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International Workshop: Social Networks and Social Identity in Organizations

Call for Contributions

Faculty of Social Sciences
Department of Public Administration and Organization Sciences
Vrije Universiteit <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Amsterdam</st1:place></st1:city>

June 25-26, 2007

The Department of Organization Science at the VU University of Amsterdam is hosting a two-day workshop on research on the interplay between social networks and identity theory and its (combined) influence on organizational processes and outcomes.

Social network theory has shown to be a valuable theoretical framework to study the influence of interpersonal and structural intra-organizational processes. The growing literature on the network paradigm in organizational research generally concludes that affective and/or instrumental relations have many benefits such as trust building, sharing of information, and joint problem solving. It has also became clear that networks are not always beneficial and that participation in networks can have unintended negative consequences. As particular network ties may have detrimental effects on performance, (strategic) choices have to be made which network ties to nurture and which to avoid or not to develop further.

The most important challenge is therefore to determine which types of relations are key to the understanding of individual and organizational performance. This can only be done in combination with other promising theoretical perspectives, such as social identity theory. New insights from social identity theory are applied to understand work behavior. However, the processes of formation and maintenance of focal identities is dealt with mainly at the individual or collective level. Consequently, little is known about how social identity processes affect intra-group relations, or how common identities develop in work situations.

This workshop will contribute to the above discussion by exploring new perspectives on the question how, when, and under what conditions social identity and social network explanations reinforce existing understanding, contradict, or complement each other. In the program the emphasis will be on work in progress both theoretical and empirical.

We aim to have a maximum of 25 participants. Based on the accepted contributions we want to start a discussion on integrating and agenda setting and so ample room for discussion is foreseen. The workshop will also serve as a platform to discuss projects in the future. Well-known researchers from the traditions mentioned above will react to and reflect on ongoing discussions and provide feedback to participants: Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca, Ajay Mehra, and Marshall Scott Poole. If you are interested in participating, please send an abstract of your paper of no more than 500 words by April 1st to Peter Groenewegen at p.groenewegen@fsw.vu.nl.

Local Organizers: Peter Groenewegen, Dick de Gilder, Gerhard van de Bunt, and Zuzana Sasovova.

Please let us know if you would like to receive additional information.

Sincerely,

Zuzana Sasovova
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration & Faculty of Social Sciences
Vrije Universiteit <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Amsterdam</st1:place></st1:city>
e-mail: zsasovova@feweb.vu.nl

Call for Papers

Applied Management Journal

Vols. 19 (2018) & 20 (2019)

Dear Scholars,

Applied Management Journal is a scholarly annual journal published by the International Association for Applied Management. If you have a full Paper, Case study, Research note, or Note on OB, OT, HRM, SM, IB, or other related areas (prepared according to the APA style guide), please send it as an attached file in Word which will be double-blind reviewed within 3-4 weeks.

The journal is also inviting scholars to serve as Associate Editors and members of the Editorial Board. If you are interested, please send me a list of your recent five journal articles.

Afzal Rahim, Editor, AMJ

University Distinguished Professor of Management

Western Kentucky University, USA

1990IAAM@gmail.com