Peter Groenewegen

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Social responsibilities of businesses and their managers have been discussed since the 1950s. Yet no consensus about progress has been achieved in the corporate social responsibility/corporate social performance literature. In this article, we seek to analyze three views on this literature. One view is that development occurred from conceptual vagu...

Our paper examines the relationship between managerial control and research performance of academic groups. An understanding of the determinants of research performance is a prerequisite for designing effective micro- and macro-research policies. The paper focuses on Dutch medical and health research groups. Our paper addresses the following questi...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to show that an important antecedent of perceived knowledge quality is an employee’s position in the organizational network due to their participation in different interest groups. In particular, this study theorizes that brokers establish a network of groups, which increases perceived knowledge quality vis-a-vi...

Aims To identify crucial programme characteristics and group mechanisms of, and lessons learned from hindrances in an empowerment programme for certified nursing assistants and contribute to the development of similar programmes in other care settings. Design Exploratory qualitative study. Methods Between May 2017 and September 2020, we used in‐d...

The principles of international humanitarian law (IHL) have evoked considerable debate in the practice of humanitarian support, particularly in terms of emerging tensions with sovereign (national) law. Drawing on organization studies, we examine the emergent strategies aimed at resolving the ambiguous legal context in which humanitarian support ope...

Strengthening sustainability in global supply chains requires producers, buyers, and nonprofit organizations to collaborate in transformative cross-sector partnerships (CSPs). However, the role played by nature in such partnerships has been left largely unattended in literature on CSPs. This article shows how strategizing nature helps CSPs reach th...

A major challenge for disaster scholars and policymakers is to understand the power dimension in response networks, particularly relating to collaboration and coordination. We propose a conceptual framework to study interests and negotiations in and between various civic and professional, response networks drawing on the concepts of “programming” a...

In this paper we hypothesise about the role of bridging members – people who connect otherwise unconnected online groups – on an enterprise social network (ESN) and in what manner their role affects their group’s knowledge expansion. Analysing data from an ESN of a Dutch health insurance company, we show how online groups can benefit from their bri...

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have deployed various strategies in motivating businesses to source sustainably, such as the co-development and promotion of sustainability certification and direct collaboration in cross-sector partnerships (CSPs). This is an important current-day priority, given the ambitions set out in the Sustainable Development G...

Introducing and implementing corporate sustainability poses many challenges to business organizations. In this longitudinal, inductive study, we focus on how such challenges are handled in a Dutch bank that is developing its sustainability policies. We examine why there is such a high degree of tension and conflict within the organization and ident...

In times of crises or disaster, the response capacity of public authorities is put under extreme pressure. In contrast, citizens are resilient in times of crises and are increasingly organizing themselves. The new possibilities offered by social media and online platforms have the potential for citizen self-organization. In practice, we see that go...

An emergency response organization is resilient when it learns from and is well equipped to handle (potential) risks and hazards. In this paper, we will address the organizational resilience fit for Dutch emergency response organizations (safety regions) in relation to various types of crisis. The approach presented in this paper is based on a quan...

In this paper, we present a quick overview of six types of resilience to present a minimalistic sketch of the resilience 'landscape' and show the definitions for resilience originally have a mechanistic point of view (bounce back after disaster has struck). This is in contrast to the present day approach, where adaptive learning capabilities embedd...

In this paper, we present a quick overview of six types of resilience to present a minimalistic sketch of the resilience 'landscape' and show the definitions for resilience originally have a mechanistic point of view (bounce back after disaster has struck). This is in contrast to the present day approach, where adaptive learning capabilities embedd...

In this paper, we study conveners' work in establishing change towards sustainability through cross‐sector social partnerships (CSSPs). Applying a paradox lens, we offer a new perspective on tensions in CSSPs: These are not hurdles or challenges to overcome in order to reach success but endure throughout the entire CSSP process. This insight change...

Coordination theories are characterized primarily by a focus on integration, in which coordination is aimed at achieving a coherent and unified set of actions. However, in the extreme settings in which fast-response organizations operate, achieving integration is often challenging. In this study we employ a fragmentation perspective to show that de...

We focus attention on the public policy-making influence of frontline bureaucrats. They are increasingly operating in interorganizational partnerships and networks in which they develop collaborative relations with frontline workers of other public organizations. We theorize that their embeddedness in local interorganizational environments induces...

The role of online platforms in self-organization during disasters During a disaster or crisis, the response capacity of the government is put under extreme pressure. At the same time, citizens are often resilient in times of crisis and are increasingly capable of organizing themselves. Social media and online platforms have increased the possibili...

When a policy sector is confronted with a relatively strong and steep decline in legitimacy, we speak of an institutional crisis. We know little about the causes or consequences of these crises. This article explores how institutional crises are managed. It focuses on the effects of management strategies observed in a case study of an institutional...

The emergence of a shared attitude in organizations can be regarded as a self-organizing complex process in which a majority attitude emerges from the ensemble of interactions among individuals. Almost by definition, emerging processes seem beyond the control of management, which is in conflict with the task of management to steer an organization....

The present study develops our understanding of the micro-level dynamics of decoupling by addressing how and why various occupational groups, that is, managers and professionals, are involved in decoupling in response to institutional complexity. Our conceptualization of occupational groups’ involvement in decoupling emerges from an in-depth qualit...

In this essay, we argue that understanding of meaning in relation to organizational networks warrants a more prominent place in organizational theorizing, because it fulfils a distinct role in the emergence and evolution of networks. Whereas prior studies have tended to address network structures or narrative structures, we suggest that organizatio...

In this paper we show how the social network position of bridging members between online groups within an enterprise social network (ESN) affect the group's effectiveness. Bridging members connect otherwise unconnected online groups. They voluntarily participate in multiple online groups by posting messages and replying to others. We show how these...

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been placed at the core of regional innovation ecosystems and encouraged to contribute to the social and economic development of the communities where they operate. In response to this change in the environment, HEIs have faced the need to adapt their organisational culture, practices and structures. In spi...

Recently, crisis response organizations are adopting a networked communication structure, as a means to connect different sources of crisis information and enable a more effective crisis response. However, this change has introduced legal complications that so far remain unaddressed, for instance regarding the exchange of privacy-sensitive informat...

The concept of an institutional field is one of the cornerstones of institutional theory, and yet the concept has been stretched both theoretically and empirically, making consolidation of findings across multiple studies more difficult. In this article, we review the literature and analyze empirical studies of institutional fields to build scaffol...

Existing research comparing error management (a strategy focusing on increasing the positive and decreasing the negative consequences of errors) to error prevention (a strategy focusing on working faultlessly), has identified error management as beneficial for multiple outcomes. Yet, due to various methodological limitations, it is unclear whether...

In this study, we analyze how time pressure affects coordination between temporary projects and permanent organizations involved in public infrastructure projects. Prior research has shown that time pressure can yield both benefits and challenges to the realization of projects. Unraveling the challenges, we identify three interrelating factors that...

The present study of an infrastructure project shows how anxiety of repeated organizational failure instigates stronger stakeholder control. This control frustrated the project organization’s efforts to gain trustworthiness, hampering project completion. The study also shows how the public demonstration of stakeholder control was used to curb r...

In the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes in Nepal, a large scale humanitarian response was launched. We studied the response operation four weeks after the last quake, using participant observations and interviews. Our findings indicate that the response operation was characterized by two faces: control and collaboration. These are rooted in...

This article presents a bibliographical overview of social network research in and between organizations. Social networks form a core topic in the study of organizational and inter-organizational processes. Social network research often focuses on individual level networks, analyzing and theorizing the relations and structures around single actors...

The aim of this paper is to critically explore whether crowdsourced Big Data enables an inclusive humanitarian response at times of crisis. We argue that all data, including Big Data, are socially constructed artefacts that reflect the contexts and processes of their creation. To support our argument, we qualitatively analysed the process of ‘Big D...

Over the last decade, the disaster response landscape is increasingly complemented by voluntary citizen initiatives on digital platforms. These developments have opened up opportunities for response agencies and NGOs to organize local community involvement. In this paper we focus on the question how citizen involvement can be proactively organized...

Objective: to investigate how pregnant women deal with conflicting advice from their social networks and their caregivers and how this influenced their pregnancy-related behaviours. Design and methods: a qualitative study based on face-to-face interviews and focus-groups. We applied an inductive analysis technique closely following the 'Gioia me...

In this study, we seek to understand to what extent epistemic proximity affects knowledge exchange among Amsterdam-based IT-entrepreneurs. Epistemic proximity is defined as the extent to which two people share a similar world view enhanced by shared meanings and language. We explore the influence of epistemic proximity on knowledge exchange both co...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore sensemaking of incidents by health care professionals through an analysis of the role of professional identity in narratives of incidents. Using insights from social identity theory, the authors argue that incidents may create a threat of professional identity, and that professionals make use of ide...

Background/purpose Convenient access to vast and untapped collections of documents generated by organizations is a highly valuable resource for research. These documents (e.g., press releases) are a window into organizational strategies, communication patterns, and organizational behavior. However, the analysis of large document corpora requires ap...

In ageing societies, policy makers aim for more contact between informal and formal care-givers as it may enhance the quality of care. So far, the linkage between formal and informal care-givers is generally studied from a one-sided or a single dyadic perspective, without taking into account that care networks of community-dwelling older adults oft...

This article develops a process model of boundary work during integrated strategy making. It demonstrates how micro practices of boundary work are an essential part of strategy making in complex organizational forms. We attend to how managers make sense of, enact, and (re)create boundaries in strategic collaborations, which extant research has negl...

This study explores the link between management characteristics of home care agencies and the involvement of informal caregiver in caregiving. Based on a study of policy documents of two agencies and semi-structured interviews with five team managers and 31 formal caregivers, we conclude that, although the importance of involving informal caregiver...

The recent financial crisis has been covered in newspapers with metaphors such as toxic assets and toxic loans. Although these groups of related metaphors (i.e., metaphor families) may strengthen the intended images on the topic under discussion, they have been only seldom studied in metaphor research. This article investigates the ways in which me...

Bibliometric studies often measure and compare scholarly performance, but they rarely investigate why universities, departments, and research groups do have different performance. In this paper we try to explain differences in scholarly performance of research groups in terms of organizational variables. In order to do this, we extensively review t...

In organization and management theory coordination is primarily characterized by integration. A tautology is concealed in this approach: coordination is simultaneously the diagnosis of the problem and the way forward to resolve it. Yet, already for several decades empirical studies in crisis management showed that fragmentation is a prevailing phen...

Despite an increasing focus on micro-level responses to institutional complexity, knowledge about how different institutional logics are enacted in day-to-day practices is limited, as is our understanding of how differences between responses are resolved. We aim to advance our understanding by studying how members of hierarchically related occupati...

Convenient access to vast and untapped collections of documents generated by organizations is a valuable resource for research. These documents (e.g., press releases, reports, speech transcriptions, etc.) are a window into organizational strategies, communication patterns, and organizational behavior. However, the analysis of such large document co...

This paper explores the role of social identity threat in risk discourse in an infrastructure project, and the consequences risk discourse has for cooperation between stakeholders. We show that risks posed a threat to the identity of the project team, resulting in a discourse focused on attributing responsibility for risks to outsiders and that pol...

All people make errors, but how people think and perform after errors is theorized to be affected by the way errors are framed. The literature differentiates between two error-handling strategies: error prevention, which focuses on removing all errors, and error management, which focuses on catching errors, learning from them, and minimizing their...

In this paper we show that posting behavior of members who are active in two online groups on ESNs is influenced by the total number of members who are active in both groups. Knowledge intensive organizations increasingly use enterprise social networks (ESNs), online platforms for knowledge dissemination through online posts. In these networks, peo...

Online communities have become cornerstones of how work gets done in the 21st century. While being considered as a way to access a global workforce and often praised for their resources and open collaboration, there is not much consensus on how knowledge-intensive online communities actually “work”. In this paper, we develop a theory of the “social...

This paper addresses cross-boundary coordination in a multiparty collaboration. So far, collaboration among among multiple dispersed parties has received scant attention in research on cross-boundary coordination. Building on this gap, this study analyzes an extreme case of inter-organizational collaboration between four geographically dispersed gr...

The literature emphasizes the importance of ensuring that measures developed at the organizational level are transferable to the individual level. This is important not only for effective technology and knowledge transfer in general, but also and especially for university–industry linkages. This study reflects on support mechanisms identified by pr...

Online communities form a challenging and still-evolving field for social network research. We highlight two themes that are at the core of social network literature: formative processes and structures, and discuss how these might be relevant in the context of online communities. Processes of tie formation might evolve differently in online communi...

People working on a task can make errors along the way. How people deal with an error, however, depends on the type of error approach they apply. One approach, error management, focuses on increasing the positive and decreasing the negative consequences of errors. A second approach, error prevention, focuses on working faultlessly. In two experimen...

Perinatal morbidity rates are relatively high in the Netherlands, and significant inequalities in perinatal morbidity and mortality can be found across neighborhoods. In socioeconomically deprived areas, 'Western' women are particularly at risk for adverse birth outcomes. Almost all studies to date have explained the disparities in terms of individ...

Large-scale safety and security incidents typically require the coordinated effort of multiple organisations. A networked organisation is generally seen as the most appropriate structure for coordination within safety and security collaborations. Such networks generally are mixed-sector networks in the sense that the strategic orientations of the c...

Coordination between the autonomous professional groups in midwifery and obstetrics is a key debate in the Netherlands. At the same time, it remains unclear what the current coordination challenges are. To examine coordination challenges that might present a barrier to delivering optimal care, we conducted a qualitative field study focusing on midw...

Online occupational communities are a rapidly growing phenomenon and will become increasingly important to firms in the future. This growth has been mirrored by scientific innovations: major advances have been made with regard to technology, software development and statistical modeling. However, we are often left with only partial information: alt...

In two studies we investigate whether leaders' error approach affects trust by followers and whether this effect is mediated by a leader’s perceived sociability, morality, and competence. Study 1 was an experiment (N = 73) in which we manipulated leaders' error approach (error management vs. control vs. error aversion) and measured its effects on l...

How does online community participation affect processes of entrepreneurship? Based on an extensive case study of an online community of cake decorators, we shed light on how online community participation influences core processes of entrepreneurship, typically portrayed as consisting of opportunity recognition, preparation (including resource bui...

In this paper, we examine the question of how participants in online communities enact organising structures. We conduct an empirical study based on interpretative and quantitative data and analysis, and argue that communicative genres fulfil the role of intangible organising structures in online communities. These structures are important in the a...

We explored whether a mechanistic or organic structure of home care organizations and their view on informal caregivers are reflected in, respectively, the composition and functioning of mixed care networks of community-dwelling older adults. Two home care organizations were selected: one with a more mechanistic structure, and one with an organic o...

Background Relatively high perinatal mortality rates have led to a critical assessment of the organization of care in The Netherlands. Policy recommendations emphasize the need for improved coordination between community midwives and obstetric caregivers in hospitals. As such, coordination between the autonomous professional groups in midwifery a...

Timely and adequate communication is essential for the response to emergency situations. The current vision on emergency response embraces the networked organization as an answer to the dilemmas of communication and information flows in crisis situations. With stabilization of the network paradigm, the focus question turns into how networks are per...

Relatively high perinatal mortality rates in the Netherlands have required a critical assessment of the national obstetric system. Policy evaluations emphasized the need for organizational improvement, in particular closer collaboration between community midwives and obstetric caregivers in hospitals. The leveled care system that is currently in pl...

Studies on social networks have proved that endogenous and exogenous factors influence dynamics. Two streams of modeling exist on explaining the dynamics of social networks: 1) models predicting links through network properties, and 2) models considering the effects of social attributes. In this interdisciplinary study we work to overcome a number...

In this article, we examine the patterns of behavior of online community members. We develop a list of measurable markers of behavior, drawing on online behavior and social network literature, and show how to construct the markers from the hidden relationship data in online communities. We then conduct an exploratory analysis of an online community...

The purpose of this article is to empirically analyze how different forms of proximity influence interactive learning and ease of knowledge transfer among entrepreneurs, in order to advance the knowledge-based theory of clusters. Ego-network data lead us to reconsider the role of geographical proximity as main catalyst by adding other forms of prox...

This case is about the re-organization of the Dutch emergency response sector. It involves the diffusion and implementation of new communication and information technologies (ICTs), the introduction of safety regions and the establishment of co-located emergency response rooms (ERRs). The challenge for those organizations is to introduce the new te...

During the last decades there has been a lot of attention to issues of safety, emergency response and crisis management. Emergency response rooms (ERRs) are interesting public sector organizational arrangements in this respect. In our paper we pay attention to emergency response rooms in the Netherlands and especially in Amsterdam. Using an ethnogr...

This paper considers STS aspirations to engage with the field of Organization and Management Studies (OMS). It does so by investigating the employability of the concept of boundary object in OMS. Through an extensive literature review, the paper shows that rather than a simple engagement between STS and OMS the relation between the two consists of...

Recent theorizing in cluster literature emphasizes the importance of inter-cluster knowledge linkages in addition to local knowledge dynamics, enabling new and innovative ideas to flow from one cluster to the other. This paper contributes to this topic by studying inter-cluster knowledge linkages at an individual level of analysis, making use of qu...

In this article we have tried to establish how the nature of professional routines affects the ICT supported standardization and scripting of work performed by operators in Dutch colocated emergency response control rooms. In this type of multidisciplinary emergency control room three professions - police, fire rescue services and ambulance service...

The implementation of GMS (Integrated Emergency room System) in the Netherlands has had a tumultuous record. A direct consequence of the governmental decision to hand over the empty basic system to the emergency rooms is that a large deviation in local systems emerged. A case study in one of these emergency rooms explains the consequences of this a...

This chapter is about the introduction and use of the communication tool C2000 and the Integrated Emergency center System (GMS) at the emergency center 'Hollands Midden' in the Dutch city of Leiden. 'Hollands Midden' is a co-located emergency center that physically houses the police, medical and fire brigades' emergency center personnel at one site...

Increasing demands for accountability and applicability raise the question of how organizational factors affect researchers' performance and career choices. In a study of Dutch medical Ph.D. student's experiences, organizational culture and climate and attitudes towards research quality are related to performance and career choices. Ph.D.s who chos...

Recent theorizing in cluster literature emphasizes the importance of inter-cluster knowledge linkages in addition to local knowledge dynamics, enabling new and innovative ideas to flow from one cluster to the other. This paper contributes to this topic by studying inter-cluster knowledge linkages at an individual level of analysis, making use of qu...

IntroductionAre environmental problems of pesticides still an issue?A framework for analysis: production, innovation, institutionsSummary of chapter coverage