Summerschool 2017 Wittenberge: Open vacancies on the Summer School – apply now!

There are more than 30 partner organisations who decided to cooperate for the Summer School 2017. Round about 800 students and doctoral students will come to Wittenberg during the Reformation Summer because of them. In a nutshell: four weeks, 33 seminars and a diverse cultural programme with the headline Enough. Concerning me.

Everyone who wants to participate at the Summer School 2017 can find all the necessary information here: The conditions of participation, the procedures of application and selection and the options of getting funded. If you are a member of one of the contributing organisations (e.g. as a scholarship holder of a scholarship organisation for gifted students and doctoral students, as a scholarship holder in the Bread for the World programme, as a student at one of our partner universities or as a member of a local ESG) you will receive detailed information on the respective conditions of funding from your contact person in the organization you belong to.

With our general application form, you can apply for vacancies or places on the waiting list in up to three courses. There are several options for funding so a participation is affordable for students and doctoral students from all over the world. You find the new application form here and on the site of every seminar.

MREV – Call for Papers: Workplace Flexibility

Guest Editors:
Sascha Ruhle, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (Germany)
Stefan Süß, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (Germany)

Special Issue

Flexibility has been an ongoing issue for various fields of research and practice and a considerable amount of literature dealing with the concept of flexibility has developed. This diversity has led to various perspectives on dimensions and aspects of flexibility. However, two major fields of flexibility can be distinguished. The organizational perspective understands workplace flexibility as the degree of adaptability of an organization in an uncertain and changing environment (Dastmalchian & Blyton 2001). In addition, workplace flexibility can encompass the individual perspective of the workforce, especially the degree of flexibility regarding aspects of where, when, and how work is performed (Hill et al. 2008). Within both streams of research, various aspects of flexibility have been addressed, such as organizational structures (Feldman & Pentland 2003), type of employment (Lepak et al. 2003; Sayah & Süß 2013), management and strategic human resource management (Wright & Snell 1998), time and location of work (Allen et al. 2013), demands towards employees (Vahle-Hinz et al. 2013) and work (Ruiner et al. 2013), leadership (Barrow 1976), and the role of Communication Technologies (Diaz et al. 2012).

Regarding the consequences of flexibility, literature often assumes positive results for both iindividualand organization, when flexibility increases. For example, evidence has been found that flexibility at work is positively related to self-reported health (Butler et al. 2009). Furthermore, it can increase organizational attractiveness (Nadler et al. 2010; Thompson et al. 2015), profit (Kesavan et al. 2014) and firm performance (Martínez Sánchez et al. 2007). However, there is also a missing consensus and ongoing discussion regarding possible consequences of flexibility. Research has identified potential downsides of flexibility, such as blurred work-life boundaries (Pedersen and Lewis 2012), the risk of stigmatization (Cech & Blair-Loy 2014), unsupportive work climate and inequitable implementation (Putnam et al. 2014). Other relationships, for example between flexibility and work-family conflict (Allen et al. 2013; Shockley & Allen 2007), remain unclear. Further, if the flexibility is only an organizational facade (Eaton 2003; Nystrom & Starbuck 1984) which is communicated but not lived in the organization, even more, negative consequences such as violations of psychological contracts might occur, especially when flexibility is used as a facade to justify the transformation of standard work arrangements to non-standard work arrangements.

Subsequently, a lot of questions remain unanswered:

  • What is the core of flexibility in organizations?
  • Which origins can be identified of the ongoing need for various types of flexibility?
  • What types of flexibility can be systematized and how are those different types related to organizational consequences, such as success or attractiveness?
  • How useful are flexible work arrangements and how can positive consequences be promoted and negative consequences be avoided, or at least weakened?
  • Which consequences result from a gap between offered and truly supported types of flexibility, e.g. the role of organizational facades?
  • How does embeddedness of Information and Communications Technologies in work practices enable and assist workplace flexibility?
  • What are the consequences of the ongoing flexibilization of work on the economic and social level?

Potential authors

The aim of this special issue is to increase our understanding of the above-mentioned aspects of workplace flexibility, especially from an organizational perspective. We encourage empirical – qualitative or quantitative – submissions from various research fields, such as business administration, industrial and organizational psychology, work sociology and other disciplines dealing with the topic of the Special Issue.

Deadline

Full papers for this special issue of management revue must be submitted by 31 December 2017. All contributions will be subject to double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due 31 May 2018. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.mrev.nomos.de/ guidelines/submit-manuscript/ using ‘SI Workplace Flexibility’ 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 website http://www.mrev.nomos.de/guidelines/ and submit the papers electronically by sending a ‘blind’ copy of your manuscript (delete all author identification from this primary document).

We look forward to receiving your contribution!

Sascha Ruhle
Stefan Süß

 

TUHH: Research Assistant/Wissenschaftliche(r) Mitarbeiter(in)

An der Technischen Universität Hamburg ist in dem Institut für Strategisches und Internationales Management zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt folgende – für die Dauer von zunächst 3 Jahren (mit Verlängerungsoption) – Stelle zu besetzen

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin / Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Entgeltgruppe 13 TV-L, Kenn-Nr.: D-17-61
(mit 2/3 der regelmäßigen Arbeitszeit)

Aufgabengebiet:
Das Tätigkeitsfeld umfasst die Mitarbeit an Lehrveranstaltungen und Forschungsaktivitäten des Instituts sowie die Wahrnehmung von Aufgaben im Rahmen des Lerhstuhlmanagements. Im Rahmen der Förderung des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses wird die gezielte Möglichkeit zur Promotion geboten (Tätigkeiten gem. §§ 27 und 28 Abs. 1 HmbHG).

Voraussetzungen:
Abgeschlossenes wissenschaftliches Hochschulstudium, insbesondere der Fachrichtung Betriebswirtschaftslehre (mit Schwerpunkt Strategisches Management und/oder Internationales Management). Abschluss mit Prädikat.

Zur Mitarbeit in unserem Team stellen wir uns eine Persönlichkeit vor, die neben einer hervorragenden akademischen Qualifikation Verantwortungsbewusstsein und außergewöhnliches Engagement einbringt sowie über sehr gute englische Sprachkenntnisse verfügt. Kenntnisse der empirischen Forschung sind wünschenswert. Wir bieten die Mitarbeit an einem jungen Institut mit exzellenten Forschungsmöglichkeiten, persönlicher Weiterbildung und einer umfassenden Betreuung Ihrer Dissertation.

Weitere Auskünfte erteilt Ihnen Herr Prof. Wrona (thomas.wrona@tuhh.de) unter der Rufnummer (040)42878-4567.

Bewerbungen mit tabellarischem Lebenslauf und den üblichen Unterlagen sind bis zum 15.05.2017 unter Angabe der Kenn-Nr. D-17-61 zu richten an:
Technische Universität Hamburg
– Personalreferat PV32/G –
21071 Hamburg
Oder per E-Mail an geschaeftsstellepv32@tu-harburg.hamburg.de

Wir bitten zusätzlich um elektronische Zusendung derselben Bewerbungsunterlagen an: Herrn Prof. Dr. Thomas Wrona (thomas.wrona@tuhh.de).

Weitere Informationen

MREV – Call for Papers: Corporate responsibility: In the dilemma between trust and fake?

Guest Editors:
Simon Fietze, University of Southern Denmark
Wenzel Matiaske, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg (Germany)
Roland Menges, Technical University Clausthal (Germany)

Special Issue

Trust is the currency that creates markets. This is knowledge of the merchants at the latest since modern markets have emerged along the medieval trade routes. Quality and reliability in the business are also building blocks of trust and the assumption of responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of entrepreneurial activity. Whether the latter should be integrated into social and legal relations and norms in the form of voluntary corporate responsibility, has been the subject of economic discussion since the beginnings of the discipline and since the separation of the spheres of economic and moral action in the Scottish moral economy.

Over the past decades, both supra-national organisations such as the UN and the EU have been focusing on soft law – from the global compact through the AA1000 to the Green Paper of the EU Commission – as well as the national states, to promote social and environmental responsibility for companies in the age of globalisation. These initiatives have led to lively activities and debates both in the business world and in different scientific disciplines. For companies, it has now become a “fashion” to campaign social and ecological responsibility using the concept of “Corporate Social Responsibility”. This commitment has meanwhile led to the fact that CSR activities should partly contribute to value creation instead of aligning them with corporate objectives and values. Such a development leads to the loss of trust and the assumption of responsibility becomes a “fake”.

Against this backdrop, some of the social and economic observers remained sceptical, advocating tougher legal norms or fiscal implications. Finally, lawyers pointed out that (successful) standardisations often develop not only from the “top” but also from the “bottom”, i.e. they emerge from the action routines of the economic actors as emergent effects. However, not only the recent scandals – from the ENRON case to the VW case – raise questions about the effectiveness of co-operative self-commitment as well as external control.

Moreover, corporate responsibility is related to the concept of consumer responsibility. Whereas market-optimists believe that reliable changes in consumption patterns rely on responsible individual action, more market-skeptics warn of a counterproductive “privatisation of sustainability”.

In this light, this special issue will be on theoretical and empirical contributions to the topic “Corporate responsibility: In the dilemma between trust and fake?” from economic, sociological, (economic) historical and legal perspectives. Possible topics are:

  • Economic and history of ideas cases and questions of corporate responsibility
  • The “pseudo” corporate responsibility
  • Organisational and sociological theories and findings on corporate responsibility
  • Theory and empiricism of the audit
  • Theoretical and empirical studies on consumer responsibility
  • Criminal law considerations for corporate actors
  • Institutional factors of corporate responsibility
  • The trust of social entrepreneurship

This is not an exhaustive list.

Deadline
Full paper for this special issue of management revue must be submitted by September 30th, 2017. All contributions will be subject to a double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due January 31st, 2018. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system using ‘SI Corporate Responsibility’ as article section.

Hoping to hear from you!
Simon Fietze
Wenzel Matiaske
Roland Menges


HSU-Doktorandenweiterbildung 2017: Aufbaukurs in SPSS

Institution: Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg

Lecturer: Dr. Elke Goltz, Professur für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Marketing

Dates:
Donnerstag: 06.07.17 – 09:30 bis 17:00 Uhr
Freitag: 07.07.17 – 09:00 bis 15:00 Uhr
Donnerstag: 13.07.17 – 09:30 bis 17:00 Uhr

Place: Helmut-Schmidt-Universität, Holstenhofweg 85, 22043 Hamburg, H1 – Raum 2161 (PC-Pool WiSo)

Language of instruction: Deutsch

Registration: Non-members of the Helmut-Schmidt-Universität may click here firstly to create an HSU-Ilias-account, and secondly here to join the course.

Contents:
Aufbauend auf dem Kurs im Frühjahrstrimester 2016, in dem grundlegende Verfahren der Deskriptiv- und Inferenzstatistik besprochen wurden, werden in diesem Kurs weiterführende Verfahren zur (multi)variaten Datenanalyse vorgestellt, insbesondere:

Itemanalyse*, Varianzanalyse, Regressionsanalyse, Logistische Regression, Faktorenanalyse

* vor allem Konstruktion von Likert-Skalen

Eine genauere Planung für die jeweiligen Inhalte an den drei Veranstaltungstagen wird ca. 4 Wochen vor Veranstaltungsbeginn bekannt gegeben.

Voraussetzungen:
Grundkenntnisse in der Deskriptiv- und Inferenzstatistik sowie in SPSS.

Qualitative Interviewing

Institution: see Organisers & Supporters

Programme of study: International Research Workshop

Lecturer: Dr. Nicolas Legewie (German Institute for Economic Research – DIW Berlin)

Date: Monday, 11/09/17 – Wednesday, 13/09/17 (14.30-18.00 h)

Max. number of participants: 20

Credit Points: 5 CP for participating in the whole IRWS

Language of instruction: English

Contents:

In this course, participants will learn the basics of qualitative interviewing. We will work with a standard guided interviewing technique. In three sessions we will cover issues of research design (research questions and case selection), design interview guidelines, conducting interviews, and analysing qualitative interview data. The structure of the course follows a workshop format, with participants practising design, interviewing, and analytic skills in individual and group exercises.

Participants who attend this workshop will have familiarised themselves with relevant methodological and practical issues of qualitative interviewing and gathered first experiences designing, conducting, and analysing qualitative interviews.

Requirement of students: Basic knowledge on methods of empirical social research is required. No previous knowledge of qualitative methods is necessary.

Recommended literature and pre-readings: tba.

You have to register for the 11th International Research Workshop to participate in this course.

Visual Data Analysis

Institution: see Organisers & Supporters

Programme of study: International Research Workshop

Lecturer: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Anne Nassauer (Free-University Berlin)

Date: Thursday, 14/09/17 (09.30 – 18.00 h)

Max. number of participants: 20

Credit Points: 5 CP for participating in the whole IRWS

Language of instruction: English

Contents:

Since the early 2000s, the proliferation of cameras, whether in mobile phones or CCTV, body cameras, or drones, has led to a tremendous increase in visual recordings of human behaviour. More and more of such data is uploaded online, for instance on sharing platforms such as YouTube or LiveLeaks. This vast pool of data enables new approaches analysing a variety of social phenomena. The application is both qualitative and quantitative and ranges widely; from sociology to psychology; criminology to education and beyond.

The goal of this workshop is to introduce the opportunities that these technological advancements provide and enable participants to make use of these exponentially growing, easily accessible data pools to studying social phenomena.

The first part of this workshop (2 hrs) will provide an overview of approaches analysing visual data. We will examine qualitative approaches of studying visuals and their context (visual studies), as well as a variety of novel approaches to visual data, that focus on quantitative and qualitative analysis of social phenomena and human behaviour caught on tape (visual data analysis).

A second part (2 hrs) will discuss the analytic potential of novel visual data types. We will discuss opportunities and challenges that arise when wanting to study recordings of phenomena or behaviour “as it happened.” We will discuss: How can participants use the increasing amount of behaviour – captured by cell phones, drones, or police body cameras – as a reliable and valid data source in their PhD project? What can be studied using these data and which analytic procedures are useful to study them?

A third part of the workshop (2 hrs) will discuss the participants’ PhD projects in light of these opportunities. We will take a hands-on approach and go through the process of visual data collection and visual data analysis step by step by using examples. Students can either bring recordings that they want to use as an (additional) data source for their PhD, or we will examine other practical examples.

Requirement of students: None.

Recommended literature and pre-readings:

  • Harper, Douglas. 1988. “Visual Sociology: Expanding Sociological Vision.” The American Sociologist 19(1):54–70.
  • Nassauer, Anne and Nicolas Legewie. Under Review. “Visual Data Analysis: Towards a Methodological Framework for a Novel Trend in Studying Behavior.”

Optional readings:

  • Klusemann, Stefan. 2009. “Atrocities and Confrontational Tension.” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 3(42):1–10.
  • Levine, Mark, Paul J. Taylor, and Rachel Best. 2011. “Third Parties, Violence, and Conflict Resolution: The Role of Group Size and Collective Action in the Micro-regulation of Violence.” Psychological Science 22(3):406–12.

You have to register for the 11th International Research Workshop to participate in this course.

Quantile Regression

Institution: see Organisers & Acknowledgements

Programme of study: International Research Workshop

Lecturer: PD Dr. Elke Holst (DIW Berlin & University of Flensburg), Andrea Schäfer, SOCIUM/Universität Bremen)

Date: Monday, 11/09/17 – Wednesday, 13/09/17 (09.00 – 12.30 h)

Max. number of participants: 20

Credit Points: 5 CP for participating in the whole IRWS

Language of instruction: English

Contents:

Quantile regression is a statistical analysis able to detect more effects than classical procedures, it does not restrict attention to the conditional mean and therefore it permits to approximate the whole distribution of a response variable. This course will introduce the basics of quantile regression methods and briefly discuss some recent developments, highlighting among others the differences between conditional and unconditional regression frameworks.

The course will further illustrate their application – discussing practical aspects of computation and inference – with the aim of providing practical guidance on the use of the methods in realistic applications. The application refers to the German wage structure using the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Thus, a substantial part of the course will cover an overview of the SOEP data structure and the research designs facilitated by longitudinal household studies that go beyond conventional surveys (household analysis, intergenerational analysis, life course research, etc.).

By the end of the course participants will:

  • Understand the use of quantile regression with continuous outcomes;
  • Become familiar with some of the background theory;
  • Become aware of some recent developments in quantile regression;
  • Be familiar with structure and content of SOEP survey data;
  • Apply the methods to real data;
  • Be trained in the use of statistical software for implementing the methods.

The course will use the STATA software. Prior familiarity with STATA would be an advantage although the course will cover some STATA basics. Familiarity with linear regression and basic distribution functions is assumed.

Requirement of students: intermediate statistical knowledge, basic Stata skills

Recommended literature and pre-readings:

  • Davino, C.; Furno, M. and Vistocco, D. (2014). Quantile Regression: Theory and Applications. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Haisken-DeNew, J.P. and Frick, J.R. (Eds.) (2005). DTC Desktop Companion to the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Version 8.0 – Dec 2005, Updated to Wave 21 (U). This documentation is intended to give novice users a “jump start” in understanding the SOEP, its structure, depth, and research potential.
  • Hao, L. and Naiman, D.Q. (2007). Quantile Regression. Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, No. 149.
  • Koenker R. (2005). Quantile Regression. Cambridge University Press.

You have to register for the 11th International Research Workshop to participate in this course.

Data Analysis with R

Institution: see Organisers & Acknowledgements

Programme of study: International Research Workshop

Lecturer: Dr. Marco Lehmann (University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf)

Date: Monday, 11/09/17 – Wednesday, 13/09/17 (14.30 – 18.00 h)

Max. number of participants: 20

Credit Points: 5 CP for participating in the whole IRWS

Language of instruction: English

Contents:

The course introduces the programming language R used for statistical analyses. The beginning of each lecture comes with a demonstration of programming and statistical functions that will be elaborated in the course of study. The students will then practice with many statistical examples. In addition to statistical functions, the course will introduce the definition of R as a programming language and its syntax rules. Students will further learn to use R’s scripting capabilities. Successful participation requires basic knowledge in descriptive and inferential statistics. The students are encouraged to bring their own laptops with the free software R (www.r-project.org/) and RStudio (www.rstudio.com/) installed.

Requirement of students: Basic knowledge in descriptive and inferential statistics is recommended.

Recommended literature and pre-readings:

  • Matloff, N. (2011). The Art of R Programming: A Tour of Statistical Software Design. No Starch Press.
  • Wollschläger, Daniel (2012). Grundlagen der Datenauswertung mit R (2. Aufl.). Berlin: Springer.

You have to register for the 11th International Research Workshop to participate in this course.

Academic English Writing

Institution: see Organisers & Supporters

Programme of study: International Research Workshop

Lecturer: Jonathan Mole (Europa-Universität Flensburg)

Date: Monday, 11/09/17 – Wednesday, 13/09/17 (14.30 – 18.00 h)

Max. number of participants: 15

Credit Points: 5 CP for participating in the whole IRWS

Language of instruction: English

Contents:

Writing an academic text can be a daunting and complex task requiring the knowledge of a range of accepted writing conventions as well as the ability to construct sentences that are idiomatically and grammatically correct. This workshop is primarily aimed at people who are in the process of writing an academic text – a thesis, proposal, article etc. It provides the opportunity to obtain individual feedback on a text which you submit prior to the workshop. During the workshop, assistance will be given to enable you to self-correct any issues that have been highlighted (structure, understanding, logic, language etc.). In addition, or for those participants who are not in the writing process, exercises will be available dealing with a range of topics including: academic style (formality, impersonal and objective language, passive voice, caution, nominalisation); structure at sentence, paragraph and document level; reporting verbs and their forms; coherence and cohesion. Answers will be provided for all exercises as well as a range of potentially useful information, links, book recommendations etc.

Requirement of students: For those wishing to improve an existing academic text, please supply a maximum of 3 pages at least two weeks before the workshop begins. English language skills at CEFR level B2/C1 are required.

Recommended literature and pre-readings: None.

You have to register for the 11th International Research Workshop to participate in this course.