Unraveling local relationship patterns in project networks: A network motif approach

Characterizing relationship patterns among organizations in project networks has become a hot issue in the emerging field of project network management. Many researchers focus on social network centralities (e.g. degree, betweenness, and closeness) and global network measures (e.g., network density, degree distribution, and clustering coefficient) to investigate the relationship patterns in project networks. However, little is known about the local relationship patterns, i.e., relational structures among a small number of project organizations. In this paper, we will construct the contractors' collaboration networks by mapping collaborative relationships between hundreds of contractors within the electronic database of National Quality Award Projects (NQAP) of China. The research purpose is to make use of the normative network motif approach in characterizing the local relationship patterns of project networks and in demonstrating how such relationship patterns evolve, thus contributing to the field of project network research. We find two distinct types of local collaboration patterns, i.e., motif and antimotif in the NQAP collaboration network. The motifs are the evolutionary favored patterns induced by macro network clustering tendency and individual structural embeddedness. Moreover, the evolution of the NQAP collaboration network shows a phase transition characterized by the distribution of the local collaboration patterns. The motif approach is expected to help project organizations devise appropriate strategies to select partners as well as to help governors establish effective strategies of project network governance.