Finalist for the SMS Best Interdisciplinary Paper Award 2021

The Strategic Human Capital Interest Group of the Strategic Management Society selected our paper Who steps up after a merger? A social network perspective on post-merger taking charge behavior as one of the finalists for its Best Interdisciplinary Paper Award 2021. I wrote the paper with Lotte Glaser and Justin Jansen of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

The paper looks at who takes the initiative to improve how work is done after two organizations merge. Employees who span the boundary between the two former organizations take charge less often, while employees close to such boundary spanners take charge more often, especially when they identify weakly with the new organization.

The interest group chose the winner from the full papers of the finalists. The award went to another paper, and the group named the finalists in its newsletter and at its business meeting. I presented the paper at the virtual SMS Annual Meeting on 19 September 2021, in the session Social Network Perspective of Strategic Human Capital.