People.Processes.Networks

A couple of years ago our school decided to start with the Bologna doctoral program, which meant that our PhD program changed dramatically. The program became much more structured and featured doctoral courses and seminars. This year my colleague Miha Škerlavaj and I after intense preparation launched a doctoral seminar Multilevel issue in Management and Organization. With this seminar we aim to develop young scholars’ capacity for understanding, using and developing multilevel theory in management and organization. We are really glad that after intense weeks of reading, presenting, discussing and writing up demanding assignments the participating students found it highly valuable and that it will shape their thinking as they work on their doctoral projects.

A master student of mine, Renata Kenda, has just published her first paper in a Slovenian bridge journal Project Network.  The title of the paper is “Rewarding the project team – collectively or individually?”. It provides some interesting evidence that goes against the accepted wisdom of how we should reward project teams in Slovenia. Renata is now in the UK doing her PhD exploring leadership and team energy in virtual projects. Good luck!

Every autumn my colleague Nada Zupan and I teach International Master of Business class. To my knowledge this is one of the most intensive graduate programs with highly motivated, talented and hard-working students. Every year, Nada and I try to come up with an idea for a term project that will be interesting, challenging and will foster HRM knowledge. This year students were challenged by a both HRM content and technology as they had to develop a mobile application that supports HRM processes. Backed with a great introduction to the world of mobile application development by the CEO of 3FS (see their app Toshl) Andraž Logar, class discussion about future HRM trends/challenges and a looot of enthusiasm, they got immediately to work. The result was great apps for supporting job interviews on the go, reporting temporary work, balancing work-life, determining project teams on the go, supporting recruiting process, managing time etc… and we are already looking for ideas for the project next year!

Coaching je zame povsem novo področje, ki sva se ga s kolegom Juretom Porento lotila letos. Izvedla sva krajšo, bolj ali manj preiskovalno naravnano raziskavo, kjer sva poskušala kot neodvisna (kritična) opazovalca podati oceno stanja te dejavnosti v Sloveniji. Zanimalo naju je kaj je v Sloveniji predmet coachinga, kdo ga izvaja in kako oz. s pomočjo katerih pristopov se izvaja. Prve rezultate sva predstavila na konferenci o coachingu, podrobnejše poročilo pa sledi v eni od strokovnih revij.

• Gledano v celoti to področje precej spomnija na avstralski nogomet (s perspektive Slovenca): zdi se zelo zanimivo novo področje, igralci so zelo raznoliki, igra pa izredno dinamična, na trenutke že malo kaotična.
• Stanje je primerljivo z drugimi razvijajočimi se področji v Sloveniji.
• Zaenkrat v strokovni javnosti ni veliko znanega o učinkih na “varovance” in organizacije, kar vnaša precejšnjo stopnjo negotovosti.
• Zaradi demonstartivnih učinkov je zelo pomembna publika vrhnji management v velikih organizacijah, največje možnosti za razvoj pa so na nižjih nivojih, a le ob večjem zavedanju organizacij.
• Še provokacija: bi uporabljali besedo “kovč”…

It’s been a while since a dear colleague of mine, Ingo Weller, and I have discussed that it would be nice to present our work at each others’ universities. The first part of our plans was realized this October when I visited Ingo at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Ingo is a chair of the Institute for Human Capital Management and a leader of a great group of highly ambitious and talented PhD students. I was co-hosted by the Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization (ISTO) chaired by Prof. Dr. Tobias Kretschmer.

My schedule in Munich was very intense: back-to-back meetings and lunch with PhD students, talking on cocitation patterns within the HRM-performance literature, dinner with Ingo and his crew, tour of the LMU premises (impressive!), listening to LMU’s interesting history and future plans. All the meetings were highly stimulating – lots of great ideas to be explored. I also received a great review on a draft of the paper I am working on.

I only got a chance to use a short break in my schedule to explore Munich’s Olympiapark and look down to BMW headquarters from the tower, then it was back to U-bahn and to the airport….Now, it’s Ingo’s turn to come to Ljubljana.

I was very pleased to be able to talk as a keynote speaker at the annual conference of Macedonian HR Association this year. The theme of the conference this year was: “We know what is next in HR” and my topic “HRM & social networks” addressed one of the trends that were identified by Peter Haen, past president of the EAPM. The topic was very well accepted by the audience and sparked some intense discussions among participants about how HRM can influence social networks in organizations in everyday practice. Of course, we could not avoid the discussion about Macedonian sports teams and interactions between their top players, which are doing incredibly well recently. This was also a chance to meet with some our of the graduate students (our school has an off-site campus in the beautiful town of Skopje) and enjoy the well-known hospitality of Macedonians. Till next time Skopje…