Socio-Communicational Informal Interactions Within The Social Reintegration Staff In A Romanian Detention Unit. Social Hub Case Study

The article aims to study socio-communicational interactions on informal topics among social reintegration staff in a detention unit in Romania, using sociometry and Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) research methods. The research has two main objectives: the first one is to investigate the association between the highest values of the "social hub" indicator obtained by group members and "the accumulated work experience within the target group" indicator. The second objective refers to investigating the association between the highest values of the "social hub" indicator obtained by group members and the "employees' influence power" indicator. This research is useful for decision-makers in prisons because it shows the way to discover employees who benefit from increased social capital, which in fact represents sustainable human resources for organizational leadership. Such employees can contribute to the knowledge transfer or information flow within the network, including promoting the adoption of new management policies and increasing the cohesion degree within the group. The sources of the research are books and articles that develop the subject of social network analysis, some of which are written by well-known authors. To achieve the proposed objectives, it was necessary to represent the employees' informal socio-communicational networks, both the social support network and the trust network, within the social reintegration sector, which constitutes the target group. The networks were identified through a questionnaire answered by members of the social reintegration sector. The questionnaire aimed to obtain and represent the relational choices (connections) expressed by each employee in the context of informal social interactions on topics outside the professional environment. The questionnaire was administered digitally through the Google Forms platform with the agreement of the participants, after obtaining approval from the institution's management. After representing the employees' informal networks, specific centrality measurements were applied using sociometry and ONA research methods to identify the values of the "social hub" and "power of influence" (Eigenvector-Authority In) indicators. The quantifiable values of the indicators were obtained by applying statistical calculation procedures specific to sociometry and ONA, using both Microsoft Excel and IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook software. After testing hypotheses in the context of discussions about leisure activities, the following conclusions were drawn regarding individuals who benefit from increased social capital, respectively those who occupy the most important positions on the "social hub" status value scale: a) they have accumulated considerable work experience within the collective's activity sector, respectively over 6 years (with one exception). b) they are not necessarily the ones who have the highest values of the "employees' influence power" indicator, with the exception of the person who has both the most social connections and is the most influential in the work collective, which reinforces their informal leadership position within the employees' group in the context of discussions about leisure activities.