On the validity of perceived social structure (Q826871)

This paper studies network inference revolving around the validity of perceived social structure in social network research. An established method called cultural consensus theory has been briefly reviewed. This methodology provides an avenue to infer the accuracy the informants and the underlying cultural truth on which they are reporting in surveys. The authors then propose a modified model for social measurement through a multi-pronged approach in the context of organizational settings. It is shown that it is possible to reliably recover social network structure given the data generating process under the proposed model based on numerical simulations. It is revealed that inferred structures from different sets of informants are more similar to each other than a random sampling. Some validity checks are also performed against the proposed model. It is shown that patterns in individual respondent observations are structured in a way that aligns with cognitive theory.