Rewiring the Intrafirm Network under Downsizing: The Role of Tie Loss on Discretionary Tie Formation

A recent publication in Long Range Planning brings to the fore the interesting phenomenon of network regeneration. Often we believe that networks of all sorts, formal, informal, and especially those that are voluntarily maintained, fall apart as an organization gets temporarily hammered by restructuring. Interestingly however, some employees actually become more active instead. Reaching out …

Resilience of information flow during restructuring: Characterizing information value being exchanged and the structure of a network under turmoil

Recent work of mine together with Prof. Wilfred Dolfsma of Wageningen University that appeared in Journal of Business Research addresses the role of sudden organization turmoil on a firms delicate social network. It demonstrates in particular how downsizing affects an organization’s voluntary ideation network in unexpected ways. Drawing on network theory, we show that the …

Beaufort Corporate Consulting en het Centre for Organization Restructuring verkennen het Nederlandse zorgdomein

Beaufort Corporate Consulting en het Centre for Organization Restructuring verkennen het  Nederlandse zorgdomein. Centraal thema: Gesprekken met bestuurders over vastgoed, efficiëntie en innovatie binnen de Nederlandse vvt-instelling  De Nederlandse zorg is uitstekend, maar heeft te maken met een grote uitdaging. De vraag naar goede zorg groeit, onder meer door vergrijzing, nieuwe behandelmogelijkheden en daarnaast hogere …

On Orchestras as creative cultural heritage

On Orchestras as creative cultural heritage. NWO (the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research) has allocated a KIEM grant to the project “Collaborative networks as a safety net in the performing arts: a network based approach to employment resilience in a struggling sector”, a research project initiated by Dr. Rick Aalbers (main applicant, Radboud) and Dr. …

Improving the value-of-input for ideation by management

A discretionary social network in a firm is where individual employees voluntarily share new, innovative knowledge – activities in this network are essential to firm innovation. These activities are far from simple, and often end in failure due to managerial misunderstanding. This failure may have to do with the fact that ideation is largely a …

INSOL Europe Academic Forum Annual Conference, Warsaw: Recent work on strategic bankruptcy

recently I presented some work on Strategic Restructuring at the INSOL Europe Academic Forum Annual Conference in Warsaw ( 4-5 October 2017 ). The work, that is a joint initiative with Leiden University’s Law School, reviews current strategic bankruptcy practice and reflects on alternative strategic modi to move forward given insolvency. With many growth aspiring firms …

The hidden dilemmas of a downsizing executioner

In  a forthcoming exploratory study on those directly tasked with the carrying out of a layoff event, we (Philippos Philippou of Treppides & Co and I) look into the personal dilemma’s faced by downsizing executioner’s. We explore how downsizing executioners, those carrying out a downsizing task, are affected in terms of perceived role stress and …

Strategic choice in inter-firm tech networks

Networks are certainly complex systems. Whom to pair up with for collaboration is a challenge already within the boundaries of a firm, let alone when looking beyond these boundaries, beyond geographical boundaries, beyond one’s own technology, all in the pursuit of the next chartbuster innovation. A recent study conducted together with Killian McCarthy (RuG) on …

Diversity in command

Corporate Boards that tap into a diversity of sources for information can be expected to make better decisions. Diversity in a team and a board can, however, also impede team performance, recent work we presented in Management Decision points out. Measuring the diversity of boards in four different ways, two of which are person-related (age …

Democratic decision making? When online platforms matter (and do not matter)

Based on our experience working with 30 companies in the United States and Europe, we recently concluded that some, but not all, types of decisions benefit from democratization. Enabled by enterprise social software (ESS), online corporate communities are shaking up the management world by revolutionizing many core organizational activities. Indeed, by creating new channels of …