S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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A network involving more groups does not disrupt the same mutual desire for stability. An acutely ill mental health patient, requiring aero-evacuation to a regional hospital or mental health unit may require all, or the majority of groups within the actor arena forming (re-establishing) a network. All the groups have an aligned desire; the safe aero-evacuation of the mental health patient to a hospital or mental health unit. Axiomatically all the groups do not want to over commit or invest unnecessary resources to achieve this goal; for example, RFDS does not want to make three flights when one would be sufficient, police detaining the mental health patient would like the transport to occur the same day as opposed to three days later so that personnel can be directed to other duties, psychiatrists/remote nurses would like the mental health patient admitted to hospital or mental health unit as this lessens the exposure to risk while the mental health patient remains in the community. The alliance and convergence of interests ensures the stability of the network to maximise efficiencies. None of the task oriented groups wants an unstable network arising from disagreements, dis-functionality, duplication and confusion (a lack of orderliness—see Figure 6.8, actors’ arena). The two examples, particularly the latter illustrate the other mechanism of stabilisation. The size and the heterogeneity of a network are related. The more the diverse elements are interrelated, the more complex yet stable a network becomes. In a heterogeneous network each group is positioned through a set of heterogeneous ties to other actors and in order to untie multiple connections they have to be each, more difficultly untied.