Author Archives: Simon Jebsen

#GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies: #QualitativeInterviews (22.-23.06.2020)

Target audience
Doctoral Students and Postdoctoral Researchers at GIGA and Partner Institutions

About the course
Qualitative interviews are one of the most popular research methods in political and social research, yet often due to a lack of understanding run a risk of misrepresentation and under-theorisation of data. To avoid such risks, the course aims to develop an in-depth understanding of theoretical underpinnings of qualitative interviews and provide practical training in interview design, data generation and management.

On the first day, the course introduces theoretical reflections, philosophical assumptions, methodological underpinnings and ethics in interview research. Field preparation strategies and techniques, including sampling, gaining access, designing an interview guide, framing questions, and thinking through enquiry strategies are discussed. We outline the stages of the interview process and explore the potential influence of socio-demographic and personal characteristics on the relationship between the interviewer and interviewees and, consequently, on the data generation process.

Building on this knowledge, the second day focuses on developing interview skills through practical experience of designing and conducting interviews and managing data. We discuss theoretical applications and conclude the course with a critical reflection on strengths, limitations and scientific criteria in interview research.

This course will be offered online.

About the lecturer
Alenka Jelen-Sanchez is Senior Lecturer in Public Relations and Deputy Head of Division of Communications, Media and Culture at the University of Stirling, UK. She holds a PhD in Sociology – Communication Sciences from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her current research interest is in political and communication studies with a special focus on public relations as an academic discipline, intersections between journalism and public relations, gender in media and public relations, health communication and qualitative research methods, particularly interviews. She has extensive international experience in interview research and teaching. She has been an Instructor of Expert Interviews at the ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) Summer School in Methods and Techniques since 2008 and has taught interview research at several universities and research institutes in Europe and Canada.

Please note that other external participants than the one mentioned in the target group above are asked to pay a small course fee.

Registration closes 14 May 2020.

Further information and registration

Content retrieved from: https://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/dp/training/course-programme/qualitative-interviews-1.

#GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies: Global Approach to CAS Series II: Choosing #CaseStudies in #ComparativeResearch (17.06.2020)

Target audience
Doctoral Students and Postdoctoral Researchers at GIGA and Partner Institutions

About the course
Case selection is one of the most important steps in comparative research design, as systematic, theoretically grounded case selection produces stronger research. This course will discuss practical strategies for which and how many cases to use in your research project. The instructor will draw on her experience producing two books and several articles, all of which used the comparative method and case studies, to provide examples of how to go about case selection in practice.

This course will be offered online.

About the lecturer
Merike Blofield is the Director of the GIGA Institute for Latin American Studies.

Please note that other external participants than the one mentioned in the target group above are asked to pay a small course fee.

Registration closes 14 May 2020.

Further information and registration

Content retrieved from: https://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/dp/training/course-programme/global-approach-to-cas-series-ii-choosing-case-studies-in-comparative.

#GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies: Global Approach to CAS Series I: Economic Statecraft in the Middle East: Conceptualization and #CaseStudies (11.06.2002)

Target audience
Doctoral Students and Postdoctoral Researchers at GIGA and Partner Institutions

About the course
Compared to its share of the world’s population the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) accounts for percentages of global combat deaths, terrorist attacks, and refugees five to 11 times over. The underlying conflicts have economic aspects, too. The region has seen a large array of international and intra-regional sanctions and blockades. State funds and geo-economic strategies have been used to strengthen the resilience of authoritarian states. The MENA’s endowment with oil rents and strategic location along trade routes has engendered particular development models. The region’s states have seen their autonomy in economic decision-making challenged by compromised sovereignty in areas of limited statehood, where (violent) non-state actors command extractive capacities in a certain territory or economic sector. The respective states, in turn, integrate economic strategies in counterinsurgencies and efforts to re-assert control. Economic warfare is rampant in the MENA yet contextual knowledge of how it affects the political economies of its states, their international relations, and the socio-political coalitions that carry them is often missing, not based on local sources and perceptions, and insufficiently theorized.

This 2-hour lecture uses the UN embargo against Iraq (1990-2003) as a case study and discusses how Comparative Area Studies (CAS) can provide necessary correctives to the narratives of large n-studies that focus on sending countries and their sanction instruments.

This course will be offered online.

About the lecturer
Eckart Woertz is the Director of the GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies.

Please note that other external participants than the one mentioned in the target group above are asked to pay a small course fee.

Registration closes 14 May 2020.

Further information and registration

Content retrieved from: https://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/dp/training/course-programme/clone-of-global-approach-to-cas-series-i-economic-statecraft-in-the.

#GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies: #CaseStudies, #ProcessTracing and #ComparativeAnalysis (04.-05.06.2020)

Target audience
Doctoral Students and Postdoctoral Researchers at GIGA and Partner Institutions

About the course
Case studies are the backbone of social science. At the same time, we need a stronger and more rigorous methodological backbone to case study research to maintain the leverage that knowledge from this within-case and cross-case methods can generate. In this two day workshop, we begin by looking at the case as a unit of analysis asking “of what is this a case?” (Lund 2014) before addressing specific methodologies of process tracing and comparative approaches. In particular, we will address different approaches to comparison, both variable-oriented and messier case-oriented comparisons, as well as area-based and across-area comparisons, to address the logic and value of comparing in the political and international analysis.

The workshop will, for the most part, consist of a mixture of lectures and practical interactive exercises. We will also make space for students to present briefly their projects in development as they pertain to the methods of the workshop.

This course will be offered online.

About the lecturer
Eleanor Knott is an Assistant Professor in Qualitative Methodology in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics.

Please note that other external participants than the one mentioned in the target group above are asked to pay a small course fee.

Registration closes 14 May 2020.

Further information and registration

#GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies: #Research #DataManagement – Introductory Course for Doctoral Students (26.05.2020)

Target audience
Doctoral Students and Postdoctoral Researchers at GIGA and Partner Institutions

About the course
2-hours introductory course aims at helping doctoral students to develop their knowledge and skills regarding research data management. The topics that will be introduced in this course are organized along the research cycle starting from proposal planning and writing as well as project start-up over the data life cycle (including data collection, data analysis and data sharing) to the end of a research project, data archiving and data discovery.

This course will be offered online.

About the lecturer
Catharina Wasner is a Research Data Manager at the GIGA Information Centre.

Please note that other external participants than the one mentioned in the target group above are asked to pay a small course fee.

Registration closes 14 May 2020.

Registration and further information

MREV – Call for Papers: Employee Voice and the Digitalization of Work

Guest Editors:

Simon Fietze, University of Southern Denmark
Sylvia Rohlfer, Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros (CUNEF), Spain
Wenzel Matiaske, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Germany

Special Issue

Over the past four decades, scholars from employment relations, human resource management, organisational behaviour and labour economics have published a vast body of literature concerning employee voice (Wilkinson & Fay, 2011). Employee voice is thereby understood as the opportunity to participate in organisational decision-making and to have a say to influence the own work and the interests of managers and owners (Barry &Wilkinson, 2016) or – in the case of employee silence – to withhold these views and concerns (Morrison & Milliken, 2003). Employee voice and silence have been linked to organisational performance and the development of competitive advantage (Barry & Wilkinson, 2016) and are a key ingredient for the positive relationship between strategic human resource management and organisational performance (Wood & Wall, 2007) which also implies a link between employee voice and innovation. Employees with the opportunity to communicate individual ideas to management and to participate in decision-making give them the possibility to express ‘creative ideas and new perspectives, increasing the likelihood of innovation’ (Grant, 2013, p. 1703; Zhou & George, 2001).

Recently, scholars are paying more attention to current topics and relate them to employee voice. One stream of research is addressing the advancing technologies and consider the digital revolution and its impact on employee voice. There is no doubt that digital technology is fundamentality changing the way we do business (Mennie, 2015) and in consequence forms, tools and channels ‘voice’. The few studies on employee voice and digitalisation are mainly dealing with social media at work and its opportunities for management to get in dialogue with employees. Holland, Cooper, and Hecker (2019), for instance, discuss conceptual issues and opportunities social media provides in the development of employee voice. In a similar vein, Barnes, Balnave, Thornthwaite, and Manning (2019) show how a union’s use of social media might facilitate greater member participation and engagement. However, more empirical evidence and conceptual considerations are needed to better understand and explain digitalisation and employee voice (or: ‘e-voice’).

Therefore, the aim of the special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies is to focus on digitalisation at work and its challenges and opportunities for employee engagement, voice and silence in cross-disciplinary discussions. We welcome empirical studies as well as theoretical papers. Some context to discuss are listed below:

  • To what extent do technologies impact employee voice and silence?
  • To what extent do employees make use of technology to ‘raise their voice’?
  • What role do trade unions play when it comes to electronic (e.g., social media) employee voice?
  • What is the impact of electronic (e.g., social media) voice on traditional mechanisms of employee voice?
  • What is the effectiveness of electronic (e.g., social media) voice? How does it compare to the outcomes of traditional mechanisms?
  • Why do electronic (e.g., social media) employee voice systems fail?
  • What is the ‘dark side’ of electronic (e.g., social media) employee voice/silence?

These are just some ideas and not an exhaustive list.

Deadline
Full papers for this special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies must be submitted by 31 October 2020. All contributions will be subject to double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due 31 March 2021. The publication is scheduled for issue 1/2022. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.mrev.nomos.de/ using ‘SI Employee Voice’ as article section.

Manuscript length should not exceed 10,000 words (excluding references) and the norm should be 30 pages in double-spaced type with margins of about 3 cm (1 inch) on each side of the page. Further, please follow the guidelines on the journal’s website (http://www.mrev.nomos.de/guidelines/).

Hoping to hear from you!
Simon Fietze
Sylvia Rohlfer
Wenzel Matiaske

University of Bremen: PhD/Research Assistant – Roadmap for a gradual defossilisation of the steel industry and urban infrastructures using electrolysis hydrogen in Bremen (H2B)

At the University of Bremen we are offering a 50% PhD/Research assistant position at the Chair of Economics of Innovation and Structural Change, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics. The position relates to the entitled project with the possibility to conduct a PhD thesis derived from the entitled project or related research work.

Given the German context of the project, good german language skills are required.
Application deadline is the 1th of April 2020.

For more details please visit the official job advertisement at:
https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/guenther/news/news/news/detail/News/job-advertisement-phd-position-in-the-field-of-sustainability-energy-and-environmental-innovations/

Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL 2020): New Ways of Creating Value in Supply Chains and Logistics

Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL 2020): New Ways of Creating Value in Supply Chains and Logistics. More detailed information regarding the conference are available here: https://hicl.org. Abstract Submissions will only be accepted through https://hicl2020.exordo.com/.

The Abstract Submission closes on 13 March 2020.

#HICL #phdstudent #seminar #artificialinteligence #datascience #supplychain #logistics

ARL International Summer School 2020: Smart cities and beyond – Call for Applications

THE ISSUE
In recent years, “smart cities” has become a hegemonic concept in urban discourses, referring ei-ther to the broad set of technologies introduced towards steering infrastructure and the intelligent use of resources, or to improving the built environment by clever planning approaches. Firms, transfer agencies and municipalities seem to be working hard on the implementation of smart metres, energy efficiency, intelligent mobility, and the like.
However, the scholarly literature on digital cities clearly demonstrates that there are externalities, uncertainties and risks associated with the hype and the rash introduction of ‘smartness’. Also, open discourses should not be confined to a narrow understanding of smart technologies. As it is yet rather unclear what these may mean in urban and regional contexts, the ARL International Summer School 2020 is particularly dedicated to discussing these questions. Our aim is to uncover the whole range of issues, potentials and risks that are associated with Smart Cities, to reconstruct related policy narratives and to link research and practice insofar as it concerns the design of robust strategies of urban and regional development.

POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS
The German Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung, ARL) realizes its International Summer School 2020 in cooperation with the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Luxembourg. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions that explore Smart Cities with a critical perspective, focusing on the relations between two major subjects of study: ‘smartness’, high-tech, Internet of Things, big data developments, infrastructure, and intellectual property on the one hand; and cities, urban regions and related governance processes and discourses on the other hand. The presentations and discussions should deliver insight into selected facets of smartness, relate these to the role they may play in/for urban and regional development, and address their consequences for spatial planning and development strategies. Specifically, we invite contributions from early career researchers whose approaches and early-stage analyses demonstrate a particular interest in:

  • Applying the Smart City so far (municipal experiences),
  • Planning the Smart City in spatial regards,
  • Governance and policy dimensions, Smart City policy discourses,
  • The role of big corporations (such as Google, Amazon, Facebook etc.),
  • Smart City and the rise of platform economies,
  • Historical avenues of practicing ‘new technologies’ in urban and regional development,
  • Conceptual and methodological approaches to studying digital urbanism,
  • Smart technologies as drivers for community based economies/collaborative endeavours,
  • Urban governance and the social construction of cities.

CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

  • Prof. Guy Baeten, PhD – Professor of Urban Studies at Malmö University and Director of the Insti-tute for Urban Research, Malmö, Sweden
  • Assoc. Prof. Andrew Karvonen, PhD – Associate Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies in the Division of Urban and Regional Studies at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
  • Priv.-Doz. Dr. Bastian Lange – Lecturer at Leipzig University and founder of Multiplicities – Office for Spatial Development and Urban Planning, Berlin, Germany
  • Dr. Agnieszka Leszczynski – Assistant Professor in Geography at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
  • Assoc. Prof. Dr. Stijn Oosterlynck – Associate Professor in Urban Sociology at the University of Antwerp and Chair of the Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC) and the Antwerp Urban Studies Institute, Antwerp, Belgium
  • Prof. Dr. Liesbet Van Zoonen – Professor of Sociology and Dean of the Erasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Humanities at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands

ABOUT THE ORGANISERS
The German Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung, ARL) is an independent non-university institution and one of the prime addresses in Europe for research and advice on sustainable spatial development. It consists of a network of non-paid academics and practitioners who participate in temporary working groups on the regional, national, and international levels. The ARL is a think tank for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cooperation between research and practice on all important spatial issues. It is particularly committed to the exchange and dissemination of knowledge. Support for young researchers and practitioners is well-established at the ARL. The ARL is a member of the German Leibniz Association.

Research and teaching in the domains of geography and planning at the University of Luxembourg take place in the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning, part of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. Established in April 2006, the Department comprises a 45-person strong team, including professors, guest professors, junior and senior researchers, and doctoral students. Its research focusses on areas such as environmental economic geography, political geography, urban studies and planning, architecture, and geographical information systems (GIS).

The Department has also strong links to practice. It hosts the National Contact points for ESPON and the European Migration Network (EMN). It is the seat of the GR Atlas and participates in the Faculty‘s Key Area of “Migration and Inclusive Society” and is active member of the Centre for Border Studies of the UniGR (the University of the Greater Region). In terms of teaching, it runs a Master in Geography & Spatial Planning, a Master in Border Studies, and a Master in Architecture. The Department also offers the certificate program “Formation Continue en Aménagement du Territoire”, that certifies future planners in Luxembourg.

THE PROGRAMME
Our aim is to stimulate discussion, gain insight, and develop new research questions on the topics presented at the summer school. Participants will have the opportunity to present their research and receive individual feedback from international professors and experts. In addition, keynote speeches and plenary sessions offer the opportunity to intensify the debate and develop further research ideas. Field trips and shared social activities will help bring the topic of Smart Cities to life.

PARTICIPATION
The summer school takes a critical and interdisciplinary approach to the study of Smart Cities. We invite applications from advanced doctoral students with a background in geography, urban and European studies, political sciences, sociology, spatial planning, public administration, social design, and related fields. We admit up to seven participants in a competitive application process. The ARL sponsors the accommodation and travel costs of all participants. A participation fee will not be charged. As academic institutions, the organizers encourage scientific publications and aim to compile an edited volume on the theme of the summer school. Participants should be willing and prepared to discuss their paper drafts during the summer school and to develop their papers afterwards.

CONTACT & APPLICATION
Your application should include a motivation letter (max. 1 page), a short CV, and a short description of the project that you are going to present (max. 1 page). Please submit your application by 2 March 2020.

Email applications are particularly welcome (compiled in one PDF file). Please send your application to thimm@arl-net.de.

Postal address:
Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung (ARL)
Insa Thimm
Vahrenwalder Straße 247
30179 Hannover, Germany

You will receive a notification of acceptance by the beginning of April 2020. For further questions, please contact Insa Thimm, thimm@arl-net.de, Phone +49 511 34842-31.

We look forward to receiving your application!

REMINDER: MREV – Call for Papers: New Work Arrangements – A review of concepts and theories

Guest Editors:
Ralph Kattenbach, International School of Management, Hamburg
Johannes Moskaliuk, International School of Management, Stuttgart
Barbara Kump, WU Wien

Special Issue

Much has occurred since Frithjof Bergmann‘s seminal thoughts on New Work (1994; 2004; 2019): Smartphones, virtual communication and virtual cooperation have entered the business world. Digitalization has brought forth a completely new economy, agile work processes, AI services, a digital start-up culture, cloud work, new employment relationships, leadership styles, co-working tools and an enhanced spatial and temporal flexibility. These changes in work context and job characteristics, summarized as New Work Arrangements call for a revision of work related concepts and theories. However, even in top management research outlets, the pervasive presence of technology in organizational work has been neglected (Orlikowski & Scott, 2017).

With this special issue on “New Work Arrangements”, we would like to provide comprehensive insights into the many ways in which digitalization influences how we organize, manage and learn work. We also aim to present approaches from various disciplines to incorporate characteristics of New Work Arrangements in existing theories, models, and concepts. In an attempt to categorize the various faces of New Work Arrangements and to provide a guideline for contributions to our special issue, we focus on three central aspects that are influenced by digitalization:

New Organization

Digital technologies enable new business models and strategies; however, they also come with numerous behavioural and organizaitonal challenges for firms: For instance, online markets for talent and labor allow firms to out- source complex tasks but may have implications for knowledge management and human resource management. Adoption of digital technologies may require complementary investments in rare skills to bring about the intended productivity improvements in full (Leiponen et al., 2016). Furthermore, through the advent of digital technologies, virtual work has become the new normal: Staff members work from dispersed locations and interact through their smart phones or other mobile devices (Raghuram et al., 2019). This situation poses a number of new, interesting research questions, for example:

  • What effects have agile work processes, ubiquitous working and virtual teams on an individual and organizational level?
  • What influence do digitalization and artificial intelligence solutions have on work and job characteristics as well as work engagement, performance and perceived autonomy?
  • What is the role of organizational culture and team norms in explaining the impact of New Work Arrangements?
  • Which business models are successful from both an economic (e.g. increased profit) and a psychological (e.g. meaningful work) perspective?

New Leadership

New technologies enable arrangements that offer work-life flexibility. However, studies have shown that such arrangements do not necessarily benefit all groups of workers equally and may come with new challenges, such as promotion and pay schemes (Kossek & Lautsch, 2017). Moreover, such new work arrangements may require new forms of leadership (Banks et al., 2019; Sheniger, 2019). In addition, leaders may have to deal with changes in organizational identity, practice, and knowledge that need to be overcome when organizations become more and more digitalized (Kump, 2019). Possible questions for this special issue include:

  • How are leadership and communication in the workplace affected by digitalization?
  • How can we base trends like mindful leadership, holacracy or agile project management on solid research?
  • What are appropriate competencies, tools, styles or mindsets for leaders facing New Work Arrangements?
  • How can we use digital tools and methods to transfer knowledge, support self-reflection, and foster creativity?

New Learning

Digital devices, virtual reality and other innovative technologies offer new learning opportunities for workers at their workplaces (Noe, Clarke & Klein, 2014). At the same time, managers may need dynamic managerial capabilities in order to keep up to date with constant change (Helfat & Martin, 2014). These new situations require new management skills and may benefit from novel educational settings. Accordingly, new work arrangements come with manifold research questions regarding learning, for example:

  • Which influences has digitalization on learning and development in the workplace?
  • How can digital be used media to provide self-organized learning on the job?
  • How can we foster self-responsible learning competencies and a growth-oriented mindset?
  • What effects do concepts like micro-learning, nudging, and gamification have on learning motivation and learning success?

For the special issue, we invite contributions that consider the above mentioned or related topics of New Work Arrangements, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Qualitative and quantitative research contributions are welcome. We also invite survey articles, best practice cases, didactical designs and book reviews.

Deadline
Full papers for this special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies must be submitted by May 31, 2020. All contributions will be subject to double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due November 30, 2020. The publication is scheduled for issue 3/2021. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system ‘New Work Arrangements’ as article section: http://www.mrev.nomos.de/guidelines/submit-manuscript/

Special Issue
All contributors to the seminar are invited to submit their paper for the special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies. Full papers for this special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies must be submitted by August 30th, 2020. All contributions will be subject to double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due February 28th, 2021. The publication is scheduled for issue 1/2022. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.mrev.nomos.de/ using ‘SI Employee Voice’ as article section.

Submission Guidelines
Manuscript length should not exceed 8,000 words (excluding references) and the norm should be 30 pages in double-spaced type with margins of about 3 cm (1 inch) on each side of the page. Further, please follow the guidelines on the journal’s website (http://www.mrev.nomos.de/guidelines/).

Hoping to hear from you!
Ralph Kattenbach (ralph.kattenbach@ism.de)
Johannes Moskaliuk (johannes.moskaliuk@ism.de)
Barbara Kump (barbara.kump@wu.ac.at)