Article Recognized as 2016 Outstanding Group & Organization Management Paper

Our article "Relational enhancement: How the relational dimension of social capital unlocks the value of network-bridging ties" co-authored with Daniel Levin (Rutgers University), Melissa Appleyard (Portland State University), & Rob Cross (University of Virginia) has been recognized as a 2016 Outstanding Group & Organization Management (GOM) Paper and nominated for a "Best GOM Paper" Award by the GOM Editorial Team.

According to the editor, our paper "exemplifies high quality research that is both informative and engaging and hence makes important contributions to the study and practice of management."

Click here to access our paper.

Incoming Associate Editor at Journal of Management

Just accepted the incoming Editor David Allen's invitation to join his team as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Management!

Coming full circle more than a decade after having my very first paper published in that journal...

New Article Forthcoming in Journal of Management

New article forthcoming in Journal of Management:

Experiential Learning, Bargaining Power, and Exclusivity in Technology Licensing

Theodore A. Khoury*, Erin G. Pleggenkuhle-Miles**, Jorge Walter***

* Portland State University, **University of Nebraska Omaha, ***The George Washington University

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

...from the Walter family!

Elected to Leadership Position at SMS Strategy Process IG

Thanks to the members of the Strategy Process Interest Group (IG) of the Strategic Management Society (SMS) for electing me as the incoming Associate Program Chair! This is a three-year rotation leading to Program Chair (in 2018) and IG Chair (in 2019). I look forward to working in this capacity with Nacho & Dries and the other SMS Officers.

For more information on the Strategy Process IG, click here.

Joined the Journal of Management Studies Editorial Board

I gladly accepted an invitation by the editor of the Journal of Management Studies, Prof. Dries Faems, to join the editorial board of the journal.

Please check JOM's website for more information.

Back to School 2016!

So proud of you guys and all the best for your new school year!

2016 Academy of Management Annual Meeting

This year's Academy of Management Annual Meeting took place from August 5-9 in Anaheim, CA, where we presented our paper:

which was also included in the MOC Best Paper Proceedings.

I further received the Above and Beyond the Call of Duty (ABCD) Award of the Organization and Management Theory Division.

For more information, check the AOM Website.

End of Swim Season 2016

So proud of our two swimmers who just finished their 2016 season--Max as the youngest Stingray and Sophia as a 2016 Colonial Swimming League All Star (for Breast Stroke and Individual Medley)!

New Article Forthcoming in Strategy Science

New article conditionally accepted in Strategy Science:

Formal and informal controls as complements or substitutes? The role of the task environment

Markus Kreutzer*, Laura B. Cardinal**, Jorge Walter***, & Christoph Lechner****

* European Business School, **University of South Carolina, ***The George Washington University, **** University of St. Gallen

SMS Meeting in Rome

Just attended the Strategic Management Society Meeting in Rome to plan the upcoming conference in Berlin as an Executive Discoveries Series Coordinator. Thanks to Niko Pelka from SMS for this great opportunity to be involved in putting together the program for an SMS Annual International Conference!

Paper included in AOM Best Paper Proceedings

A new research project I'm involved in will be included in the Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management Meeting, this time for the 2016 Meeting in Anaheim, CA:

Before they were ties: Predicting the value of brand-new connections

Daniel Z. Levin*, Jorge Walter**, & J. Keith Murnighan***

* Rutgers University, ** The George Washington University, *** Northwestern University

The vast majority of research on the value of social or professional relationships has focused on ties that already exist. We ask if it is possible to predict in advance—before people ever meet—which brand-new ties will yield more value in the form of useful work-related knowledge. We examine this question using three perspectives: the resource (actor) perspective, the relational (tie) perspective, and the network (structure) perspective. To test our predictions, we asked 150 executives to reach out for work-related advice from someone they had never met, and to complete a survey of their thoughts and judgments of the other person both before and after making a connection. Controlling for the effects of homophily, we find support for all three perspectives after a connection has been made, i.e., once there is already an existing tie. However, before tie formation—our focus in this paper—we find evidence only for the network perspective, in the form of either bonding or bridging. Our results suggest that the lack of reliable information about strangers—especially their likely relational or resource qualities—makes it difficult to predict which ties will turn out to be more valuable, but that an existing network structure remains a reliable predictor of value, even for brand-new ties.

Keywords: Social networks, social capital, new ties, tie formation, knowledge transfer, advice seeking

For a copy of this paper, please contact me directly.

Happy Easter!

...from the Walter family!

Odyssey of the Mind

Our team scored 3rd place in their division in this year's Odyssey of the Mind tournament!

Congratulations to our team! All your hard work over the last few months really paid off!

Nominated for Peter B. Vaill Outstanding Doctoral Educator Award

I have just received notice from the GWSB Doctoral Student Association that I have been nominated for this year's Peter B. Vaill Outstanding Doctoral Educator Award!

This represents my fourth nomination in the six years I've been here at GW (including winning this award in 2014). Thanks to our doctoral students for nominating me again!

New Article Published in MIT Sloan Management Review

Happy to share that our new article on reconnecting dormant ties has just appeared in MIT Sloan Management Review.

While our previous research has found that rekindling dormant professional relationships can offer tremendous career benefits to executives, our new study shows that some reconnections are more beneficial than others — and that executives often don’t select the best reconnection choices.

In particular, reconnecting with long-lost or dormant contacts can be very valuable — both professionally and personally. But choosing from among hundreds of former contacts can be challenging. We find that executives, when left to their own devices, don’t take full advantage of their opportunities to reconnect. And when they do reconnect, they tend to focus on comfort and not on re-connections that might offer the best advice.

To get the most out of reconnecting, however, you have to seek out former contacts who are likely to engage with you and to provide you with novelty. To achieve more novelty, this may mean going outside your usual comfort zone and reaching out to higher-status people or to people you didn’t know very well to begin with. But these are exactly the kinds of reconnections that can best point you in a new direction, tell you something you don’t already know, and help you make the most of dormant connections in your network.

Read the full article here.

Ave Tucker Fellowship

Thrilled to share that I have recently been awarded a two-year Ave Tucker Fellowship at George Washington University's School of Business.

Named after George Washington University's Board of Trustee member Avram S. Tucker, this fellowship recognizes faculty members who "displayed good teaching performance, as well as recent scholarly productivity, prospects for continued publications in top outlets, and records of research leadership and mentoring of junior scholars."

Thanks to the Executive Committee for bestowing this great honor on me!

Holidays in Colorado

Following an invitation from our friends who are spending their sabbatical in Frisco, CO, we spent the holidays skiing in the Colorado mountains.

Thanks to Jennifer & Jorge for making this unforgettable trip happen!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

...from the Walter Family!

2015 SMS Annual International Conference

This year's Strategic Management Society's Annual International Conference took place in Denver, CO, and Stefan Haefliger and I chaired a Professional Development Workshop titled "Innovation & network strategy junior faculty and paper development workshop."

For more information, check the SMS Website.

2015 Academy of Management Annual Meeting

This year's Academy of Management Annual Meeting took place from August 7-11 in Vancouver, BC, where I presented our paper:

For the second year in a row, I also received the Outstanding Reviewer Award for the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management.

For more information, check the AOM Website.

Research Talk at City University London

This week, I also accepted an invitation to present our paper "Antecedents and outcomes of peer control: A multi-level analysis" (co-authored with Markus & Karin Kreutzer) at Cass Business School, City University London.

Thanks to Stefan Haefliger for his kind invitation and for hosting me in this fantastic city, and to the Cass faculty members and doctoral students for their helpful comments on our paper.

EBS Offsite Doctoral Workshop

This week, I accepted Markus Kreutzer's kind invitation to join him and his colleagues for the European Business School's Annual Off-Site Doctoral Workshop at Kloster Johannisberg in the beautiful Rhine Valley.

Besides the inevitable sightseeing and wine tasting, I learned a lot about the impressive research the EBS doctoral students are conducting. So thanks for having me!