A holistic network approach to study the structure of technological network by the block modeling of social network analysis

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the technological structure of business methods in insurance. Concepts and techniques used in social network analysis are applied to a network of patents based on citation. By means of procedures drawing on the notion of structural equivalence, a set of blocks and positions of insurance business methods are delineated. This paper has focused its discussion on patent data of classification UPC705/4 to explore possible technological structure in insurance. The result of this research found that there are 4 clusters in the structure of technological network.