Extracting Network Structures from Corporate Organization Charts Using Heuristic Image Processing

H Sayama, J Yamanoi - … Conference on Data Science, Computation and …, 2023 - Springer
International Conference on Data Science, Computation and Security, 2023Springer
Organizational structure of corporations has the potential to provide implications for
dynamics and performance of corporate operations. However, this subject has remained
unexplored because of the lack of readily available organization network datasets. To
overcome this gap, we developed a new heuristic image-processing method to extract and
reconstruct organization network data from published organization charts. Our method
analyzes a PDF file of a corporate organization chart and detects text labels, boxes …
Abstract
Organizational structure of corporations has the potential to provide implications for dynamics and performance of corporate operations. However, this subject has remained unexplored because of the lack of readily available organization network datasets. To overcome this gap, we developed a new heuristic image-processing method to extract and reconstruct organization network data from published organization charts. Our method analyzes a PDF file of a corporate organization chart and detects text labels, boxes, connecting lines, and other objects through multiple steps of heuristically implemented image processing. The detected components are reorganized together into Python’s NetworkX Graph object for visualization, validation, and further network analysis. We applied the developed method to the organization charts of all the listed firms in Japan shown in the “Organization Chart/System Diagram Handbook” published by Diamond, Inc., from 2008 to 2011. Out of the 10,008 organization chart PDF files, our method was able to reconstruct 4,606 organization networks (data acquisition success rate: 46%). For each reconstructed organization network, we measured several network diagnostics, which will be used for further statistical analysis to investigate their potential correlations with corporate behavior and performance.
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