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What if we were to take an explicit relational perspective on organizing? What if we put our organizational conversations and interactive practices right in the middle of our scholarly focus on organizations? In this contribution, I wish to document how the concept of “relational practices” can be formulated as a generative approach to organizing in emergent and multiplex organizational contexts. Starting from the main concern of developing “actionable knowledge” about organizing, I will compare and contrast a relational constructionist approach with a mere instrumental approach to organizing. Beyond the purposive coordination of the means to attain intended goals, organizing will be considered as an essentially relational activity. Actors acknowledge mutually meaningful contributions and, at the same time, mutually enact organizational membership through joint engagement in “relational practices.” Relational organizing is as much a goal in itself as a means to an end.

Informed by multiple disciplines, theories, and methods, higher education scholars have developed a robust and diverse literature in many countries. Yet, some important (organizational) sociological perspectives, both more established and more recent, are insufficiently linked. In particular, we identify two theoretical strands – institutional and relational – that, when joined, help to explain contemporary developments in global higher education and yield new organizational insights. We review relevant literature from each perspective, both in their general formulations and with specific reference to contemporary higher education research. Within the broad institutional strand, we highlight strategic action fields, organizational actorhood, and associational memberships. Within the relational strand, we focus on ties and relationships that are especially crucial as science has entered an age of (inter)national research collaboration. Across these theories, we discuss linkages between concepts, objects, and levels of analysis. We explore the methodological approach of social network analysis as it offers great potential to connect these strands and, thus, to advance contemporary higher education research in a collaborative era.

In recent years, the network perspective has become highly influential in the strategy research. A number of strategic phenomena and outcomes have been studied successfully by adopting the methodology of social network analysis and taking a relational perspective on firm behavior and outcomes. However, while the social network methodology provides a powerful research tool for strategy researchers, it is fraught with both theoretical and methodological challenges. In this paper, we argue that many of the issues related to using the social network approach in strategy research derive from the use of an essentially individual level methodology being applied to the level of the organization. Organizations being large, complex, and nested entities, the social processes that are implied in network research at the level of the individual are often questionable at the interorganizational level. We identify ten specific issues, grouped under three major heads: issues relating to network structure, to network ties, and to network actors and action. We discuss the theoretical and methodological challenges associated with each issue and conclude with some suggestions for using the network perspective in strategy research.

The chapter reflects on the strengths and limitations of David Carpenter’s proposal to support the work of research ethics committees through consideration of the virtues required by their members. Carpenter’s approach has many strengths, responsibilising researchers and ethics committees, and increasing the scope for robust and active theoretical engagement with ethical issues. I bring two alternative perspectives on research ethics to bear on this discussion. First, I discuss work in care ethics and relational ethics, approaches to ethics that have some similarities with virtue ethics but also distinct differences. Bruce Macfarlane’s text, on which Carpenter draws, notes care ethics briefly. I offer a more detailed consideration of what this perspective can offer, both for research ethics and for the virtuous research ethics committee. This helps to identify the relationships that are missing from a virtue ethics focus. Further, a context sensitive relational approach suggests ways in which we can strengthen Carpenter’s proposals to help research ethics committees select between competing principles or virtues. Second, my research ethics expertise is in undergraduate teaching for a multidisciplinary course, and an enquiry-based learning programme, which allows students in mixed discipline groups to plan, conduct, report and present their own original social research. The research skills training provided includes an interactive introduction to research ethics, what they are for and why they matter. Since we aim to offer practical guidance to research ethics committees when they consider what they should do and how this should be done, such a first principles approach may be useful.

Field emergence poses an intriguing problem for institutional theorists. New issue fields often arise at the intersection of different sectors, amidst extant structures of meanings and actors. Such nascent fields are fragmented and lack clear guides for action; making it unclear how they ever coalesce. The authors propose that provisional social structures provide actors with macrosocial presuppositions that shape ongoing field-configuration; bootstrapping the field. The authors explore this empirically in the context of social impact investing in the UK, 2000–2013, a period in which this field moved from clear fragmentation to relative alignment. The authors combine different computational text analysis methods, and data from an extensive field-level study, to uncover meaningful patterns of interaction and structuration. Our results show that across various periods, different types of actors were linked together in discourse through “actor–meaning couplets.” These emergent couplings of actors and meanings provided actors with social cues, or macrofoundations, which guided their local activities. The authors thus theorize a recursive, co-constitutive process: as punctuated moments of interaction generate provisional structures of actor–meaning couplets, which then cue actors as they navigate and constitute the emerging field. Our model re-energizes the core tenets of new structuralism and contributes to current debates about institutional emergence and change.

The S–O discourse includes themes that have been variously summarized as “objectivism” (Hermans, Kempen & van Loon, 1992) and “the received view of science” (or “RVS,” see Woolgar, 1996). Others, speaking of competing “paradigms” in qualitative research, have referred to some of these themes as “positivist” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994) — a confusing simplification for those familiar with the philosophy of inquiry. Relevant examples include narratives that, for example, distinguish between individuals and groups and more “macro” units such as organizations and society in ways that are overly suggestive of concrete, separately existing “things” with their own defining characteristics (Hosking & Morley, 1991).

This chapter attempts to broaden corporate communications and public relations research by introducing a theoretical foundation for the inbound (in contrast to the outbound) perspective of communication. The idea of organisational listening has recently been introduced by a small number of researchers. However, current concepts are mostly based on the relational paradigm of public relations. Listening is positively connoted in those concepts because it might help to foster mutual understanding, advance favourable relationships with stakeholders and support normative ideals of deliberation in democratic societies. This is not convincing from the point of view of communication managers who align their strategies and budgets to overarching organisational goals. The chapter aims to develop a new approach beyond the relational approach by linking corporate listening to corporate value. In a first step, current definitions and concepts of organisational listening are discussed in order to underline the need for a new approach. Secondly, the need for an inbound perspective of communication is explained by referring to Giddens’ structuration theory and its consequences for managing communications. Thirdly, corporate listening is conceptualised as a strategic mode of communication by referring to the overarching concept of strategic communication. Last but not least, the chapter elaborates on the value of listening for corporations and concludes with a broadened understanding of strategic communication.