People.Processes.Networks

PhD seminar MIMO

robikase — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:38:58 +0000

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.

The First Publication for Renata

robikase — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:29:45 +0000

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!

IMB and mobile app development project

robikase — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:07:49 +0000

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 konferenca in “kocka coachinga”

robikase — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:43:13 +0000

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”…

Tilburg University Research Stay and Groningen conference

robikase — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:08:05 +0000

Since the time when I was working on my doctoral dissertation I have had very good relationships with people at the department for HR studies at Tilburg University, which is headed by my co-advisor Jaap Paauwe. I always like coming back to Tilburg to see how my colleagues are doing, to test my ideas (people here tend to ask very challenging questions about your research ) and enjoy excellent conditions for research work. This time my extended visit was part of the Junior Academic Visitor Programme during which I presented a paper Exploring the landscape of HRM-firm performance debate domains: A co-citation analysis and worked on developing new projects with people from the department (stay tuned!!! some interesting events on their way). My research stay in the Netherlands ended with a visit to another Dutch city, the lively Groningen, where I attended the biannual Dutch HRM conference. This conference is probably the best HRM event in Europe. I presented a paper that we have been developing with Sachiko Yamao from Melbourne University on microfoundations of interunit ties in MNCs. However, this was also an event where I could catch up with the latest ideas of my many good Dutch colleagues….Next Dutch HRM network conference is in Belgium – they promise the same quality of the content and …. better food :)

Research Seminar at LMU Munchen

robikase — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:33:41 +0000

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.

Invited Lecture for the Macedonian HR Association

robikase — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:04:19 +0000

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…

HRM TV at our undergraduate HRM class

robikase — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:36:00 +0000

We all often hear that it is very difficult to teach and work with Yers and that they do not deliver. I beg to differ. This generation has so much potential. They do need a lot of intrinsic motivation (they are quickly bored and who’s to blame them in today’s hyper content flowing world) and the right challenges. Especially in schools and universities we will have to offer new ways to attract their attention and engage them to do their best. This year we decided that instead of good old project presentations the students will do video clips, publish them on You tube and compete for attention. Their task was to present one HRM-related concept so that every student in Slovenia will understand it. Here is what they did and we all liked it a lot! Soon, the authors of the best videos will visit the studios of one of the commercial television networks in Slovenia, where their videos will be evaluated by the experts.

Academy of Management in San Antonio

robikase — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:51:02 +0000

This year the Academy of Management was in San Antonio, Texas. For people from Europe it was a bit different from usually because it was quite inconvenient to fly there and because it was hot like h…. (I think the average max temperature was around 40 C during the Academy). So, staying indoors was the best way to spend your time (I did violate this rule only once, that is, when a group of around 7 assistant professors did their morning jogging at 6.00!!! – I managed to survive the heat and the early hour, though) .

My schedule was very intense. I started before the conference even started with a day meeting of the 5C group (we study careers across the globe) in a very nice historical hotel. We made good progress and are getting ready for the global survey phase. Then I was involved in a PDW about new research methods in HRM, where I talked about using social network methods in HRM, I participated in the Advanced social network PDW, where I really enjoyed the dialogue between Martin Kilduff and Ron Burt about attributes of individuals and their network-related behavior. Two other highlights were the inspiring talk bt the CEO of HTC Peter Chou, who talked about how East meets West in HTC and the launch of our Global HR casebook, a product of HR Division Ambassadors.

Once again I have met so many great people and got so many ideas. I flew out of San Antonio, drafting plans for the coming academic year and anticipating the next AOM in Boston. Hopefully, some of these ideas will end on a nice paper.

The first publication for Eva

robikase — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:27:51 +0000

It is a great pleasure to share with you that Eva Repovš, my master student, just got a note from Economic and Business Review that her first research paper has been accepted for publication. Eva examined how Slovenian accountants and auditors identfy with their profession and with the organization where they are employed and discussed differences. Congratulations and keep up the good work!