Blackwell Reference Online

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Exchange network theories focus on the processes through which network structures affect power distributions, power exercise, and benefits gained in exchange. Sociologists use the term exchange network theory to describe several theories, models, and research programs. The field grew out of research in social exchange theory – an orienting strategy that traces its roots to Aristotle and other philosophers of classical antiquity. George C. Homans's Social Behavior (1961, 1974), John Thibaut and Harold H. Kelley's The Social Psychology of Groups (1959), Richard M. Emerson's paper on “Power–Dependence Relations” (1962), and other contemporaneous works are responsible for reinvigorating exchange research in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Modern exchange theories focused initially on dyadic relations. Homans (1961) discussed triads, but exchange network research awaited theoretical statements from Emerson (1972) , James S. Coleman (1973), and David Willer and Bo Anderson (1981). Their theories directed the attention of exchange analysts to the unique properties of triads and larger networks. Emerson (1972) extended the dyadic power-dependence theory to networks and devised the standard definition of a network as a system of two or more connected exchange relations. Two relations are connected if exchange in one affects exchange in the other. For example, the system A-B-C is a ... log in or subscribe to read full text