Social Networks 183
that the density of the whole network was not complete. To a certain extent,
it is an analytical drawback that sources do not provide enough information
to calculate either a complete network’s density or the degree of centrality of
each merchant’s position within a network.50 However, it is possible to take
an ego-centered network approach, and try to reconstruct only the part of an
exchange network that belongs to a particular merchant.
The rare source material allows for some general conclusions to be made.
The total number of a merchant’s trading partners can be divided into (at
least) three groups: family members, friends, and occasional partners. For each
merchant, the relative position of all trading partners can be plotted on circles
surrounding his own position in an ego-centered network (see Figure 5.2a). Core
partnerships have a high frequency of mutual exchange and had existed for a
longer period of time. In theory, family bonds and core partnerships coincide
significantly.51 In practice, there seems to be strong evidence from Hanseatic
sources that core partnerships were often trading relationships with family
50 Daniel J. Brass and Marlene E. Burkhardt, “Centrality and Power in Organizations,” in
Nitin Nohria and Robert G. Eccles, eds., Networks and Organizations: Structure, Form, and
Action (Boston: Harvard, 1992), 191–215.
51 Peter Ping Li, “Towards a Geocentric Framework of Organizational Form: A Holistic,
Dynamic and Paradoxical Approach,” Organization Studies 19 (1998), 829–861.
figure 5.2 Structure and Stabilization of Commercial Networks: (a) Zones of network members
with respect to their classification into family members, friends, and occasional
partners and overlapping personal networks; (b) An example of intensification of
transactions over time after occasional partners have become friends.
Source: Created by Ulf Christian Ewert and Stephan Selzer.
core
partnershipscore
partnershipsfamily memberfamily
friend memberoccasional friend
partneroccasional partner(a) (b)family member familymemberfriend
partnershcoreips friendcore
partnershipsoccasional
partneroccasional
partner