My research is situated at the intersection of economic and organizational sociology, the sociology of group processes, and analytical sociology. I prefer multi-method research designs, drawing on lab and field experiments, including randomized control trials, the collection of longitudinal sociometric field data, and the analysis of large-scale secondary data-sets. More specifically, together with my research group, my recent efforts concentrated on (the collection or analysis of) six types of data.
Intra-Organizational Network Data
The Longitudinal Intra-Organizational Network Study (LIONS) collected sociometric and attribute information on employees in seven organizations in the Netherlands and Germany, collected between 1995 and 2015. The number of waves varies between three and seven, covering periods from one and a half to three years. Sociometric information ranges from interpersonal communication, trust, and advice, to power, gossip, friendship and cooperation. The size of the units investigated ranges between 10 and 70. This dataset is among the very few that contain primary and comparative information on intra-organizational social networks over a longer time span. PhD-students contributing to the data collection were Birgit Pauksztat, Lea Ellwardt, Alona Labun, Timo Septer, Andre Grow, Timo Septer, and Tjeerd Zandberg.
Organizational and Employee Survey Data
The Management and Organizational Change Survey (MOVES) is a two-wave single respondent organizational telephone panel, conducted among 1200 private and 500 public organizations in the Netherlands in the years 2001 and 2003. Key topics addressed related to the incidence, type, and consequences of organizational change. This study still is one of the very view data sources providing systematic information on internal organizational processes in a sizeable sample of organizations.
The Time-Competition Survey used a multi-stage, multi-level research design. The employee survey collected information on work-life balance, time use and other individual and job characteristiscs of 1114 employees and their partners (if applicable) from 30 Dutch work organizations. The employer survey collected information from management of these organizations, concerning HRM-practices and governance.
The Humanitarian Employee Survey (HES), was collected by PhD-student Miranda Visser among a sample of n=149 expat staff of the Dutch branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). It is one of the first surveys of its kind in a population of humanitarian aid workers. It contains information on their characteristics, attitudes and perceptions concerning Human Resource Management practices and a variety of aspects of their jobs.
Personal Network Survey Data
The Chicago Health, Aging and Social Relations (CHASRS) study contains a population-based sample of 229 middle- and older-aged Caucasian, Black, and Hispanic men and women (50–68 years old, with a mean age of 57.4) who were followed for 5 years. Together with the principal investigator, John Cacioppo and his team, we analyze the personal network data in this study. Each respondent could nominate up to 16 contacts. Each contact could belong to one or more of 13 relational categories or roles.
The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA), assesses personal networks of a nationally representative sample of older adults aged 55–85 years at baseline, starting 1991. I currently work on both datasets together with Nardi Steverink, Christian Steglich, and Lea Ellwardt.
Population Survey Data
Several projects in the research line use high-quality large-scale cross-national datasets, including the European Social Survey (ESS), SHARE, Lifelines, and census data (Statistics Indonesia).
Laboratory and Field Experiments
Three PhD-projects (of which one ongoing) in the research line carry out lab experiments on cooperative behavior in social dilemma situations. One PhD-project implemented a cluster randomized control trial in two organizations, investigating the effectiveness of a personal growth training intervention.
Content Coded Data
An ongoing PhD-project created a dataset of n=200 corruption cases involving public officials in Indonesia. The data was coded from reports in the Jakarta Post, and contains the reported networks of corruption for each case.
In another recently completed study, carried out together with Roel Popping, a sample of Dutch parliamentary motions was coded to model how the severity of the underlying cooperation problems affects the likelihood of success during the voting phase.