A Case Study of Shunnings at a Major Organization

This page will house a forthcoming case study presentation based on records from an organization where a powerful person directed many others to shun a person with mental illness while invoking disability stereotypes. The case study maps the path of social exclusion using organizational network analysis (ONA).

What is ONA?

ONA methodologies are a specific intra-organizationally focused version of social network analysis (SNA) techniques.  ONA techniques visualize employee connections and their strength of interactions to derive important insights related to performance, diversity, inclusion, and other metrics.  Some questions that may be asked in ONA surveys (derived from the Confirm platform for ONA include:

• Who at your organization do you go to for help and advice?
• Who do you believe is making an outstanding impact?
• Who do you believe needs additional support or attention?

To conduct an ONA, one needs to collect data using methods such as “surveys, interviews, analysis of digital communications (emails, social media interactions), and observation.”  This data is used to map the nodes (people of different types, such as key influencers) and connections (pathways of communication of varying frequencies) to chart the infrastructure of the organizational network – a tool that could be used to derive insights regarding how information and decisions flow through it. 

Below is an example of such a mapping, you can look at a report by Deloitte.