Sharique Hasan: "Randomizing Social Networks in the Field"

This is an Archive of a Past Event

Social network effects are important in many domains of life. Yet,evidence from field experiments suggests network treatments, such asrandom peer assignments, have small, short-lived or null effects onoutcomes. Scholars believe that treatment non-compliance andself-organization dampen measured effects.  In this talk, Hasan proposes and tests a method called Sequential Random Interaction (SRI)in which individuals are randomized to multiple peer interaction. The study tests the effectiveness of SRI on network formation using data from afield experiment in India where 112 participants were randomized toteam and peer interactions during a three-week Entrepreneurship Academy. This study finds network randomizations to increase the probability ofknowing, friendship, advice seeking, desire to work with someone inthe future, email-exchange, and liking posts on Facebook. The report also finds evidence that second-order network ties are formed, and thatindividual betweenness and eigenvector centralities are altered.

Sharique Hasan studies social networks, work and entrepreneurship. His research on social networks has explored how networks help people learn complex ideas, what types of network connections enhance performance, and how individuals can build larger and more diverse networks. He is an Assitant Professor in the Stanford Graduate School of Business.