Hierarchical Network Formation Games. We propose a novel network formation game that explains the emergence of various hierarchical structures in groups where selfinterested or utilitymaximizing individuals decide to establish or severe relationships of authority or collaboration among themselves. We consider two settings: we first consider individuals who do not seek the other partyu0027s consent when establishing a relationship and then individuals who do. For both settings, we formally relate the emerged hierarchical structures with the novel inclusion of wellmotivated hierarchy promoting terms in the individualsu0027 utility functions. We first analyze the game via a static analysis and characterize all the hierarchical structures that can be formed as its solutions. We then consider the game played dynamically under stochastic interactions among individuals implementing bestresponse dynamics and analyze the nature of the converged networks.

Forming Compatible Teams in Signed Networks. The problem of team formation in a social network asks for a set of individuals who not only have the required skills to perform a task but who can also communicate effectively with each other. Existing work assumes that all links in a social network are positive, that is, they indicate friendship or collaboration between individuals. However, it is often the case that the network is signed, that is, it contains both positive and negative links, corresponding to friend and foe relationships. Building on the concept of structural balance, we provide definitions of compatibility between pairs of users in a signed network, and algorithms for computing it. We then define the team formation problem in signed networks, where we ask for a compatible team of individuals that can perform a task with small communication cost. We show that the problem is NPhard even when there are no communication cost constraints, and we provide heuristic algorithms for solving it. We present experimental results with real data to investigate the properties of the different compatibility definitions, and the effectiveness of our algorithms.