Twotier -- A Layered Analysis of Backbone Members in a Moderate Sized Community Sports Organization

TL;DR

This paper introduces Twotier, a layered framework for analyzing backbone members in community sports organizations, revealing their crucial bridging role and impact on member engagement and network cohesion.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel two-tiered analysis framework combining dynamic interaction networks and core-periphery structures to understand backbone members' roles in CSOs.

Findings

Backbone members act as bridges connecting different parts of the network.

Relying on backbone members helps keep newcomers engaged in rewarding activities.

Non-rewarding activities strengthen relations among backbone members.

Abstract

Backbone members are recognized as essential parts of an organization, yet their role and mechanisms of functioning in networks are not fully understood. In this paper, we propose a new framework called Twotier to analyze the evolution of community sports organizations (CSOs) and the role of backbone members. Tier-one establishes a dynamic user interaction network based on grouping relationships, and weighted k-shell decomposition is used to select backbone members. We perform community detection and capture the evolution of two separate sub-networks: one formed by backbone members and the other formed by other members. In Tier-two, the sub-networks are abstracted, revealing a core-periphery structure in the organization where backbone members serve as bridges connecting all parts of the network. Our findings suggest that relying on backbone members can keep newcomers actively involved in rewarding activities, while non-rewarding activities solidify relations between backbone members.