Portes & Landolt, 2000). Based on mutual agreement, friendship must develop naturally. Legal systems may back up individuals' interaction and collaboration, but compulsory regulations cannot guarantee the creation of voluntary associations. It takes time for individuals to reach consensus on their identities and build accepted codes of interaction. Only after that point can spontaneous associations of friends prosper as the main infrastructure for social learning in societies.

Developing regions usually become stuck in a transitional stage, in which local family structure was destroyed while generalized trust in societies has not been cre-

**Fig. 4.3** A fragmented community after the collapse of family bridges (Design by author)

ated (Fukuyama, 1995). This situation, which is neither mechanically nor organically solidified in Durkheim's (1893/1997) sense,4 corresponds to the worst conceivable combination of community- and society-based governance for economic development argued by Rodríguez-Pose & Storper (2006). Falling into this transitional stage can be an unanticipated consequence of public policies, such as an unsuccessful plan for urban renewal (Jacobs, 1961) or a blind liberalization strategy (Meagher, 2007), which destroy the social structure of traditional communities but cannot build an interactive environment for new social and economic orders. It can also be an unavoidable outcome of rapid industrialization that quickly undermines traditional family solidarity while formal institutions and a spirit of civic engagement are still developing, as in modern China. Figure 4.3 illustrates a fragmented community in transition after the erosion of family bridges and before the development of friendship bridges. In contrast to Granovetter's (1973) argument that strong ties create separate cliques, it is the *decline* of strong family ties, especially family bridges, that pulls the community apart. New external knowledge, even if accessible to some local entrepreneurs, is difficult to share in a fragmented community of this kind. As a result, the community's ability to absorb technological and business know-how becomes weak. Local firms with no social networks for learning and with weak capacity for innovation have no choice but to enter a race to

<sup>4</sup>Developing societies in this transitional stage are not socially integrated with individuals who have common beliefs (mechanical solidarity) or who depend on each other in the division of labor (organic solidarity) in Durkheim's (1893/1997) sense.

the bottom by competing on low costs. This situation describes many industrial clusters in developing contexts.

Just as the transition from families to friends sheds light on the challenges that developing regions face, it can be relevant for developed economies as well. In the global knowledge economy successful regions increasingly need to acquire and mobilize distant resources, ideas, and innovations, a task that requires generalized trust in talented people regardless of their races, religions, and national origins. Dynamic regional economies, such as Silicon Valley, have been creating an open, friendly social structure to attract immigrant technocrats from all over the world. These mobile professionals act as global knowledge brokers to facilitate crossborder learning and innovation (Saxenian, 2007). In both developing and developed countries, regions without this social infrastructure for global learning are becoming either isolated or passively integrated into global networks of leading clusters through transnational brain drains. A new core-and-periphery pattern in the global knowledge economy may develop along with the great transition of social learning from closed to open networks. In this sense developed and developing regions are up against the same challenge of the transformation process.

#### **Conclusion**

Social networks for interactive learning are essential for regional knowledge economies. Exploration of socialized knowledge networks in industrial communities is conducted mainly in successful regions in western individualistic societies. Developing regions are widely seen to be grappling with challenges that are no longer concerns in developed economies, such as the development of civic spirit and the enforcement of formal regulations. A fundamental difference between developing and developed economies is perhaps that individuals in developing contexts are more committed to families in traditional communities and, hence, act less independently than individuals in developed countries. These distinctions make developing regions appear to be a different world. In economic geography, a field in which knowledge-based theories of clusters are derived from practices of regional economies in developed contexts, the conditions of developing regions have received scant attention in theoretical discussion of knowledge in space. Focusing on developing regions, I pursue an alternative frame of reference: the evolution of social learning processes in traditional communities. Specifically, I have posed two theoretical questions. First, can knowledge be shared in a structured way within family networks, and if so, how? Second, if family ties can channel knowledge flows, why is family-based learning so inconspicuous in innovative regions?

The first question invites an investigation into the anatomy of family networks. Unlike friendship connections, family ties are created primarily by birth and marriage, and marriage-based linkages can work as bridges for information-sharing between extended family groups. The connecting role of marriage implies that strong family ties can be bridges, which differ from weak friendship bridges as argued by Granovetter (1973). As bridges, family ties can channel knowledge fertilization between two groups; as strong ties, family bridges can be extremely helpful for technological learning that requires repeated communication and interaction. In traditional communities family bridges can enable entrepreneurs to learn business and technical know-how quickly. Traditional family structure is thus not a handicap of being less developed but rather an advantage for catching up.

The second question requires interpreting the role of family networks for learning from a dynamic perspective. After industrialization, regional economic growth relies more on technological innovation and knowledge creation than on resource utilization and business imitation. Being stable and hierarchical in structure, family networks are most likely to channel and bridge knowledge flows in one direction from fixed sources. Being localized, family ties are numerically restricted as translocal knowledge pipelines. The variety of knowledge pools in family networks therefore tends to decline after rapid diffusion of technology. In that stage the significance of ties with friends tends to surpass that of family ties in encouraging knowledge creation, because friendship networks are more dynamic and open for new information than family ties are. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to document the transformation process from family- to friend-based learning. The challenge for many developing economies is that family networks in local business communities can quickly collapse in new generations of entrepreneurs while generalized trust and formal institutions as foundations for spontaneous associations of individuals take a long way to develop in societies.

The great transition from family-based industrial communities to friend-based learning regions confronts developing economies and many developed areas alike. The turbulent global knowledge economy requires regions to develop global connections of transnational professionals and entrepreneurs regardless of their backgrounds, yet only a few leading clusters have successfully constructed a friendly social infrastructure to attract talented immigrants and mobilize innovation on a global scale. Divergence among clusters and regions may increase in the global knowledge economy along with the transition from closed to open social learning processes.

In examining the dynamics of family networks from the perspective of learning in industrial communities, I do not tend to argue that there is a trend toward substituting friends for families as the only, or even the main, social structure in societies. This dualistic interpretation of families and friends clearly does not hold from a sociological perspective. The family remains a basic part of social organization in modern societies and is not going to disappear.

**Acknowledgments** I thank Johannes Glückler for the invitation to the conference on "*Topographies and Topologies of Knowledge*" and I am grateful to participants of the conference for their suggestions on this chapter as well as to the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Canada and the East China Normal University, Department of Urban and Regional Economics for supporting my work on the manuscript. The chapter has also been presented at the University of Toronto, National University of Singapore, and the annual meeting of Association of American Geographers in Chicago. I appreciate the comments by the audience at these meetings as well, particularly from Harald Bathelt, Melanie Fasche, Daniel Gabaldon, Sebastian Henn, Yutian Liang, and Xiaojun You. Comments from anonymous reviewers and Johannes Glückler have also been very helpful. Lastly, I owe my thanks to David Antal, this volume's technical editor, for his excellent editorial job. All errors are mine.

#### **References**

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# **Chapter 5 Studying Networks Geographically: World Political Regionalization in the United Nations General Assembly (1985–2010)**

**Laurent Beauguitte**

The study of networks from the viewpoint of a geographer does not mean studying geographical networks as technical infrastructures, especially when one is interested in geopolitical phenomena. It means that the relational nature of a given spatial phenomenon seems to demand a specific approach, that is, a network one, and that formalization via a graph (a set of nodes, a set of links between these nodes, and some attributes) allows discovering unrevealed aspects of a sociospatial fact. The study of networks often means adopting an interdisciplinary posture, applying tools and methods developed in other academic fields, and conducting solid conceptual analysis. For instance, whereas distance and centrality are useful concepts in both geography and social network analysis, their definition and implications for research remain quite different and need to be adapted from one academic field to another to remain efficient and relevant.

This chapter presents results on the political regionalization process on a world scale, a process understood as the reinforcement of supranational structures based on geographical proximity. I presume that political actors, and especially state representatives in intergovernmental organizations, are constrained to work more and more often supranationally because of the globalization process, a process that can be understood neither solely nor primarily as an economic or financial phenomenon but rather as an increase in global issues demanding global responses and a governance shift (e.g., global warming, migrations, and energy). Although much has been published on economic regionalization since the 1990s (e.g., Mansfield & Milner, 1999), the political aspects have been quite neglected, and when they are studied, especially in international relations, the approach is mainly qualitative and purely conceptual (Barnett & Duvall, 2005; Diehl, 2005). The approach investigated in this chapter is taken from the behavioral school of international relations: If political regionalization is occurring, it should be possible to measure it, produce indicators,

L. Beauguitte (\*)

UMR IDEES, CNRS, 7 rue Thomas Becket, 76821 Mont Saint-Aignan, France e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2017 85

J. Glückler et al. (eds.), *Knowledge and Networks*, Knowledge and Space 11, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45023-0\_5

and validate the hypothesis by using quantitative and reproducible methods. Because a political process by nature involves relations among actors, network analysis appears to be a relevant tool to investigate this regionalization.

I begin with a short overview of network analysis in geographical studies because the similarity in vocabulary between the sciences can hide a large gap in methods, procedures of validation, and questions of research. Opportunities for political geography will be highlighted. Because techniques of network analysis are rarely used in geopolitical studies nowadays, the strengths and relevance of political geography will be underscored. The next section presents the main hypothesis, the field of observation (the United Nations General Assembly from 1985 until 2010), and the methodological choices made to study world political regionalization. The final section presents the main results obtained and underlines the relevance of network analysis for investigating questions of political regionalization. If tools of network analysis prove valuable in highlighting processes of innovation, they can also produce innovative results when brought to bear on many research questions. Geographical logics of coalition and policy-making, which in this chapter are investigated on a world scale but can be studied from a multiscalar perspective, can greatly benefit from such input (Hafner-Burton, Kahler, & Montgomery, 2009).

#### **Network Studies in (Political) Geography: A Quick Refresher**

Because I am a geographer, my academic training involved a specific relationship with the network approach, and I feel it necessary to describe geographical network analysis briefly before highlighting the opportunities that network analysis offers in geopolitical investigations. There is no pretense that this description is exhaustive, and it is based largely on a French perspective. Network literature has grown so voluminous and diverse since the mid-1990s that it has become nearly impossible for one individual to follow all the developments—although an overview of relations between complex network studies and geography was recently proposed (Ducruet & Beauguitte, 2013). This chapter therefore offers not a definitive state-ofthe-art treatment of geographical networks but rather some observations on the disciplinary biases inherent in network approaches as well an appeal for dialogue between disciplines. Since the inception of political geography, its practitioners, like those of international relations, have intensely investigated the question of power. Although many definitions of this central concept have been proposed, the canonical one by Dahl (1957) remains one of the most elegant: "A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do" (pp. 202–203). This definition underlines the strong relational nature of power. It cannot be considered an attribute of an individual actor; it implies relations between actors and at least dyadic examinations.

#### *Network as a Fashionable Metaphor*

Not surprisingly, the term *network* is polysemous. Its three most widely accepted definitions can be found in current geographical literature: network as a metaphor; network as a technical infrastructure; and—similar to, but distinct from, network studies in the strict sense—network as relational flows between places. The predominant definition of the word is its metaphorical one: A network is a social process (migratory network) or a system of relations (network of cities) that crosses borders. It is fluid, moving, and dynamic. In this sense the network is always the opposite of an enclosed and stable territory. The study of networks from this perspective does not involve any methodological choice, and the term *network* could simply be replaced by another (Glückler, 2013; Grabher, 2006). In political geography this metaphorical usage is especially strong given the presumed weakening of the level of the state, which is being overwhelmed by transboundary movements and the supranational nature of financial and economic actors. P. Taylor's publications of the Globalization and World Cities Research Network1 are quite representative of this trend, which moves away from the state level to consider mainly relations among the so-called world cities. Although many of these papers are quite interesting from a thematic perspective, *network* remains an emblematic word that implies neither conceptual nor methodological change. More interesting for my topic is the coexistence of two intersecting research traditions, one dedicated to technical networks and the other dedicated to flow studies.

#### *Two Geographic Traditions: Infrastructure Networks and Flow Studies*

As for the nonmetaphorical network, two main approaches exist in current geographical research: technical networks and flow studies. Studies of infrastructure networks (transport, energy, communication) were predominant starting with the seminal doctoral dissertation by Kansky (1963) until the middle of the 1990s and remain at the core of network studies in geography today. Although a minority of geographers tried to mix methods and propose new ways to study transportation networks (Ducruet, Ietri, & Rozenblat, 2011; Gleyze, 2007), the canonical tradition using the series of indices by Kansky (different ratios between the number of edges, the number of vertices, and the number of cycles derived from graph theory) prevails. It should be noted that in the vast majority of cases, networks are planar often valued and nondirected—a characteristic that may help explain the lack of methodological dialogue with social network analysis, in which a network is more often Boolean, directed, and nonplanar. Even though some methodological

<sup>1</sup> http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/

innovation has taken place, especially with respect to place accessibility and multilevel analysis (Mathis, 2003), dialogue with other social sciences remains the exception rather than the rule. However, these studies can provide valuable input for political geography because the structure and characteristics of technical networks can reveal social, economic, and spatial patterns. In what became for decades the reference handbook of network analysis in geography (Haggett & Chorley, 1969), one small example puts into perspective the physical aspects, socioeconomic variables (e.g., urbanization, hierarchy of cities), and indices of road and rail networks (pp. 88–89). The density and connectivity of technical networks are factors that reveal the level of regional or national wealth that can explain given patterns of relations among these actors.

Another trend in geographical research is relational by nature because it involves the study of flows between places. The use of a model inspired by laws of gravitation became a convenient tool in the 1960s and has been common since then to study and model patterns of interaction (Nystuen & Dacey, 1961; Tobler, 1970). Based on valued flows (goods, communication, migration), the techniques developed did not involve any dialogue with social network analysis. Note also that this literature barely makes explicit reference to the term *network*. However, several recent works by physicists draw on these interaction models mixed with complex network approaches and generally demonstrate that the two methods produce complementary results (Gorman et al., 2007). Interest in such approaches for political geography cannot be underestimated; they are able to reveal, for instance, preferential relations as well as barriers between pairs of actors. Mixing tools from flow studies and network analysis clearly appears promising for investigating globalization processes at multiscalar levels (Van Hamme & Grasland, 2011).

#### *Some Recent and Welcome Changes*

The soaring number of physicists and computer scientists in the network field since the 1990s has changed the landscape on two fronts. First, some geographers were quick to adopt new measurements from related works (clustering coefficient, power law degree distribution). Rozenblat's papers on economic and transport relations between world cities are good examples of this imitation process (Rozenblat & Melançon, 2007). This early acceptance can be explained by the not-so-new character of the scale-free network as a power law distribution, which is a common and well-known process in several social sciences (e.g., rank distribution of cities in urban geography, Zipf's word distribution in textual analysis). It must also be mentioned that the conclusions offered in the works on world cities remain classic yet are somehow deceptive: Using so-called innovative methods to show that Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo are the main world cities appears to contribute little to geographical knowledge (Rozenblat & Melançon, 2007). More noteworthy is the interest some physicists are taking in spatial networks and models and the methods proposed to analyze them (Barthelemy, 2011; Gastner & Newman, 2006). Methods

from social network analysis were less widely adopted by geographers, but several recent papers have indicated the use of the block model and equivalence (Drevelle, 2013), density and nodes centrality measures (Comin, 2009; Maisonobe, 2013), and k-cores to reveal a world center–periphery structure (Van Hamme & Pion, 2012). Once again, the emerging hybridization of disciplinary traditions appears quite interesting for geopolitical studies. It does not mean that network analysis is the only way to study conflicts or patterns of relations between actors, whatever the level of analysis. However, it is worth considering that, for some specific questions, network analysis can reveal unexpected facts and trends.

In summary, network analysis appears to be of major interest for geopolitical studies, especially when one is investigating power and hierarchy among actors. In the following sections I describe the investigation of patterns of relations among actors in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), using network analysis to test whether political regionalization is taking place on a world scale.

#### **A Relational Approach to the United Nations General Assembly**

Since the 1950s, and especially at the zenith of the behaviorist school of international relations (1960s and 1970s), a long tradition of United Nations (UN) studies has explored relations between actors, consequences of decolonization, the rise of ideological groups advocating a more equitable economic system than the existing one, the socializing effect of UN sessions, and the specific position of states in the UN system (although this list is far from exhaustive). The existence of blocs, regional or ideological, in the UN system, particularly in the UN General Assembly, triggered a profusion of books, reports, and papers, mainly in the Anglophonic academic sphere. Proposing even a short overview of this literature would hardly be feasible, even if the scope were limited to quantitative approaches (for a good starting point, see Beauguitte, 2011).

The UNGA is of significant interest for researching political geography. During a session, nearly all the world's political actors exchange ideas, discuss problems, confront each other, and attempt to assemble the pieces for more efficient world governance. Network analysis appears relevant mainly because decisions in the UNGA involve discussions, negotiations, and relations between actors, and there are documents available from which to draw the relational pattern between these actors. Of course, data collected reflect only the final step of dialogue, and the ways to achieve agreement among actors are generally unknown. At least three mechanisms have been identified in the literature: free agreement (two actors are likeminded on a specific topic), bargaining (A votes yes on this topic if B votes yes on another topic), and pressure (A must vote this way to get financial support from B). A well-known example of bargaining is the relationship between the Arab League and the African Union. Since the 1970s, the African Union has supported Arab League positions on Palestine, whereas the Arab League has supported the African Union's position on economic development. Examples of pressure are less welldocumented but are occasionally mentioned in the minutes of the meetings, albeit without precise targets. Before examination of the voting behavior and speech patterns in the UNGA, a short review of the UN system seems appropriate to justify some methodological choices.

#### *Studying the UN System from a Geographical Point of View*

The UN organization can be considered a relational system and a bureaucratic organization at the same time. First, positions of actors in the UN system depend on the relative positions of other actors. Moreover, an actor's behavior in one specific organ can in certain cases be explained by the position of this actor in another organ of the UN system. One familiar example is the voting behavior of the United Kingdom and France in the UNGA—they often vote differently from other member states of the European Union (EU)—behavior that can be explained only by their permanent member status in the Security Council. Another relational aspect relates to the possibility of action in the UN system in general and in the UNGA specifically: Any decision involves a dense network of relations with other actors, with all decisions being adopted by consensus or majority.

But the UN system is also a bureaucratic organization where the behaviors of actors are highly predictable (needed to strengthen cooperation), where stability outweighs evolution, and where reform is always a long and costly process. One of the most famous examples of this bureaucratic aspect is the reform of the Security Council, which generated hundreds of speeches, reports, and recommendations but not one single concrete decision.

Since its creation, the UN system has been extensively studied by academics, especially by North American academics in the fields of political science and international relations—the U.S. government has always paid a great deal of attention to UN activities and has financed numerous research projects. Geographers have paid scant attention to the UN's decision-making processes. However, at least two aspects are of particular interest: the geography of cooperation and conflict, and scale issues related to daily operations. Because nearly all states are represented in the UNGA, this institution allows one to observe patterns of cooperation on a worldwide scale, from both dynamic and thematic points of view, and studying voting behavior provides some valuable geopolitical input.

A brief explanation of the purpose and function of the UNGA seems warranted at this point. The aim of the UNGA, according to the UN Charter signed in 1945, is to "consider the general principles of cooperation in the maintenance of international peace and security, including the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments" (Charter of the United Nations, Article 11) and to initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of (a) promoting international cooperation in the political field and encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification; (b) promoting international cooperation in the economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields; and (c) assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion (Charter of the United Nations, Article 13).

When a member state, a regional group, or an ad hoc group of states submits a resolution proposal to the General Assembly, there can be one of two outcomes. The first and most frequent one is the resolution's adoption by consensus without any vote. Depending on the session, between two thirds and three quarters of all resolutions are adopted by consensus. A vote indicates a controversial issue, and member states have four options (only member states are able to vote): vote yes, abstain, vote no, or abstain. The last option often indicates a small and/or failed state that cannot obtain a permanent delegation in the UNGA. It should also be noted that nearly all states are UNGA members: The Holy See and the State of Palestine have observer status (they can sponsor a resolution but cannot vote), and Taiwan is the only independent state not recognized by the UN system, a situation due to the strong and persistent opposition of China.

#### *Geographical Voting Patterns in the UNGA*

Studying votes in the UNGA has had a long academic tradition since the seminal paper by Ball (1951). The main hypothesis is that states that vote the same way on a vast range of topics are supposedly politically close and like-minded. Kissack (2007) noted that studying votes has advantages as well as drawbacks, and among the latter is the inability to infer any cooperative behavior from results obtained. In other words, in an arena where many resolutions are ritually adopted year after year over several decades, two states can exhibit the same voting behavior without having any actual relation. However, in an arena where two thirds of the resolutions are adopted by consensus, putting an issue up for vote already indicates a lack of consensus. Whereas a similar vote does not necessarily imply a close relation, a dissimilar vote conversely indicates opposition between two actors. When dozens of votes are considered, similar voting patterns can infer a relation between a pair of actors. Moreover, the autonomy of actors is not equally distributed: Some delegations have dozens of members (e.g., diplomats, lawyers, and counselors), whereas delegations from the poorest countries have only two to five members. It is obviously difficult for the small delegations to study all proposed resolutions, to consider their legal implications, and so on, and voting behavior will depend on group directives rather than on national orientation.

For the two sessions considered here (the 42nd and 63rd), voting results were selected according to (a) resolutions and (b) member states. First, tables recording all voting results per session were made from the UNBISnet website, which provides all details of states' behavior per resolution.2 Then, near-unanimous resolutions

<sup>2</sup> http://unbisnet.un.org/

were deleted (less than 5% of no votes or abstentions). The resolution-based selection was motivated by the presence of very specific resolutions on Israel for which only Israel and the United States voted against or abstained. These two states are clearly peripheral in the UNGA, and including these votes would not provide any supplementary information. The second selection, based on member states, comprised those states that were often absent and not able to vote. Keeping the threshold used in previous studies, I chose to delete states that did not participate in at least 30% of the votes. Failing to omit these states would produce a group lacking political consistency. The final tables included 158 states and 145 resolutions for the 42nd session (1987–1988) and 178 states and 68 resolutions for the 63rd session (2009– 2010). These basic measurements are congruent with the general trend in the UNGA in this period: a rising number of member states (with the addition of former Eastern-bloc countries in the 1990s and many small states in the 2000s) and a diminishing number of resolutions put to a vote.

Several network approaches can be used to study voting behavior in the UNGA. The most common method is to create a multibipartite state-resolution graph and to transform it into a state-state similarity matrix with range values from 0 (two states always vote in a different way) to 100 (two states always vote the same way). One issue concerns the threshold process because finding a value suitable for different sessions seems challenging. The solution proposed by Beauguitte (2011) was to choose the same statistical threshold for all similarity tables in order to allow comparison. However, transformation from continuous to discrete values remains quite unsatisfactory. Although some authors proposed this approach in the 1960s (Lijphart, 1963), multivariate analysis (mainly principal component analysis) soon became the canonical method of handling this data.

An alternative option that allows keeping link weights is to adopt a variation of the CONCOR method adapted for valuable matrices; the classification procedure groups together states that have the same relational profile. Figure 5.1 shows the regional structure based on voting behavior before the end of the Cold War (42nd session, 1987–1988), and Fig. 5.2 reflects the situation in 2010 (63rd session, 2009– 2010). The considerable cluster inertia is quite surprising but confirms results obtained in previous research (Voeten, 2000). Even today, there is one Northern bloc in opposition to one Southern and Eastern bloc. In 2009 the East appeared smaller because eastern European countries began to behave like western ones adhesion or application to the EU—but the main fracture between developed and less developed countries continued to be the dominant pattern. The voting pattern of Turkey, one of the few countries showing a marked change, was becoming more and more like that of western countries. The cluster inertia is also related to the structure of resolutions voted upon in the UNGA. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the subject of more than one third of all resolutions voted upon in each session. Regarding this issue, the West strives for a balanced stance, whereas other members share a pro-Palestinian approach, which partly explains their cohesiveness. In 2009 there appeared a tiny group of small developing island states that tended to vote like Southern-bloc states, except when resolutions concern global warming.

**Fig. 5.1** Political regions in the UNGA in 1987 (42nd session). From UNBISnet (Performed by Philcarto. Design by author)

**Fig. 5.2** Political regions in the UNGA in 2009 (63rd session). From UNBISnet (Performed by Philcarto. Design by author)

This clustering approach is of particular interest because it is able to sum up thousands of statements, speeches, and resolutions in order to produce an artificial map of political regions. The map does not necessarily signify that two member states in the same group always behave in the same way or share common views on the vast range of topics examined in the UNGA. However, it does provide an initial delineation that should be kept in mind for in-depth study.

Other approaches appear valuable and can provide relevant results, such as investigating resolutions' sponsors by topic or similarities among resolutions to see whether or not the same type of resolution (on human rights or economic development) tends to produce highly interconnected graphs. However, studying voting behavior provides only a partial picture of relational patterns in the UNGA because only one third of resolutions are included.

Whereas studying voting behavior is a traditional way to view relations in the UNGA, the study of speeches remains less developed even though the General Assembly can be considered an arena of words rather than decision-making. Each year, representatives from nearly all countries (Taiwan excepted) issue statements on a broad range of issues, and these speeches can be considered the official position of those states' governments. But states are not the only speakers, and the study of speeches supports multiscalar analysis.

#### **Speech Dynamics in the UNGA: A Network Approach**

Various individuals make statements in the UNGA: representatives of states (nearly 80% of all statements during a session for the period under consideration), representatives of groups, of institutions from the UN system, and, less often, representatives from NGOs (e.g., the Red Cross) or institutions external to the UN system (e.g., the European Commission). In the last two decades, a change in speech dynamics has occurred. Groups issued more and more statements on a growing range of topics, and states' representatives have supported their statements more and more often, two patterns that could be a relevant indicator confirming the political world regionalization hypothesis. Minutes of meetings from 1990 to 2010 were reviewed to collect all speeches that affirmed "state A supports group *a*," and these data were studied as bipartite graphs. Occurrences of such speeches were transformed into a state-group matrix in which each case indicates the number of times a state A supported a statement made by a group *a*. The poor quality of documents from older sessions prevents automatic word-searching, and data-gathering was therefore manual and time consuming.

**Table 5.1** Main properties of bipartite state–group network

*Source:* UNGA verbatim records

#### *Statements by Regional Groups and States*

Table 5.1 provides a general picture of this phenomenon. The increase in the number of states that support a group's statements is quite impressive (from 10 to 100 in 20 years), whereas the progression of groups is less marked (from 3 to 14).

Before the graphs from Fig. 5.3 are interpreted, one distinction is necessary regarding the type of groups investigated. Some groups can be called ideological because they defend specific points of view on topics examined in the UNGA, whereas others can be labeled regional because their main ambition is integration at a supranational level—although some regional formations may indeed be based on ideological considerations. (The EU, for instance, is based mainly on the liberal free-market ideology.) Among the initial groups, the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of 77 (now called the Group of 77 plus China) are emblematic of the 1970s at the UNGA, with NAM supporting an alternative political path between capitalism and socialism and the G77 promoting a new and less disparate world economic order. These two groups remain active, giving voice to the weakest states and advancing their claims.

In 1990 (Fig. 5.3, Session 45) the situation was quite simple: The European Commission was the only group whose statements were regularly supported by its member states. Although the EC was not the only group to make statements, individual states did not support statements made by other groups. The other two supported groups (G77 and the least developed countries) can be considered ideological because they do not promote a regional integration process but defend a more general point of view based on uneven economic development.

Six years later (Fig. 5.3, Session 51) the situation was not so different, although there were more member states that supported groups' statements. Although EU member states often supported EU statements, most of the links in the component illustrated on the left reflected ideological considerations (degree equal to 6 for NAM, degree equal to 9 for the G77 plus China). Nevertheless, the increase in the number of regional groups in the strict sense (Latin America and the Caribbean, the Rio Group, and the Organization of African Unity) was notable, and some member states chose to support one group or another, depending on the topic under consideration.

**Fig. 5.3** Bipartite UNGA state-group graphs. *ASEAN* Association of Southeast Asian Nations, *AU* African Union, *CAIS* Central American Integration System, *CARICOM* Caribbean Community, *EC* European Commission, *ECCAS* Economic Community of Central African States, *EU* European Union,

The 57th session (2002–2003) shows the growing importance of regional groups for all member states, European or otherwise. The G77 plus China maintained its central position, and NAM moved to a more peripheral position. All other groups that appear affirmed regional integration as one of their main objectives. Once again, the EU was a component isolated from other countries and included only member states (and candidates). This picture confirms previous results according to which the EU is simultaneously one of the most cohesive groups in the UNGA and one of the most isolated because it is unable to attract support from other actors (Gowan & Brantner, 2008). The situation in 2009—not reproduced here because the density of the graph renders it unreadable—confirms this evolution: the rising importance of regional groups, the rising number of states supporting several groups depending on the topic examined, and the cohesiveness and isolation of the EU. Further studies are needed, especially to investigate concrete mechanisms of cooperation that groups set up to achieve these results. One can assume that this trend reflects an increasingly pressing need for member states to see that taking action through a supranational framework is more efficient than taking action as individual member states. However, major powers—the best example being the United States, which never appears on these graphs—do not necessarily need regional groups. When political regionalization occurs, it is primarily for actors unable to influence world decisions by themselves. Another question concerns how the UNGA itself functions. As regional groups become more active (sponsoring resolutions, making statements, and collaborating with one another), will the organization be able to change its procedures to take this dynamic into account or will it remain a strictly international organ? The fact that the EU recently gained a higher participation status—EU representatives (rather than representatives of the state leading the EU) can now make statements and propose resolutions—indicates that organizational change is possible to reinforce the role of regional groups.3

#### *From Empirical Observations to Models of Cooperation and Regionalization*

A complementary approach to this discursive regionalization dynamic is to build ideal types based on the expected behavior of actors instead of measuring the expansion of phenomena from one session to the next. This exercise is interesting principally because it identifies the relation between actors and their motivations and

**Fig. 5.3** (continued) *G77* Group of 77, *LAC* Latin America and the Caribbean, *LDC* Least Developed Countries, *LDLC* Least Developed and Landlocked Countries, *NAM* Nonaligned Movement, *OIC* Organization of Islamic Cooperation, *OAU* Organization of African Unity, *PIF* Pacific Islands Forum, *SADC* Southern African Development Community, *SIDS* Small Island Developing States (Source: UNGA verbatim records. Design by author)

<sup>3</sup> http://www.unbrussels.org/general-assembly-grants-eu-higher-participation-status.html (retrieved June 16, 2014)

**Fig. 5.4** Theoretical models of regional cooperation (Design by author)

connects this trend to conceptual inquiries in political geography and international relations. Of course, as always, models are not claimed to represent reality in all its dimensions. They are propositions of a simplified structure that depicts main relations between prominent actors. A model can also serve as a guideline to relate actual evolution to conceptual inquiries regarding relations between actors on a world scale.

This regionalization trend poses two main questions, one about cooperation and the other about the scalar level of decision-making. From a thematic and geopolitical point of view, the rise in regional groups can be regarded as the expression of political regionalization based on cooperation between actors—primarily, but not exclusively, national ones. This concept is clearly related to globalization as regionalization emerges as a process in which nation states within geographic proximity take collective measures to cope with problems of global governance…the more regionalized the world, the more necessary, enabled and willing for regions to construct connections with each other [*sic*]. (Song, 2007, p. 67)

This process does not mean the end of bilateral relations or the end of the state level, but it does involve a new paradigm for comprehending world structures (Chen, 2005). One main challenge in the near future will be to improve coordination of national interests and group dynamics and to engage the main powers (United States, Russia, or China) in this process. The multilevel scale of governance inside international organizations also offers a new angle of research. Although member states continue to get their own agendas into the international forum, their actions are increasingly constrained by supranational structures. Figure 5.4, which is based on both theoretical considerations and the data analysis presented in Table 5.1, attempts to model this process of regionalization, in which four different types of cooperation emerge.

The four hypothetical graphs in Fig. 5.4 show the evolution from a pure statecentered situation to an ideal regional configuration. These graphs sum up three key hypotheses on world political regionalization: (a) the presence of regional groups is increasing, (b) states are using regional groups more and more often to achieve their aims, and (c) cooperation between regional groups is rising. Of course, the hypotheses

apply only if the globalization process continues, change that should not be taken for granted. One can certainly envision a process of shrinking globalization in which ever more barriers are erected at the state level. The rising anti-European feeling serves as a reminder that history does not stand still and that social processes are far from being linear or predictable.

In the first graph on the far left, several groups make statements and member states make statements, but there are no links between these two categories of actors. The second graph depicts conflict between two groups that have the support of their respective members: The EU-versus-the-rest-of-the-world configuration observed in recent years closely resembles this pattern. It is also the model that best lends itself to partitioning the political world. The third graph reflects a situation in which member states, depending on the topic, choose to support one group or another, which happens with increasing frequency in the UNGA in the case of the South American and Pacific island states. The final graph models a situation in which a process of cooperation emerges between regional groups and in which all statements by the states assume a supranational scale. This ideal is still a long way off because national interests are predominant among the most powerful states.

Although these models can be helpful for highlighting processes in a specific arena and for providing points of comparison, they portray only one of many possible progressions. From a thematic point of view, political regionalization is mostly a weapon of the weak. Since the 1970s, groups have been used by small, recently decolonized, and peripheral member states in the UNGA, and it is not by chance that the United States and Russia are not represented in the graphs in Fig. 5.3. Three major kinds of group relations can be found in the UNGA. Some states do not need them (United States, Russia), some powerful states use groups only to reinforce their interests (France, United Kingdom, and China), and some states need groups to be heard (the least developed states). It seems that two kinds of political regionalization are distinguishable: voluntary and constrained. The first includes wealthy states aiming to reinforce their position and internal cohesiveness (the EU); the second subsumes states too weak to influence decisions by themselves. Qualitative methods are needed to confirm this hypothesis because network analysis does not allow differentiating these two types of groups.

#### **Concluding Remarks**

Is network analysis necessary? Did the results obtained in this study need these techniques and methods or can they be obtained by other means? The clustering method used to produce the maps in Figs. 5.1 and 5.2 is not completely satisfactory, and other statistical multivariate techniques could easily be applied to data on voting behavior. The results arrived at are congruent with those produced by other means, but the interpretation of classes remains more difficult than with a principal component analysis, for example. Where scales of speeches are concerned, network analysis appears much more relevant than votes and reveals patterns of interaction

not easily identifiable by other means. So the answer is partly yes: Network analysis, like any other technique, is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is able to produce unexpected discoveries in geopolitical research.

From a geopolitical perspective network analysis seems a useful tool with which to investigate regionalization processes, for these processes reinforce links—either cooperative or conflicting—between several types of actors. If the UNGA comprises mainly states and groups, then several other forums, notably the major UN-organized conferences, involve very different actors (e.g., firms, NGOs, experts), and a network approach would be helpful to improve the understanding of contemporary dynamics in world governance. If geography matters, it is primarily because spatial proximity appears to favor cooperation. Furthermore, patterns of relations create political regions of like-minded actors, and discontinuities are likely to appear between these regions. For instance, a recent study on human rights issues have revealed the gap between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East (Beauguitte, 2012).

Network analysis is ultimately a powerful way to communicate results, although the readability of graphs needs improving (Bahoken, Beauguitte, & Lhomme, 2013; Henry, Fekete, & McGuffin, 2007). Last but not least, network analysis also represents an excellent way to cross disciplinary boundaries and encourage discussion among researchers.

#### **References**

system of cities through research networks dedicated to converging technologies]. (Doctoral dissertation, University Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne).

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# **Chapter 6 (Post)graduate Education Markets and the Formation of Mobile Transnational Economic Elites**

#### **Sarah Hall**

 This chapter is set within the resurgence of interest in economic elites across the social sciences (see, for example, Daloz, 2010 ; Savage & Williams, 2008 ). Clearly understanding the activity of economic elites, including those who work in the fi nancial services focused on in this chapter, is not an entirely new endeavor within economic geography and the broader social sciences (see, for example, McDowell, 1997 ; Thrift, 1994 ). Building on this work, however, the recent and growing interest in elites marks the development of a more sustained academic engagement aimed at understanding not only the background of elites but also the nature of their work and its signifi cant implications for the global economy. Beyond the academy, this developing interest in elites has received considerable impetus from the 2007 to 2008 fi nancial crisis and the ensuing recession because of how the elites' working practices , particularly those undertaken by investment bankers in fi nancial services in the area of securitization (the process of transforming an illiquid asset into a security), which are argued to have been central to both causing the crisis and contributing to its geographically disparate consequences (Tett, 2009 ).

 Inspired by this growing interest in elites and their working practices, I focus in this chapter on the role of postgraduate education in facilitating entry into—and upward career progression within—early- career labor markets in investment banking in London's international fi nancial district. I take as my starting point the considerable attention that has been paid to the role of educational background in elite formation, led by the work of Bourdieu (1989/ 1996 ). The development of this work, particularly in the sociology of education, has documented how individuals strategically accumulate credentials in order to secure positional advantage vis-à-vis other job seekers in their chosen labor market (see, in particular, Brown & Hesketh, 2004 ). I develop this literature by examining how education beyond the fi rst degree

S. Hall (\*)

School of Geography , University of Nottingham , Sir Clive Granger Building , Nottingham NG7 2RD , UK e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
level (i.e., beyond bachelor's degree) represents an important means by which early career fi nancial elites are inculcated into the meanings and competencies associated with normalized, legitimated business practices in London and into the corporate culture of their employing fi rm.

 I suggest that these forms of education, alongside the more widely studied forms of educational background, have important implications for both the spatial and social mobility of fi nancial elites. My approach advances understandings of the spatial mobility (or otherwise) of fi nancial elites. In this respect work on elites has more generally often labeled them as, for example, a transnational capitalist class (Sklair, 2001 ) or global elites (Castells, 1996 ). These labels, and the discourses that surround them, suggest a highly mobile group of topologically linked individuals who are only loosely embedded in topographical space while being situated within particular geographical locations, cities, or regions. However, by focusing on the role of education in elite formation, I suggest that elites combine elements of both topological mobility and connectedness with topographical specifi city because their working practices and careers are shaped in part by the still largely national educational systems in which they are produced and the distinctive working cultures associated with different, place-based economies—the international fi nancial centers in the case of the fi nancial elites I study here. Meanwhile, I suggest that socially the case of fi nance demonstrates how many of the networks created through postgraduate education continued to be structured along social lines. In particular, mobility into and within elite fi nancial labor markets remains comparatively limited to an educational and occupational elite, in spite of the widely held view that the growing importance of postgraduate education signaled the rise of a more meritocratic global economy—and City of London in particular—where individuals can succeed if they invest appropriately in their human capital (Becker, 1994 ). Taken together, I therefore argue that postgraduate education is an important but hitherto comparatively overlooked element in creating fi nancial elites who combine elements of topological fi nancial networks inseparable from the topographical dimensions of socioeconomic practice in fi nancial services.

 I develop these arguments over four further sections. In the next section, I examine how work on the role of educational background, particularly in the sociology of education, can be developed to provide a fuller understanding of the role of ongoing education in shaping socioeconomic practice within elite labor markets. I then introduce the different elements of the postgraduate landscape as they pertain to fi nancial elites working in investment banking in the City of London. In the fi nal substantive section of the chapter, I consider the spatial implications of this ongoing education for a group of early- career fi nancial elites employed by investment banks often assumed to be unproblematically transnational and highly geographically mobile. I conclude by refl ecting on the implications of this argument for work on the geographies of elites more generally and on their spatial and social (im) mobility.

#### **Financial Elites, Education, and Socioeconomic Practice in the City**

 As noted in the introduction , the relationship between educational background and entry into elite networks has been extensively studied, led by the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1980/ 1990 , 1989/ 1996 ). A central component of this research is Bourdieu's identifi cation of three interrelated forms of capital (economic, social, and cultural) that form an individual's habitus ( Bourdieu, 1980/ 1990 ). Work in the sociology of education has focused particularly on institutional capital , arguing that it is gained through the acquisition of education credentials, as well as through membership in other formal groups (see, for example, Waters, 2007 ). However, although Bourdieu only discusses education explicitly in relation to institutional capital , research, particularly in the sociology of education, has revealed how education also plays an important role in the acquisition of the other forms of cultural and embodied capital as individuals learn accepted ways of being and doing through their educational experiences (Brown, 2000 ; Brown & Hesketh, 2004 ; Waters, 2009 ).

 This emphasis on the ways in which institutional, cultural, and embodied capital is acquired through education has been particularly evident regarding the relationship between education and the fi nancial elites focused on in this chapter. Most notably, in the case of the City of London educational credentials from a small number of fee-paying public schools and elite universities, the University of Oxford and Cambridge in particular, have been identifi ed as key determinants of successful entry into London's fi nancial labor markets prior to the deregulatory changes of Big Bang in 1986, (Kynaston, 2002 ; McDowell, 1997 ). Educational credentials obtained from these institutions acted as a form of institutionalized cultural capital by indicating the possession of the objectifi ed and embodied forms of cultural capital associated with "gentlemanly" capitalism (Augar, 2001 ). Indeed, as Thrift ( 1994 , p. 342) has argued, gentlemanly capitalism was based "on values of honor, integrity, courtesy and so on, and manifested in ideas of how to act, ways to talk [and] suitable clothing" (see also Tickell, 1996 ). These embodied forms of working in the City have been argued to have had important implications for how the City was regulated by dense social networks based on shared educational backgrounds, through which trust based relationships could be formed (Pryke, 1991 ). More recent work has revealed how newer forms of educational credentials continue to reproduce the importance of the relationship between the educational background-based entry into fi nancial elite labor markets and the embodied, institutional, and cultural capital needed to work successfully in these environments. For example, Masters of Business Administration (MBA) alumni networks from leading business schools have been shown to be an important way of securing upward career progression within investment banks, especially those headquartered in the United States where the MBA is more fully integrated into investment banking career pathways (Hall, 2008 ).