People.Processes.Networks

I really liked late spring and summer this year. It was a very productive time for me and colleagues that share interest in similar research themes. I think we really got the ball rolling as far as research on social networks and HRM is concerned.

In May I was on “the UK tour”. It started by co-organizing a special track “Knowledge renewal in knowledge networks” at the EURAM 2009 conference in Liverpool (with Miha Škerlavaj, Juani Swart and John Powell) and continued with research seminars at the University of Bath and the Cardiff University. Special thanks here go to Juani Swart and John Powell, who were excellent hosts and provided the opportunity to share my work and ideas with people of these two highly respected institutions. Apart from talks about social networks, HRM, and professional service firms we also discussed differences in faculty management systems, challenges of teaching executives and the good old “publish or perish” issue.

The beginning of August was all about the Annual Academy of Management meeting in Chicago. I really enjoyed it because I could combine my social network and HRM interests in one conference, which is not very often. I met a lot of very nice and interesting people and learned a lot. Apart from that Zella King and I organized a PDW on “Social network perspectives in HRM research”; the attendance level indicated that the interest for this perspectives is rising among HRM researches. My job at the PDW was to do the introduction (you will find an overview of my talk under Resources). The feedback on the PDW was great – we now plan a mini-conference for March and a special issue about HRM and social networks in the near future.