Knowledge People Performance

by David Wagner
 

Meeting Jeff Martin @Viadrina

On Wednesday, April 18, we welcomed five new PhD students to our doctoral program. We were lucky to have Professor Jeff Martin at the European University Viadrina as the keynote speaker on that day. Jeff developed the notion of Dynamic Capabilities in his paper with Kathleen Eisenhardt (2000). Many of us will have to build on their ideas while working on our own PhD projects. Being able to talk to the scholars whose research we deal with on a daily basis is a great experience (and I've commented on previous occasions, such as the visit to the Academy of Management Conference, in earlier blog posts). In his keynote, Jeffrey talked about his current research program and, more particularly, about his recent article on Managerial Dynamic Capabilities published in the journal Organization Science. To me, the methodological part was most interesting as Jeff makes heavy use of case studies for theory-building. Over dinner we were able to ask him a few more personal questions, for example how he felt about being supervised by Professor Eisenhardt, what it took to write his seminal paper, or what he thought about Ann Majchrzak's comment below.

18_04_2012eoe_dcg-600pix

Photo Credit: Heide Fest, Press Office, EUV

References:

Eisenhardt, K. M., & Martin, J. A. (2000). Dynamic Capabilities: What Are They. Strategic Management Journal, 21(10/11), 1105–1121.

Martin, J. A. (2011). Dynamic Managerial Capabilities and the Multibusiness Team: The Role of Episodic Teams in Executive Leadership Groups. Organization Science, 22(1), 118–140. doi:10.1287/orsc.1090.0515.

Filed under  //   dcr   dynamic capabilities   euv   event   inauguration   jeff martin   viadrina  
Posted April 20, 2012
 

Social Software, Strategic Management & Dynamic Capabilities

The doctoral program I'm in right now is called Dynamic Capabilities and Relationships, in short DCR. I've been trying for a while to make connections between the phenomenon I'm interested in, i.e. social software use in organizations, and strategic management. With publications like the one below from Haefliger and colleagues, bridges are being built and the path from the former to the latter is being made visible. I did not come across any work to date, however, that would explicity address the link between social software use and its implications on (the strategic management concept of) Dynamic Capabilities. Reading the below passage in a MISQ comment by Ann Majchrzak got me really excited:

Yet many contributors to organizational wikis [...] organize others’ contributions not for social exchange or social capital motives, but instead because they are genuinely concerned about the organization’s ability to adapt to the needs of a volatile environment (Majchrzak et al. 2006). Not only should findings like this encourage us as researchers to rethink social exchange and social capital theories, but they also should encourage researchers in other domains, such as dynamic capabilities models (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000) to modify their theories to include information shaping as an important dynamic capability of a firm.

We'll have Jeff Martin, the second author of the latter paper quoted my Majchrzak, over in Berlin in a couple of weeks and I'll make sure to bring this issue up while he's here. In case you're interested, here's an interview with him about the paper mentioned above and the idea behind Dynamic Capabilities: Jeffrey Martin on competing in fast-moving dynamic environments.

References:

Eisenhardt Kathleen, M., & Martin Jeffrey, A. (2000). Dynamic capabilities: What are they. Strategic Management Journal, 21(10/11), 1105–1121.

Haefliger, S., Monteiro, E., Foray, D., & von Krogh, G. (2011). Social Software and Strategy. Long Range Planning, 44(5-6), 297–316. doi:10.1016/j.lrp.2011.08.001

Majchrzak, A., Wagner, C., & Yates, D. (2006). Corporate wiki users: results of a survey. Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Wikis, WikiSym  ’06 (pp. 99–104). New York, NY, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/1149453.1149472

Majchrzak, A. (2009). Comment: Where is the Theory in Wikis? Management Information Systems Quarterly, 33(1), 18–20.

Filed under  //   MISQ   dcr   dynamic capabilities   eisenhardt   majchrzak   martin   strategic management   strategy  
Posted March 23, 2012
 

Ways to Use Copyrighted (Academic) Content for Blogging

While working on a blog post the other day, I asked myself (once again) how academic material taken from (copyrighted) journals and books, may be used (legally and appropriately) by researchers like myself. I've attempted to find an answer to this question on various occasions, but it seems that every publisher has guidelines on its own. Asking a law professor at our business school brought some relief. I further contacted a few publishers via Twitter and I've been pleased with the responsiveness of Oxford University Press, for example. However, their clearance process is too cumbersome to work with in practice. On the same day, I discovered a very useful guide published by Elsevier: Ways to Use Journal Articles: A Practical Guide. Posting the link to Twitter, it was re-tweeted several times, an indicator of its usefulness to other researchers, I suppose. Therefore, I decided to include the link to the guide on my blog and add an abstract of the relevant section below. If you come across similar documents, please drop me a line. I would surely like to have a look at them.

Anyone may in written work quote from an article published by Elsevier, as long as the quote comprises only a short excerpt such as one or two sentences. An appropriate citation, including the journal title, must be provided. If the intended use is for scholarly comment, noncommercial research or educational purposes, an institution or academic may, without seeking permission from Elsevier, use: 

  • a single text extract of fewer than 100 words or a series of extracts totaling no more than 300 words
  • a maximum of two figures from a journal article or a total of five from a journal volume

These guidelines reflect Elsevier’s endorsement of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers' 2008 guidelines for quotation and other academic uses of excerpts from journal articles. Find more details on these guidelines at www.stm-assoc.org/document-library/ (see Guidelines for Quotations from Journal Articles).

Filed under  //   Elesevier   Oxford University Press   blogging   legal issues   publishers   research  
Posted March 22, 2012
 

Social Software & Strategy: A Review & Research Agenda

A couple of days ago, I commented on a research framework on social media by Kietzmann and colleagues published in the Journal of Public Affairs. I had another article sitting on my desk which was similar in scope. It's been written by Haefliger and colleagues and served as the introduction to as special isssue of the journal Longe Range Planning. Haefliger and colleagues distinguish between strategy (value creation & value appropriation), technology (technology as a tool vs a mediator), and community (leadership & boundaries). Furthermore, they look at social software use from an internal and an external perspective. I find this structure more appealing and intuitive than the honeycomb presented earlier. A nice additional feature is the research agenda they produce. I've included both tables below.

Haefliger_et_al

Haefliger_et_al

Reference:

Haefliger, S., Monteiro, E., Foray, D., & von Krogh, G. (2011). Social Software and Strategy. Long Range Planning, 44(5-6), 297–316. doi:10.1016/j.lrp.2011.08.001

Filed under  //   research agenda   social software   socialmedia   
Posted March 22, 2012
 

Unpacking the Social Media Phenomenon

I received a Google Alert to a new social media article by Kietzmann and colleagues yesterday morning. Having a brief look at it, I was intrigued by the social media honeycomb they produced with theories listed in each domain of functionality, including research questions that should be addressed in the future. You can find the honeycomb and the research agenda below. Trying to trace the development of the honeycomb, I came across another recent article by a similar set set of authors. Digging a bit deeper, I realized that the honeycomb has been around for a while. The earliest version I found was published by nform, a consultancy, in 2007. While the framework does not seem to be particularly innovative, I appreciate the authors' effort to establish a research agenda for the field of social media. Let's see if the suggested questions will be picked up by other researchers in the future or whether some of the combs will disappear or change over time.

References:

Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241–251. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005

Kietzmann, J. H., Silvestre, B. S., McCarthy, I. P., & Pitt, L. (2012). Unpacking the social media phenomenon: towards a research agenda. Journal of Public Affairs. doi:10.1002/pa.1412

Filed under  //   groups   identity   kietzmann   relationships   reputation   research agenda   socialmedia   
Posted March 20, 2012
 

How to search the IS Senior Scholars' Basket of Journals?

My supervisor asked me the other day to make sure I was aware of all articles in my field which have been published in reputable journals. He mentioned the IS Senior Scholars' Basket of Journals when referring to reputable journals. The following journals belong to that list:

  •     European Journal of Information Systems
  •     Information Systems Journal
  •     Information Systems Research
  •     Journal of AIS
  •     Journal of MIS
  •     MIS Quarterly

While I am pretty sure I have collected articles from a wide range of disciplines and sources, some of which were from the list above, I hadn't checked for consistency with the IS Senior Scholars' Basket of Journals, so I started my search. As usual, I went right into the Ebsco database only to find out that about half of the journals weren't covered by the subscription. I then tried searching for hints on where I could search all six journals at once. An article by Chapman and Brothers states that ABI/INFORM Global and Business Source Premier are the databases providing the best coverage in the MIS field. Eventually, I came across the website by Dr. Venkastesh. It provides an advanced search interface for different combinations of the basket journals. This was pretty much what I was looking for. Dr. Venkatesh's efforts are somewhat similar to what Anne-Wil Harzing does with her Journal Quality list with the notable difference that the latter addresses a different set of journals, namely in the fields of economics, finance, accounting, management, and marketing.

References:

Chapman, K., & Brothers, P. (2006). Database Coverage for Research in Management Information Systems. College & Research Libraries, 67(1), 50–62.

 

Filed under  //   IS   basket   harzing   journal quality   journal ratings   research   venkatesh  
Posted March 15, 2012
 

14 Things About Me @dw_p

14 Things About Me on Prezi

My PhD colleagues and I have tried Prezi, a newish presentation tool and an alternative to Power Point, a few times for formal presentations already. This is one of my first serious attempts. I used the presentation to introduce myself to students at the Business School Potsdam last semester. I was inspired by Brooke Ahrens, who provided a Prezi template for others to use.

Filed under  //   About me   Prezi   brooke ahrens   bsp   business school potsdam   david wagner   presentation  
Posted February 2, 2012
 

Call for Applications: Six Scholarships @Viadrina @GGS_Heilbronn

If you are currently looking around for interesting PhD programs in the field of management, you may want to have a look at the following call for applications. The program I'm currently enrolled in is recruiting five PhDs and one Post-Doc as of April 2012. Deadline for applications is December 12, 2011. There are a number of testimonials about the program written by me and my colleagues. You can check them out here. For further details, have a look at the below announcement or visit the program website.

The European University Viadrina (EUV) and the German Graduate School of Management and Law (GGS) are inviting applications for six scholarships in their joint Doctoral Program in Dynamic Capabilities and Relationships.

The aim of the doctoral program is to create knowledge about how organizations achieve and sustain competitive advantage in rapidly changing environments through the development of critical competences in relationship with other organizations and stakeholders.

Minimum requirements for the positions: Master's degree (or equivalent) in business studies, social or behavioral sciences, or related field. Interested applicants should send their application with the subject header "Doctoral Program" to applications@ dcr-research.de. The application must contain the following in PDF format:

  1. Completed application form (available at www.dcr-research.de)
  2. CV
  3. Master's certificate or evidence that all requirements for a Master's degree will be completed by April 2012
  4. One-page statement explaining the candidate's interest in and suitability for the position
  5. Outline of a potential research project in the area of Dynamic Capabilities and Relationships (max. 1000 words plus references)
  6. Copy of Master's thesis
  7. One-page summary of Master's thesis
  8. Names and contact information of three referees

Incomplete applications will not be considered. Closing date: December 12th, 2011
For further information, please contact info@dcr-research.de.

via academics.de

Filed under  //   2012   PhD   dcr   euv   ggs   scholarship  
Posted November 17, 2011