Jacqueline Ng successfully defends dissertation on how teams form and what they need to perform

Jackie successfully defended her dissertation titled “Teams and Organizing in the Digital Age:  How Team Networks Form and Why They Perform”.  Her research explores the relationship between how teams form and what they need to perform, highlighting a paradox between what teams do and what they ought to do.  Her committee consisted of Noshir Contractor (Chair), Jeanne Brett, Leslie DeChurch, Seyed Iravani, and Brian Uzzi.

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SONIC Speaker Series welcomes Prasad Balkundi in April 2018

Despite a resurgence of research on negative ties in social networks, a comprehensive understanding of negative and positive has yet to be provided. Incorporating evidence from prior 163 independent samples we examine whether the initiation of positive and negative relationships (i.e., out-degree) or the reception of positive and negative relationships (i.e., in-degree) is more impactful to the focal employee’s effectiveness. Furthermore, to address the negative asymmetry hypothesis in social networks, we compare the relative importance of positive versus negative work relationships while holding the directionality constant. This meta-analytic review makes five contributions to theory on negative and positive social networks by (a) demonstrating the undermining impact of negative ties on performance and job attitudes; (b) providing information on the negative asymmetry hypothesis within social networks to reveal that negative ties occur less frequently than positive ties and that any asymmetry effects depend on the relative number of negative ties to positive ties in the context; (d) distinguishing between haters (senders of negative ties) and jerks (receivers of negative ties) to illustrate that haters have worse job attitudes than jerks, but the two do not differ on performance; and (e) providing positive and negative affect as antecedents to negative ties. Implications of these findings along with study limitations and future research directions are discussed.​

The full video of Prasad’s presentation can be found here.

 

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Noshir Contractor participates in the induction of IIT Madras’ Robert Bosch Center for Data Science & Artificial Intelligence

On April 25th 2018, Noshir Contractor participated in ceremonies to induct IIT Madras’ Robert Bosch Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence as the first member of the Web Science Trust Network (WSTNet) of laboratories from India. https://rbc-dsai.iitm.ac.in/events/2018/04/25/Launch-Webscience-trust-network.html

 

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Noshir Contractor presents “Deep Space Teamwork” at CommFest 2018

Are we really going to Mars? The astronautical community certainly believes the answer is “yes.” Scientists all over the world are solving puzzles related to rocket reusability, human resistance to radiation exposure, and terraforming Mars to warm it up and give it a breathable atmosphere. The scientific challenges of a Mars mission are not confined to physical science and engineering. Once the rockets are built and tested, we will ultimately be sending human teams off to explore the galaxy. A central mission parameter for deep space exploration is teamwork. Communication Studies Professors Leslie DeChurch and Noshir Contractor are working with NASA to assemble and support inter-planetary dream teams. In this session, we will share the current plans for space travel and colonization, provide a behind the scenes look at how we are designing teams, and help you design dream teams back on Earth.

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SONIC attends and presents at SIOP 2018

SONIC members present various projects throughout SIOP 2018:

April 19th, Thursday
5:00 – 6:00 pm, Room Chicago 7 – Panel Symposium

Life in the Network: From People Analytics to Relational Analytics

Prasad Balkundi, Ron Burt, Noshir Contractor, Paul Leonardi, Tracey Rizzuto, Jacqueline Ng

April 20, Friday
5:00 – 5:50 pm, Room Chicago 10, Session M – Symposium

Symposium: Qualitative Perspectives on 21st Century Teams

“A Qualitative Examination of Informal Leadership Emergence in Space Teams”

Lindsay Larson & Leslie DeChurch

7:45 – 10:00 pm, Grand Ballroom

SIOP Shaken & Stirred: “What’s the Big Idea?” A Special Evening Event for the I/O Psychology Community

Leslie DeChurch

April 21, Saturday
10:00 -10:50 am, Riverwalk A – Poster Session

The Language of Leaders: Semantic Indicators of Informal Leader Emergence”

Zachary M. Gibson, Dorothy R. Carter, Leslie A. DeChurch

12:30 PM – 1:20 PM in Room Huron, Session Q – IGNITE

“A Question of Time: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Team Dynamics”

Noshir S. Contractor, Leslie DeChurch, Suzanne T. Bell, Jeff Olenick, Christopher Dishop, Wendy Bedwell, Shawn Burke, Brennan Antone, & Ashley Niler

1:30 PM to 2:20 PM, Room Riverwalk A – Poster Session

“Information Sharing in Online Teams: How Interventions Improve Information Processing”

Jacqueline Ng, Leslie DeChurch, and Noshir Contractor

“Inviting Your Next Teammate: Algorithms & Acquaintances”

Marlon Twyman, Daniel Newman, Leslie DeChurch, and Noshir Contractor

Working Alone & Together: Understanding the Factors that Affect Work Transitions”

Ashley A. Niler, Jessica R. Mesmer-Magnus, Leslie A. DeChurch, and Noshir S. Contractor

“Development and Validation of a Team Information Sharing Assessment Battery”

Ilya Gokhman; Gabriel K. Plummer; Leslie A. DeChurch; Melissa Vazquez; Suzanne T. Bell; Noshir Contractor

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Noshir Contractor presents at the Institute for Policy Research Colloquium

Noshir Contractor presented on “Leveraging Computational Social Science to Address Grand Societal Challenges” on April 16, 2018.

The increased access to big data about social phenomena in general, and network data in particular, has been a windfall for social scientists. But these exciting opportunities must be accompanied with careful reflection on how big data can motivate new theories and methods. Using examples of his research in areas of disaster response, global health, scientific collaboration, and the mission to Mars, Contractor will argue that computational social science serves as the foundation to unleash the intellectual insights locked in big data. More importantly, he will illustrate how these insights offer social scientists in general, and social network scholars in particular, an unprecedented opportunity to engage more actively in monitoring, anticipating, and designing interventions to address grand societal challenges.

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Students’ social interactions and daily routines to make predictions about freshman retention

Sudha Ram’s Smart Campus research tracks students’ social interactions and daily routines via their CatCard usage — and leverages that information to make predictions about freshman retention. The goal of Ram’s Smart Campus research is to help educational institutions repurpose the data already being captured from student ID cards to identify those most at risk for not returning after their first year of college. Ram found that social integration and routine were stronger predictors than end-of-term grades, which is one of the more traditionally used predictors of freshman retention in higher education.
Read the article here.
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