Balazs Vedres

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Verified

Balazs verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor at Central European University

Digital collaborative platforms have become crucial venues of career advancement and individual success in many creative fields, from engineering to the arts. Gender discrimination related to behavioral choices of users is a key component to gendered disadvantage on platforms. Such platforms carried the promise of opening avenues of advancement to...

In our contemporary art field global institutional networks offer novel strategies for peripheral artists in their struggle for global recognition, bypassing the necessity of maximizing presence in the territorial core. We address the puzzle of how such novel artistic strategies bypassing core gatekeepers can succeed. In this article we analyze the...

Social bots are highly active on social media platforms, significantly affecting online discourse. We analyzed the dynamic nature of bot engagement related to Extinction Rebellion climate change protests in 2019. We found bots to impact human behavior more than the other way around during active discussions. To assess the causal impact of bot encou...

Several studies have highlighted the potential contribution of gender diversity to creativity, also noted challenges stemming from conflicts and a deficit of trust. Thus, we argue that gender diversity requires inclusion as well to see increased collective creativity. We analyzed teams in 4011 video game projects, recording weighted network data fr...

Several studies have highlighted the potential contribution of gender diversity to creativity, while noting challenges of conflict and lack of trust. Thus, we argue that gender diversity requires inclusion as well to boost team creativity. We analyzed teams in 4011 video game projects, recording weighted network data from past collaborations. We de...

Diversity in teams can boost creativity, and gender diversity was shown to be a contributor to collective creativity. We show that gender diversity requires inclusion to lead to benefits in creativity by analyzing teams in 4011 video game projects. Recording data on the weighted network from past collaborations, we developed four measures of inclus...

Generating new ideas and solutions is increasingly a collective phenomenon, where collaborative networks play a decisive role in finding and diffusing of novel ideas. At the same time we can take advantage of computational social science (CSS) methods to understand creativity and innovation in fundamentally new ways. I argue that these developments...

Generating new ideas and solutions is increasingly a collective phenomenon, where collaborative networks play a decisive role in finding and diffusing of novel ideas. At the same time we can take advantage of computational social science (CSS) methods to understand creativity and innovation in fundamentally new ways. I argue that these developments...

How do politicians gain an upper hand in political discourse? Recent literature on framings in political discourse have re-directed attention from static models of issue ownership to more interactive models of strategic framing contests. This article proposes a robust action approach to the tactical horizon of political discourse dynamics, and test...

Crowdfunding offers inventors and entrepreneurs alternative access to resources with which they can develop and realize their ideas. Besides helping to secure capital, crowdfunding also connects creators with engaged early supporters who provide public feedback. But does this process foster truly innovative outcomes? Does the proliferation of crowd...

Prior scholarship neglected the creative potential of open and strong relationships, because—rooted in a long sociological tradition of balance theory—it assumed that strong ties are always closed, and only weak ties bridge diverse structural locations. We develop two measures of network tension: the relative frequency and the strength of strong, o...

How do politicians gain an upper hand in political discourse? Recent literature on framings in political discourse have re-directed attention from static models of issue ownership to more interactive models of strategic framing contests. This article proposes a robust action approach, and tests hypotheses about the dual repertoires of local action:...

Collaboration platforms on the Internet have become crucial tools for independent creative workers, facilitating connections with collaborators, users, and buyers. Such platforms carried the promise of better opportunities for women and other underrepresented groups to access markets and collaborators, but the evidence is mounting that they rather...

Crowdfunding offers inventors and entrepreneurs alternative access to resources with which they can develop and realize their ideas. Besides helping to secure capital, crowdfunding also connects creators with engaged early supporters who provide public feedback. But does this process foster truly innovative outcomes? Does the proliferation of crowd...

Ronald Burt’s ‘Structural Holes and Good Ideas’ from 2004 is one of the key publications that first conceptualized mechanisms of how structural diversity generates ideas. The article has become a highly cited piece in the scholarship on creativity, organizational innovation, knowledge networks. Burt’s work has also sparked new insights into how and...

Prior scholarship paid insufficient attention to the creative potential of open and strong relationships, because—rooted in a long sociological tradition of balance theory—it assumed that strong ties are always closed, and only weak ties bridge diverse structural locations. We develop two graph level measures to capture tension in open and strong t...

Abstract Women are severely marginalized in software development, especially in open source. In this article we argue that disadvantage is more due to gendered behavior than to categorical discrimination: women are at a disadvantage because of what they do, rather than because of who they are. Using data on entire careers of users from GitHub.com,...

Following publication of the original article [1], we have been notified that one more affiliation of the corresponding author is missing. Currently Balasz Vedres affiliation is: 1 Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom It should be: 1 Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; 2 Depart...

This article investigates the importance of forbidden triads – high weight open triads – for a wide range of success measures in the history of recorded jazz. Innovative teams face the paradox of relying on experience to generate novelty. We argue that forbidden triads, as conjunctures of dyadic experience, are the locations where successful novel...

Women are severely marginalized in software development, especially in open source. In this article we argue that disadvantage is more due to gendered behavior than to categorical discrimination: women are at a disadvantage because of what they do, rather than because of who they are. Using data on entire careers of users from GitHub.com, we develo...

The process of European integration resulted in a marked increase in transnational economic flows, yet regional inequalities along many developmental indicators remain. We analyze the unevenness of European economies with respect to the embedding of export sectors in upstream domestic flows and their dependency on dominant export partners. We use t...

The new science of networks had reached such maturity by 2010 that the idea of launching a PhD program became natural. We at the Center for Network Science (CNS) of Central European University (CEU) had the vision of a truly interdisciplinary, problem-driven, and data-oriented program for students with diverse backgrounds. The program was launched...

The process of European integration resulted in a marked increase in transnational economic flows, yet regional inequalities along many developmental indicators remain. We analyze the unevenness of European economies with respect to the embedding of export sectors in upstream domestic flows, and their dependency on dominant export partners. We use...

The process of European integration resulted in a marked increase in transnational economic flows, yet regional inequalities along many developmental indicators remain. We analyze the unevenness of European economies with respect to the embedding of export sectors in upstream domestic flows, and their dependency on dominant export partners. We use...

This article argues for the importance of forbidden triads - open triads with high-weight edges - in predicting success in creative fields. Forbidden triads had been treated as a residual category beyond closed and open triads, yet I argue that these structures provide opportunities to combine socially evolved styles in new ways. Using data on the...

This article argues for the importance of forbidden triads - open triads with high-weight edges - in predicting success in creative fields. Forbidden triads had been treated as a residual category beyond closed and open triads, yet I argue that these structures provide opportunities to combine socially evolved styles in new ways. Using data on the...

The authors seek to find a structural basis for the success of collectively executed projects. Here they continue to use previously elaborated concepts of structural folding and creative tension, but they go on to advance their approach by including the cognitive variables in the analysis instead of merely focusing on social structure. In this arti...

This article examines the sociological factors that explain why some creative teams are able to produce game changers—cultural products that stand out as distinctive while also being critically recognized as outstanding. The authors build on work pointing to structural folding—the network property of a cohesive group whose membership overlaps with...

Network research suggests that a team topology balancing familiarity (via cohesion) and diversity (via brokerage) is the key to success. We go beyond the duality of brokerage and closure by adopting the concept of structural folding – the generative tension in overlapping cohesive groups. In elaborating the causal mechanisms at work in structural f...

This chapter poses a new agenda for the field of economic development, asking whether and how foreign investment is integrated into the local networks of host economies. It first presents the basic contours of this case: the Hungarian economy after the collapse of state socialism, the subsequent emergence of interenterprise networks, the demise of...

This article redirects attention from the question of how business ties have an impact on politics to the question of how political ties have an impact on business. Specifically, do divisions within the field of politics become divisions in the field of business networks? To study co-evolution of political and economic fields, we conducted a histor...

Network science is the key to managing social communities, designing the structure of efficient organizations and planning for sustainable development. This book applies network science to contemporary social policy problems. In the first part, tools of diffusion and team design are deployed to challenges in adoption of ideas and the management of...

Entrepreneurial groups face a twin challenge: recognizing new ideas and implementing them. Recent research suggests that connectivity reaching outside the group channels new ideas, while closure makes it possible to act on them. By contrast, we argue that entrepreneurship is not about importing ideas but about generating new knowledge by recombinin...

Energy security of natural gas supplies in Europe is becoming a key concern. As demand increases, infrastructure development focuses on extending the capacity of the pipeline system. While conventional approaches focus mainly on source dependence, we argue for a network perspective to also consider risks associated with transit countries, by borrow...

Decades of increase in external aid programs sparked a wide range of criticisms pointing to misaligned interests, lack of accountability, and the reproduction of developmental traps. The success of development from without is more likely if it generates domestic developmental agency. In this article, we contribute by conceptualizing and measuring d...

Os grupos empresariais enfrentam um desafio duplo: reconhecer e implementar novas ideias. O presente artigo sugere que oempreendedorismo está mais relacionado com a geração de novos conhecimentos, por meio da recombinação de recursos, doque com a importação de ideias. Em contraste com a perspectiva “intermediação mais fechamento”, enfocamos a sobre...

Entrepreneurial groups face a twinned challenge: recognizing and implementing new ideas.We argue that entrepreneurship is less about importing ideas than about generating new knowledge by recombining resources. In contrast to the brokerage - plus - closure perspective, we address the overlapping of cohesive group structures. In analyzing the networ...

Decades of increase in external aid programs sparked a wide range of criticisms pointing to misaligned interests, lack of accountability, and the reproduction of developmental traps. The success of development from without is more likely if it generates domestic developmental agency. In this article, we contribute by conceptualizing and measuring d...

Decades of increase in external aid programs sparked a wide range of criticisms pointing to misaligned interests, lack of accountability, and the reproduction of developmental traps. The success of development from without is more likely if it generates domestic developmental agency. In this article, we contribute by conceptualizing and measuring d...

To model, from its inception, inter-enterprise network formation and its interaction with foreign investment across an entire epoch of rapid and profound economic transformation, we gathered data on the complete ownership histories of 1,696 of the largest Hungarian enterprises from 1987 to 2001. We develop a social sequence analysis to identify dis...

Entrepreneurial groups face a twinned challenge: recognizing new ideas and implementing them. Recent research suggests that connectivity reaching outside the group channels new ideas, while closure makes it possible to act on them. By contrast, we argue that entrepreneurship is not about importing ideas but about generating new knowledge by recombi...

In this article, we explore the ways in which partnerships with the state within state-led developmental programs might effect the autonomy of civic organizations (COs) and their readiness to enter in political action. To identify the relationship between collaboration with the state and civic autonomy we draw on data from a survey of 740 Hungarian...

Corporate ownership structures were important means to navigate postsocialist uncertainties, and as relational structures, they were vulnerable to subsequent path dependencies. Organizational innovations might outlive their relevant environments, locking firms in to underperform. This article analyzes the ownership sequences and performance of the...

Can civic organizations be both locally rooted and globally connected? Based on a survey of 1,002 of the largest civic organizations in Hungary, we conclude that there is not a forced choice between foreign ties and domestic integration. By studying variation in types of foreign interactions and variation in types of domestic integration, our analy...

To model, from its inception, interenterprise network formation and its interaction with foreign investment across an entire epoch of rapid and profound economic transformation, the authors gathered data on the complete ownership histories of 1,696 of the largest Hungarian enterprises from 1987 to 2001. They develop a social sequence analysis to id...

To model, from its inception, inter-enterprise network formation and its interaction with foreign investment across an entire epoch of rapid and profound economic transformation, we gathered data on the complete ownership histories of 1,696 of the largest Hungarian enterprises from 1987 to 2001. We develop a social sequence analysis to identify dis...

To study technologies of political participation in the era of internet we examine how civic associations in Eastern Europe create socio-technical platforms of civic participation. The creation of socio-technical platforms combines specific technological features with actors and types of acts. Based on data we collected on 1,585 East European civil...

Hogyan szerveződnek az online civil társaságok Kelet-Európában? A szerzők – az ehhez felhasznált technológiai megoldások kombinációit figyelembe véve, 1585 kelet-európai civil társaság honlapjairól gyűjtött adatok alapján – a társaságok online megjelenésének öt főbb típusát, illetve jellegzetes „műfaját” formáját különböztetik meg: hírlevelek, inte...

In this paper we focus on the relationship between domestic integration and transnational interactions in the domain of civic organizations. Specifically we ask whether civic organizations that are connected to transnational flows of information, resources, and partnership are more likely to be disconnected from their members, constituents, and oth...

How do civic associations in Eastern Europe organize themselves online? Based on data collected on 1,585 East European civil society Web sites, the authors identify five emergent genres of organizing technologies: newsletters, interactive platforms, multilingual solicitations, directories, and brochures. These clusters do not correspond to stages o...

Post-socialism is typically framed as a transition, and represented by an a-temporal, unilinear and teleological model of social change. This paper evaluates transition models using firm level event data of ownership changes. I argue that the temporal structure of transition models is insufficiently simple and has a very limited explanatory power w...

To model, from its inception, inter-enterprise network formation and its interaction with foreign investment across an entire epoch of rapid and profound economic transformation, we gathered data on the complete ownership histories of 1,696 of the largest Hungarian enterprises from 1987 to 2001. We develop a combination of network and sequence anal...

This study analyzes the restructuring of a national economy by identifying the career pathways of its enterprises. This analysis is conducted in a setting strategically chosen as a case of rapid and profound economic transformation: the postsocialist Hungarian economy between 1988-2000. The goal of this study is to chart the multiple pathways of pr...

Acknowledgments: This paper has benefited from participation in the SFI seminar on Heterarchies: Distributed Intelligence and the Organization of Diversity and discussions with John Padgett, Walter Powell, and Doug White on network anlaysis of large historical data sets.

The aim of this paper is to gain an empirical insight into the structures of economic power in Hungary at the end of the nineties. The paper proceeds by the guidance of the weberian definition of power; as power is existing in relations, the paper is intended to be a relational study of the most important actors in the Hungarian economy, using dire...

The initial question of this paper is how the large scale social process of postsocialist transition end s. We argue that transition is closed by discursive innovations in the political field, rather than just spontaneous crystallization. The political field is depicted as a dynamic symbolic structure that is an arena of local action. First the pos...