Call for Applications

Presenters/Facilitators:

Elanor Colleoni, IULM University, Italy
Michael Etter, King’s Business School, United Kingdom
Laura Illia, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Julien Jourdan, HEC Paris, France
Kisha Lashley, University of Virginia, USA
Davide Ravasi, UCL School of Management, United Kingdom

Purpose

The purpose of this, hosted by the EGOS Standing Working Group (SWG) 05 on Social Evaluations in Organization Studies, is to advance research methods on social evaluations, to ultimately contribute to this field of research. This PDW is opened to any scholar interested in social evaluations across levels and in diverse contexts. It will offer participants an opportunity to discuss and learn about methodological advancements in the field of social evaluations, to meet colleagues from this field and to receive individual feedback on current work in progress.
 
We will discuss some illustrative examples of research methods used in the field of social evaluations in the study of practices, individuals, organizations, and organizational categories, and discuss approaches for the analysis of organizational and institutional processes around social evaluations. We will draw participants’ attention to common challenges in research on social evaluations from different methodological perspectives and their alignment with social evaluations theory.
 
The first part of the workshop, which will be open to everyone with interest in social evaluations, starts with opening remarks by the PDW organizers, followed by four presentations that would cover particular research methods that can be used in the field of social evaluations. The second part is a paper development workshop and will be limited to those who submit their work for discussion and feedback with facilitators. The overall length of the workshop is four hours, including a coffee break of 30 minutes.
 

Part 1

We will have four presentations on core advances in research methods in the field of social evaluations.

1. The first presentation by Alex Bitektine will focus on experimental methods in social evaluations. Experimental methods are particularly adapted to explore micro-foundations of organizational and field evaluations (Haack et al., 2021).
2. The second presentation by Roy Suddaby presentation will focus on historical methods. Historical data provides opportunities for longitudinal analysis of how evaluations emerge and their dynamics over time (Rowlinson et al., 2014; Suddaby et al., 2017).
3. The third presentation by Kisha Lashley presentation will focus on ethnographic methods and in particular observation. Ethnographic methods are particularly useful to understand the lived experiences of organizations and individuals with regards to social evaluations (Lashley & Pollock, 2020; Roulet, 2020).
4. The fourth presentation by Laura Illia will focus on the use of social media data with methods such as the sentiment analysis (Etter et al., 2018), semantic network analysis (Illia et al., 2016) and structural topic modeling (Roberts et al., 2016). In the past decades, social media has become one of the most important tools for the formation and management of social evaluations (Illia et al., 2022).

Each of these presentations will be interactive, with ample time for questions, answers, and discussion.
 

Part 2

The second part of the workshop consists of a paper development workshop. Work in progress as well as project ideas will be exchanged in roundtable discussions around similar methods. Each roundtable will be led by a facilitator. We explicitly welcome the submission of project ideas (no paper required). The workshop ends with a general discussion on the potential prospects and pitfalls of research on social evaluations in organization studies.
 

Application

All scholars interested in exploring social evaluations of individuals, organizations, and organizational categories are invited to apply. However, preference will be given to PhD students/early career scholars. To be considered as an early-career scholar, the applicant needs to have completed his/her doctoral/PhD thesis within the last three years. Attendance of the workshop is limited to 12 participants. Criteria for selection are originality and relevance of the proposal.
 
Please submit – via the EGOS website – by April 30, 2022 a single document of application (.docx or .pdf file) that includes:

• On the first page: a short letter of application containing full details of name, address (postal address, phone and email), affiliation (date of PhD completion for early career scholars), and a statement of why you consider it valuable to attend this PDW;

• A CV;

• A two-page proposal of the project idea outlining the research question and its relevance. The proposal should also motivate the choice of a particular method to answer the research question and specify the dependent and independent variable(s), where applicable. Note: the empirical research can be carried out after the PDW. The purpose of the roundtable session is to discuss work in progress as well as project ideas, not fully-developed papers.
   

References

• Etter, M., Colleoni, E., Illia, L., Meggiorin, K., & D’Eugenio, A. (2018): “Measuring organizational legitimacy in social media: Assessing citizens’ judgments with sentiment analysis.” Business & Society, 57 (1), 60–97.
• Haack, P., Schilke, O., & Zucker, L. (2021): “Legitimacy revisited: disentangling propriety, validity, and consensus.” Journal of Management Studies, 58 (3), 749–781.
• Illia, L., Bantimaroudis, P., & Meggiorin, K. (2016): “Corporate Agenda Setting at the Third Level: Comparing Networks of Attributes in Corporate Press Releases and Media Coverage.” In: L. Guo & M. McCombs: The Power of Information Networks: New Directions for Agenda Setting. New York: Routledge.
• Illia, L., Colleoni, E., Etter, M., Meggiorin, K. (2022): “Finding the Tipping Point: When Heterogeneous Evaluations in Social Media Converge and Influence Organizational Legitimacy.” Business & Society, first published online on February 2, 2022; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00076503211073516
• Lashley, K., & Pollock, T.G. (2020): “Waiting to inhale: Reducing stigma in the medical cannabis industry.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 65 (2), 434–482.
• Roberts, M.E., Stewart, B.M., & Tingley, D. (2016): “Navigating the Local Modes of Big Data: The Case of Topic Models.” In: Data Analytics in Social Science, Government, and Industry. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Roulet, T. (2020): The Power of Being Divisive: Understanding Negative Social Evaluations. Standord, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Rowlinson, M., Hassard, J., & Decker, S. (2014): “Research strategies for organizational history: A dialogue between historical theory and organization theory.” Academy of Management Review, 39 (3), 250–274.
• Suddaby, R., Bitektine, A., & Haack, P. (2017): “Legitimacy.” Academy of Management Annals, 11 (1), 451–478.
• Vergne, J.P. (2011): “Toward a new measure of organizational legitimacy: Method, validation, and illustration.” Organizational Research Methods, 14 (3), 484–502.
• Wang, T., Wezel, F.C., & Forgues, B. (2016): “Protecting market identity: When and how do organizations respond to consumers’ devaluations?” Academy of Management Journal, 59 (1), 135–162.

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