A very interesting special issue in EJIM just came out: Knowledge and Learning Networks in Organisations. My colleague Miha Škerlavaj and I were guest editors. We aimed to bring researchers together from different disciplines that applied social networks theories, concepts and/or methodology to study learning and knowledge transfer in organisations. Read more about it in the introduction.
Visiting at ISM University of Management and Economics
7 Nov
I just spent a great week at ISM University of Management and Economics in Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania. The occasion was regular Erasmus exchange – this time my intention was to see how management teaching unfolds in one of the best known schools in the Baltic region. Even though it was terribly cold (close to -20 C) I really enjoyed the hospitality of the school and my host Raimonda, interaction with students and faculty (I gave a lesson on Change Management and HRM and a did research seminar), and two very interesting cities. Raimonda and I also had a couple of very in-depth discussion about our countries, management development and teaching. Our counties seem to have much more in common than one would think.
Social Side of Creativity
14 OctTogether with Miha Škerlavaj, my officemate and great researcher in social networks arena, and Sandra Ohly, a psychologist and colleague of ours from Germany, we published a very interesting paper Networks for generating and for validating ideas: The social side of creativity. It was published in Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, 12(1), 2010.
Here is the abstract:
In recent years, research has recognized that creativity is a social process. By communicating with others, individuals get access to novel perspectives and unique knowledge, and they can get political support for their ideas by ensuring that they meet others’ standards. Based on the different function of idea-related communication, we expected the structure of idea-generation networks to differ from that of idea-validation networks. Specifically, we expected different effects of leadership status and tenure. Our results indicated some differences in the structure of the two networks. This leads to the recommendation that future research on idea-related communication and creativity needs to distinguish the different phases of the creative process.
Miha, Sanda and I met at the ERC workshop in Groningen a couple of years back, where we have learned have to use ERGM models. In this paper we show that this was very useful.
AOM 2010, Montreal
14 Aug
As always Academy of Management was hectic and inspirational – 5 days of intense learning, presenting and networking.
This year I started my AOM experience earlier due to a pre-preconference event. Namely, I recently joined a group of researchers named 5C – they study careers in cross-cultural setting – and our meeting was scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday before the Academy at McGill University. This was my first contact with this very interesting group of people. I enjoyed listening to experts talking about careers, learned a lot, and tried to contribute as much as I could to the discussion. The meeting ended with a challenging agenda for the future.
The AOM annual event itself was full of great content, meeting old friends and making new contacts. The meeting of HR Ambassadors was packed with high expectations before the launch of our commonly created international HR casebook. The PDWs and scholarly sessions were interesting but …according to Murphy’s law 
sometimes scheduled at the same time or far apart (this time the organizers really cared for fitness of participants, jogging between various conference locations was my favourite sport, too ). Our symposium about Bridging micro-macro divides in Strategic HRM was well attended and generated some interesting comments and questions.
This year I volunteered to be a mentor to two first-time participants – it was a great and very rewarding experience – have to do it next year. Strange enough, out of almost 10,000 participants, I bumped into my mentee on the first day of the conference ordering coffee. What a coincidence!
All in all, AOM in Montreal was great and I am looking forward to Texas next year.
Mentoring new members
Research seminar at Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales
15 JunDuring my research stay Down Under I gave a research seminar at the Australian School of Business. I was amazed by the mere size of the UNSW campus and enjoyed very much the discussion we had about People, Organizational Context, and Social Networks (my prezi can be found under resources). My seminar was used as a cue for a broader discussion about how organizational context can affect the development of intraorganizational networks in contrast to the more frequently addressed personal characteristics, individual differences and endogenous (structural) mechanisms. During my visit I also got the chance to examine academic career systems and the business education industry in Asia-Pacific. Interestingly enough and in contrast to Europe they are hiring and doing very well. On top of that, Steve Frankel, Suzanne Chan-Serafin and Sunghoon Kim provided a memorable experience of Chinese dining in Sydney (featuring BYO )
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Research seminar at ACREW, Monash University
14 JunBeing in Melbourne it would be a sin not to visit ACREW at the Monash University. Therefore, Helen de Cieri and I agreed on a research seminar for their doctoral students and faculty. Monash University is only an hour away from University of Melbourne, so I caught a tram and enojeyed the suburbs to Caulfield. It was nice to see Helen again after several years and exchange our views about where we think the fields of HRM and international HRM are going.
My research stay Down Under: Faboulous and intelectually stimulating time at the University of Melbourne
12 JunIn April and May I took some time off from teaching and went for a fantastic research stay in Australia. The time spent in Vicotria and NSW was interesting, fruitful and …I have to admit …very engaged and busy. I finaly had some time to think through my exisitng research work and set guideliness for the future. In addtion, I worked on the content of my research interests and learned new methodological approaches. But most of all I met really great people, with whom I started promising projects. My host at the Universtiy of Melbourne, Department of Management and Marketing, was Sachiko Yamao, who put a lot of effort in making my stay just perfect. We had some great discussions and started writing a paper…I bet it is going to be a success Sachiko kindly introduced me her colleagues at the Department and beyond – they were all very friendly and supporting (also in explaining Australian sports, interenational society and business context to me).
By observing them at work I can see now why the University of Melbourne was the first and only Australian university to rank in the Top 100 of the Business and Economics subject area accoring to Times Higher Eduaction rankings. My other host in Melbourne was the School of Behaviroral Sceinces, specifically, Pip Patisson and the Melnet people. Discussions with them were in a way eye-opening for me. It was really fascinating to see them constantly developing new quantitative methods custom-made for solving specific research problems as they came along – something the we in business and management, who are used of of the shelf solutions and software packages can only dream of. Eric Quintane and Galina Daraganova were especially supportinve in helping me with PNET and its peculiarities
I really appprecite the opportunity the was given to me and hope that I will be able to visit Melbourne again.
