Thank you for all your inquries,
I'd thought I would sum up some of the conversation's I've had about this topic in a quick summary here incase there is more interest into the topic:
Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), quite simply derives from the academic field of Social Network Analysis(SNA).
Where SNA is a sociological tool for analyzing human relationships in the social realm (i.e. neighborhood, school, city, health networks), ONA
specifically focus on employee relationships within organizations.
By analyzing employee relationships (i.e. informal, social, innovative, knowledge seeking, professional, communication), it can provide a general feel of how the organization is functioning and currently operating. What differs ONA/SNA from current OD products/tools that do this, is the process of turning employee survey responses into social network diagrams, which give you a concrete baseline that visually depicts the information.
With this information, its a great starting point for further discussion to examine and learn more about what's going on at the organizational level. Particularly within the realm of OD, its a great diagnostic tool to utilize in team building exercises, cultural integration, change management, and merger and acquisition projects, as the end product of conducting ONA/SNA are network reports of how connected the organization is, and where areas of improvements can be made to improve cross functional collaboration and efficiency.
On the individual level, ONA/SNA maps depict vital information which outline who the most important, connected and influential employees are within the social networks, and this is in turn helps HR/OD practitioners with leadership development, succession planning and talent management engagements.
If you would like to learn more about this, feel free to drop me a message and we can explore how this might be utilized for you or your clients!
Cheers
Tim