Words into Actions - does a networking skills workshop have a quantifiable effect on the mindset and actions of participants?

This paper seeks to discover whether anecdotal feedback about the value of a workshop-style teaching intervention would be supported by quantitative research. The author used a referral mechanism to build a cohort of highly effective networkers whose input was used to develop a 34 question, nine factor networking inventory. These nine factors were derived through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and differ from the inductive typology assumed at the outset. These factors are: Altruism, Clarity of Purpose, Contact Maintenance, Contact Management, Engagement, Locus of Control, Openness to Help, Persistence and Recall Ability. The inventory was subsequently tested for its ability to discriminate between this group of highly effective networkers and others, and succeeded in doing so at a statistically significant level for seven of the nine factors. Having demonstrated its discriminatory ability, the author applied the inventory in a ‘before and after’ study to workshop participants and showed that the intervention resulted in a significant but selective improvement in inventory scores, with moderate or large effect size, for eight of the nine factors at one month follow-up.