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Professionals in higher education are expected to be informed consumers of knowledge who seek out scholarship, critical evaluators of the applicability of extant knowledge, and contributors who build new knowledge for higher education practice. Despite the understood importance of developing research competencies, many have limited opportunities to develop these skills. This study aims to explore one way individuals develop research competencies: through participation in team-based research experiences.

A longitudinal case study approach was used to investigate what participants in an education research group learn, and how their participation in the group changes the ways in which they think about themselves as researchers and scholars. Four group members participated in two focus group interviews (at the end of the fall 2015 and spring 2016 academic semesters). Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Study participants report gaining knowledge about research, developing an identity as a researcher, and learning about faculty roles. Particular group practices and activities (e.g. full group meetings, subgroup meetings, professional development moments) helped mediate members’ learning and identity development.

Research groups should be considered valuable contexts where teaching and learning take place. By learning – and integrating what we learn – from research group participation, the higher education and student affairs fields may become better able to generate innovative practices and activities that provide students and professionals with opportunities to develop important research competencies.

In some fields, research group experiences gained in laboratories are more influential than the classroom in shaping graduate students’ research abilities, understandings of post-graduate careers and professional identities. However, little is known about what and how students learn from their research group experiences. This paper aims to explore the learning experiences of engineering graduate students in one chemical engineering research group to determine what students learned and to identify the practices and activities that facilitated their learning.

Ethnography was used to observe the experiences of one research group in chemical engineering. Fieldwork included 13 months of observations, 31 formal interviews (16 first-round and 15 second-round interviews) and informal interviews. Fieldnotes and transcriptions were analyzed using grounded theory techniques.

Research group members developed four dominant competencies: presenting research, receiving and responding to feedback, solving problems and troubleshooting problems. Students’ learning was facilitated by the practices and activities of the research group (e.g. weekly full group and subgroup meetings) and mediated through the interactions of others (i.e. peers, faculty supervisor and lab manager).

This study adds to the engineering education literature and contributes to the larger discourse on identifying promising practices and activities that improve student learning in graduate education.

This study aims to better understand how students’ academic strains and multilevel strengths relate to their math achievement, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented students of color and girls given the need to broaden science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) participation for these groups.

National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 data was used for a historical examination of the various student academic strains and multilevel strengths that relate to math achievement in high school. T-tests and chi-square tests were conducted to examine differences in strains and strengths across policy-relevant student subgroups. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to examine how students’ strains and strengths related to their math achievement and the relative importance of each of these factors.

The findings suggest that both the academic strains and multilevel strengths that students’ experience in middle school are related to their high school math achievement and the prevalence of these factors varies across different policy-relevant student subgroups. Furthermore, the relative importance of these factors on achievement differs.

Studies which focus on either students’ academic challenges or their adaptive strengths fall short of a more nuanced discussion about how both factors relate to math outcomes. This study addresses this limitation and emphasizes that stakeholders who are interested in STEM diversity should consider holistic strategies for alleviating gender and racial/ethnic discrepancies in secondary math achievement.

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective’s implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.

Analysis of organizational decline has become central to the study of economy and society. Further advances in this area may fail however, because two major literatures on the topic remain disintegrated and because both lack a sophisticated account of how social structure and interdependencies among organizations affect decline. This paper develops a perspective which tries to overcome these problems. The perspective explains decline through an understanding of how social ties and resource dependencies among firms affect market structure and the resulting behavior of firms within it. Evidence is furnished that supports the assumptions of the perspective and provides a basis for specifying propositions about the effect of network structure on organizational survival. I conclude by discussing the perspective's implications for organizational theory and economic sociology.

The Internet and social media have fundamentally transformed the ways in which individuals find jobs. Relatively little is known about how demand-side market actors use online information and the implications for social stratification and mobility. This study provides an in-depth exploration of the online recruitment strategies pursued by human resource (HR) professionals. Qualitative interviews with 61 HR recruiters in two southern US metro areas reveal two distinct patterns in how they use Internet resources to fill jobs. For low and general skill work, they post advertisements to online job boards (e.g., Monster and CareerBuilder) with massive audiences of job seekers. By contrast, for high-skill or supervisory positions, they use LinkedIn to target passive candidates – employed individuals who are not looking for work but might be willing to change jobs. Although there are some intermediate practices, the overall picture is one of an increasingly bifurcated “winner-take-all” labor market in which recruiters focus their efforts on poaching specialized superstar talent (“purple squirrels”) from the ranks of the currently employed, while active job seekers are relegated to the hyper-competitive and impersonal “black hole” of the online job boards.

This article introduces a method for assessing network dynamics over time. It integrates a qualitative approach to data collection with a bifocal approach to data analysis, i.e. where data are interpreted with two lenses: qualitative and quantitative.

The dynamics of an entrepreneurial firm's network are analyzed by combining: content and event analysis of case data and network maps with the use of UCINET 6, a software package developed for social network analysis.

In illustrating the bifocal approach, steps related to data collection, preparation and analysis are discussed. The findings show how the bifocal approach captures change in both a network's structure and its interactions, through a firm's life‐stages.

The primary limitation of the approach is that reliance on UCINET 6 statistics oversimplifies network analysis. Thus, optimal use of the approach is best achieved when the structural patterns generated by UCINET 6 are balanced by qualitative analysis of the interactional dimensions of the network on a longitudinal basis. Future research opportunities include cross‐network analysis and examination of the networks of lead entrepreneurs in comparison with one another, over time.

The bifocal approach allows examination of network power shifts and identification of opportunities for strategic action and relationship management.

This article shows that the application of the bifocal approach facilitates a more meaningful analysis of networks than does a purely qualitative approach. It allows for time‐based examination of whole systems of organizations and scrutiny of dimensions pertaining to both network structure and the interactions and relationships between individual actors.

Anonymous peer review is an important part of the process by which academic information is evaluated. Some of the problems associated with the process are discussed below. Although the history of peer review is well documented, there appears to be no record of when it became anonymous. Since most criticisms associated with the practice result from the anonymity of referees, this is significant. A number of well‐known and long‐established journals were approached in an attempt to determine when they adopted the process but none of the correspondents at the journals knew.

The purpose of this paper is to understand communication pathways and factors that cause sustainability initiatives to become contagious from downstream to upstream members of a supply chain, which is termed sustainable supply chain contagion (SSCC).

This study takes an inductive, grounded theory approach, while utilizing established theories.

The decision to implement a sustainability initiative depends on the business case for the organization. Importantly, the findings outline several network and communication factors that overcome the weak business case and, therefore, foster SSCC. Based on these findings, a communication network model of SSCC is outlined. Network factors include the contagion pathways, the role of sustainability and top management teams and communication channels. Communication factors include the alignment of sustainability initiatives with departmental objectives, the articulation of goals and assuring the endurance of a sustainability initiative.

Managers can utilize the proposed model to create conditions that strengthen the business case of a proposed sustainability initiative, thus fostering SSCC. The presented findings reveal different tactics that can assist organizations in communicating sustainability initiatives in a persuasive manner, to permit the proliferation of sustainability across the supply chain.

This research enables a multilevel examination of the factors influencing SSCC.

Uses a case study from Hollywood to demonstrate the issue of age discrimination. Compares the experience against others in the “real world” and concludes that, whilst the experiences are less, there are still real issues in age discrimination, particularly in the case of women. Suggests that those who wish to make age a handicap will do so whilst others will overcome such barriers if they so want.