Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a data-driven process of understanding social structures (links, connections, bonds between people in any part of society) through the use of networks and graph theory. SNA allows us to better understand how individuals are connected, and how information flows – this is critical for improving communication and mobilizing knowledge and resources. When SNA is applied to map the interactions and relationships in an organisation, it is referred to as an ‘Organisational Network Analysis’ (ONA), and if it is extended to include other entities than people, it is called a Link Analysis.

Organisational Network Analysis (ONA), a subset of Social Network Analysis (SNA), is a data-driven process of visualizing and analyzing informal relationships in the organization. A network analysis reveals patterns of collaboration and influence that are very different from the formal hierarchical structures that leaders rely upon to understand operations and make decisions. An ONA is able to provide detailed information about hidden factors for success, such as flow of information, decision-making, revenue-impacting collaborations, innovation, inclusion—even trust, engagement levels, and energy.

The focus of both, an SNA and an ONA, is to understand the network structure rather than the individual characteristics of the people in the network.

There are two ways of conducting an ONA, depending on the source of data used - active and passive.

• Active ONA is when one generates the data for the analysis by conducting an ONA survey. The survey is sent out to a unit of people whose relationship patterns we are interested in analyzing, and we ask them about the professional relationships that they have with other individuals within the organisation, in order to get their work done.
• The second way is a passive way of understanding relationships. This method uses data that already exists within the organisation, such as email logs, chat logs or in some cases even understanding who's collaborating on certain documents. Generally, passive ONA uses only meta-data of the messages, and not the message content, in order to mitigate privacy issues.

Understandably, active ONA is generally a one-time event, but passive ONA can give an analysis over a time period. Here are the key differences, summed up:

Though there is a hierarchical structure in any organisation, people interact beyond these formal structures, and slowly and steadily an informal network evolves within the organisation. These informal interactions determine the undercurrents and decide how the organisation evolves. Conducting an ONA gives an organisation the power to generate insights that determine how information flows through these networks, and how the organization can increase its operational effectiveness by making specific and targeted changes to increase collaboration and the exchange of information between the right people. Learn more ...

The general steps involved in conducting the an active ONA, is as follows:

1. Determine the survey group
2. Determine the questions that are used to map the relations
3. Create a survey using these questions
4. Let employees fill out the survey
5. Generate social graph(s) by analysing the response of each employee and identifying the relationships between the employees
6. Use statistical/ML tools to generate insights from the social graph(s)

The general steps involved in conducting the an passive ONA, is as follows:

1. Determine the survey group
2. Determine the digital platforms that need to be tracked (mails / slack / MS team etc…)
3. Fetch data from these channels periodically
4. Collate these data, parse the data and store it in a convenient format
5. Generate social graph(s) by identifying the relationships between the employees
6. Use statistical/ML tools to generate insights from the social graph(s)

Social Capital is the interpersonal relations, social networks, shared sense of identity, and trust within a society or organisation. In other words, social capital refers to features in a social organisation such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of the organisation. The concept of social capital was initially defined by sociologists as the aggregated value of connections between individuals and the norms of reciprocity developed from the network. Social capital is a commonly identified trait of social organization and includes trust between individuals and interpersonal connections that could increase the efficiency of society and create platforms that could be beneficial to all the parties. Social Network Analysis(SNA) and Organisational Network Analysis(ONA) helps us understand the social capital of a community or Organisation.