AT&T Inc: Business Network Analysis and Innovation Capabilities Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of AT&T Inc's business network, examining its structure, internationalization strategy, and its impact on innovation. The report begins with an overview of AT&T Inc's business, including its various segments, competition, and internationalization strategies. It then delves into network analysis techniques, such as degree, closeness, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality, to assess the connections and influence within AT&T's network. The analysis includes visualizations and interpretations of the network graph, highlighting key connections and influential nodes. Furthermore, the report explores the implications of AT&T's network structure on its innovation capabilities, considering factors like knowledge transfer and the role of outsourcing and crowdsourcing. The report concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations related to managing and leveraging the business network for enhanced innovation and performance. The analysis also covers the impact of country environment on the company's innovation.

Running Head: AT & T INC 1
AT & T INC
AUTHORS NAME
UNIVERSITY OF AFFILIATION

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1.....................................................................................................................................................3
Nature of Business Company..................................................................................................................3
Competition.................................................................................................................................................4
Internationalization Strategy....................................................................................................................4
Chapter 2.....................................................................................................................................................4
Network analysis techniques...................................................................................................................4
Degree.....................................................................................................................................................5
Closeness.................................................................................................................................................5
Betweenness............................................................................................................................................6
Eigenvector..............................................................................................................................................8
Chapter 3.....................................................................................................................................................9
Analysis of organization subsidiary.........................................................................................................9
Chapter 4...................................................................................................................................................10
Implications...........................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................11
Summary...............................................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................11

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Chapter 1
Nature of Business Company
AT&T Inc is a holding company that was established in the year 1983.The company majors in
the production of communication and digital entertainment services globally. The organization
has categorized its business into for segments: Business solution, Consumer mobility,
entertainment group and the international. The company main market is the people of the United
States, Latin America and Mexico, and to other firms that offer telecommunication services
globally. The organization is in ownership of three television sports networks in the region and
has an interest that is non-controlling on the other regional sports network. The services offered
by AT&T Inc vary by the market. Some of the services offered include the digital video service,
wireless communications, internet service and data, and wholesale services. The organization
market share has been the basis of its decision in expanding its business globally.
Competition
AT&T Inc has faced a stiff competition from the independents. United States mood was
antimonopoly and the rate of AT & T inc were half that of the Bells. Majority of the rural
communities were sold to either bells or the independents. AT&T Inc first move to fighting back
was slashing off rates. Early companies arrogance was replaced by the high desire to places and
win customers. AT&T Inc bought the company independents and used the financial and political
power to get competitors off the market. The firm had the greatest advantage of a remote
monopoly of the long-distance service. AT&T Inc was given a strong push by the stiff
competition in the market to grow and expand although it had a negative impact on its finances.
Although the company had million telephone service boasted, it had a poor service terrible
public image, poor service, serious debts, low staff morale and technological difficulties that are
bevy. The firm has been able to conquer the telecommunication market globally through its
international network's capacity which is massive and impressive and contains petabytes of 18.7
for an average business per day and its cloud strategy.
Internationalization Strategy
Globalization has its negative and positive impacts on companies around the world, such as
AT&T Inc. The firm has been creating and internationalization strategies in business which has
led the company into performing well over the years. The firm had invested a lot in the creation

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of business strategies that are international, which has resulted in the firm being the top
companies in telecommunication technologies in the world. The purpose of this report is to
perform an investigation in the networks of the organization business and analyze the relation the
firm business networks and the innovative capabilities.
Chapter 2
Network analysis techniques
This section will play a very keen look at the AT&T Inc firm on visualization software and
network analysis. There are seven elements of the network analysis and visualization of the
AT&T Inc which comprises of the Betweenness, Degree, and Closeness. Constraints,
eigenvector. There will be an interpretation of the network graph of the company and the picture
of the graph. The data used in this analysis comprises of the firm network between various
branches amounting to 390 of parental branches and 60 of related to the AT&T Inc
Degree
The degree of measurement indicates the number of the connections which are direct that can be
established by a node to other nodes in the same network (Cross and Parker,2004).The degree of
measurement is subdivided into two groups which comprise of the out degree and the
indegree.Outdegree is the connection that has been bridged to a node by other nodes in its
network(Cross and Parker,2004).In degree refers to the direct connections is made by the node
proactively with the other nodes. The degree of measurement can also be defined as the
popularity or the wellness of a person within her social network (Cronin,2015)

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Figure 1
The nodes that are of the bigger size are those that have the highest degree, therefore they are
perceived as main connectors in their network as they have a greater number of connections.
Within the AT&T Inc organization, Telekom Austria and the America Movil have the most
established connection. This suggests that the connections between AT&T branches are more
concentrated in North America and Europe as compared to other regions.
Country Code Degree
Telkom Austria AT 46
AT$T Inc US 13
America Movil MX 28
Closeness
Closeness is defined as the shortest path that a person or anode is to connected to another node or
a person (Cronin,2015).In the social networking context, the node that is very close to the source
of information will receive or gather more information from the source clearly than those at the
far range within the same connection.

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Figure 2
The graph above shows the degree of closeness elements of all the organization and branches
correlated to the AT&T Inc in various regions and the nation around the globe. Following the
closeness principle, nodes that are bigger in size will have less closeness attribute. From the
graph above it is evident that the nodes which are in color red, green and blues at the graphs rim
are the biggest, therefore, they have the least closeness. Therefore a lot of time will be required
for this node to gather information from other nodes in the network.
The nodes with the smallest size are those that have the highest measurement of closeness.
Nodes with the smallest size will receive the best benefits in regards to the communication and
the information transfer with other nodes since this will only require less time to do that.
Country Code CLOSENESS
Telkom Austria AT 4068
AT$T Inc US 4000
America Movil MX 3998

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Betweenness
The term between of a node can be defined as the extent to which a node lies on the path that is
shortest between other nodes in the network(Cronin,2015).When it comes to making connections
between nodes, the nodes that are of the highest betweenness are majorly considered. In the
corporate world, betweenness is a significant measurement since it can detect the problems that
are related to the disruption and power of the network. Suppose a node with the highest degree of
betweenness is removed from the connection, other networks are likely to suffer because they
will not be able to connect easily with each other anymore.
Figure 3
From the above diagram, those nodes with the score size that is the largest, have the highest
degree of betweenness in the measurement. This clearly means that in such a scenario where
these nodes are removed from the connection they are likely to cause trouble. Those nodes that
have the least size are less likely to cause any trouble since when they are removed, they will not
cause a very big gap. Telekom Austria and America Movil have the highest score in the

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betweenness measurement due to their main node sizes. This shows that these branches are the
most persuasive and intimidating in the AT&T Inc firm.
Country Code Betweenness
Telkom Austria AT 54908
AT$T Inc US 36780
America Movil MX 48765
Eigenvector
The measurement of the eigenvector, clearly indicate which node has the influence and the
possible social power based on the close connection they have with the other prominent and
nodes that are well connected within their networks (Borgatti et al .,2013)
Figure 4

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As it was predicted that nodes which have been connected to the prominent nodes such as the
Telkom Austria, America, and the AT&T Inc will have a larger size as opposed to how they
were shown in the degree of measurement, it is perceived that this node will continue having a
small size as opposed to the prominent nodes connectors. The reason behind this is the distance
between the three parent-subsidiary. At a closer look, it is evident that there is a one-way
connection from these three prominent nodes to the others. That shows that the nodes are not
going to possibly receive much connection transfers from the AT&T Inc, Telekom Austria, and
America Movil.
Country Code EIGENVECTOR
Telkom Austria AT 0.7658
AT$T Inc US 0.6867
America Movil MX 0.5678
Chapter 3
Analysis of organization subsidiary
The subsidiary analysis of the AT&T Inc network is mainly used when there is a necessity in the
recognition of which actors in a group are connected mostly close to each other that they can be
considered as one separate smaller subgroup (Cronin,2015).The analysis of the subgroup is an
effective tool during those moments of a complicated network that is huge, such as the AT&T
Inc network. This is because it helps in breaking the network into pieces that are smaller and
contain subgroup interconnection to be analyzed and investigated.

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Figure 5
Figure 6
The colors that have been used for the nodes inside the network during analysis of the subgroup
is randomly given by the net draw system(Cronin,2015).The figure below illustrates the division
of the AT &T Inc firms network into the subgroup of five smaller nodes with the color black,

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pink, blue, grey and red. This shows that the connected nodes are specifically to some branches
in particular however not other branches of the network. In figure (6) it is evident that AT &T
Inc Branches in Europe, which is red and in North America which is blue have been divided into
smaller subgroups. AT &T Inc and the new cingular wireless service inc is located in North
America, however, it appears that they are not well related to each other as they are connected to
their own subsidiary.
Chapter 4
Implications
This section of the report analyses how AT &T Inc business network structure can affect its
performance innovation. The correlation between the organization innovation and the knowledge
is the backbone of any organization innovative capabilities. The innovation capability of any
firm correlates positively with the knowledge transfer within that firm(Bathelt and
Glucker,2011).Outsourcing and crowdsourcing are the most effective solution in the building of
an innovation capability for the firms(Cross and Thomas,2009).In many companies, they make
use of the social networking as a medium of for advertising so as to get in touch with the experts
so as to help them get ideas for their future services and products. It is almost assured that
capitalizing the building of the robust network relationship outside and inside a company, do aid
in enhancement of its competence in innovation, nevertheless, they were not only the
opportunities. It has been recommended that developing and building a firm business network
can lead t some challenges for the firm, suppose it is not well managed. The challenges include
first, the incapability to identify and create business networks with the expert either without or
within the organization. Secondly, the inability for the organization to shift its idea that has been
collected from the network and place them into action(Thomas and Cross,2009).
A country environment can influence the innovation of a company in the following
ways.First,the regional innovativeness: the socio-economic environment of a location has a
strong influence on the companies that are located in the region. Secondly the national
innovativeness: the innovative of any location is influenced by the national innovative capacity
which potential for any country to produce innovations that are commercially valuable.

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Conclusion
Summary
 The business network of the AT &T Inc has its branches located throughout various
countries and regions globally and they are densely connected with each other.
 Thus it is assured that there is a flow of information across the business networks and it is
transferred in through manner however the shared information vary from one place to the
other dues to factors such as culture and climate.
 Therefore, AT &T Inc is in a position to generate a massive deal of the collaborative
knowledge which will impact positively on the innovative performance.
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