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Relational thinking and spatial analyses have become highly relevant for higher education research. However, choices of research methods and specifically of statistical procedures do not often correspond to the epistemological underpinnings implied by relational perspectives. Against this background, this chapter illustrates the uses and challenges of geometric data analysis (GDA) for studying the complexities and dynamics of current spaces of higher education. GDA can be described as a set of statistical techniques that allow the identification, assessment and visualisation of complex relations in social science data. Using an investigation into the social topologies of first-year students as an example, we discuss the mathematical foundations, the step-by-step procedures of data analysis, the interpretation of results and strategies for integrating GDA into multimethod research designs. In sum, we argue that GDA does not only entail a comprehensive set of statistical instruments that permit visual analysis of relational structures, but also enables the systematic integration of qualitative and quantitative methods, hence supporting the development of innovative and coherent research designs and analytical strategies.

This book focuses on the concept and role of relational practices as a way to understand, conceive, and study processes of organization, and subscribes to a processual view of organization that, since Weick's seminal book The Social Psychology of Organizing, has turned the study of organizations into one of organizing. More than 30 years later, the field of organizing has increasingly expanded Weick's interpretive framework of sense making, resulting in a rich palette of conceptual frameworks that vary between such diverse processual approaches as complexity theory, phenomenology, narration, dramaturgy, ethnomethodology, discourse (analysis), practice, actor-network theory, and radical process theory (Steyaert, 2007). These various theoretical approaches draw upon and give expression to a relational turn that has transformed conceptual thinking in philosophy, literature, and social sciences, and that increasingly inscribes the study of organization within an ontology of becoming.

This paper aims to explore the well-being impacts of social enterprise, beyond a social enterprise per se, in everyday community life.

An exploratory case study was used. The study’s underpinning theory is from relational geography, including Spaces of Wellbeing Theory and therapeutic assemblage. These theories underpin data collection methods. Nine social enterprise participants were engaged in mental mapping and walking interviews. Four other informants with “boundary-spanning” roles involving knowledge of the social enterprise and the community were interviewed. Data were managed using NVivo, and analysed thematically.

Well-being realised from “being inside” a social enterprise organisation was further developed for participants, in the community, through positive interactions with people, material objects, stories and performances of well-being that occurred in everyday community life. Boundary spanning community members had roles in referring participants to social enterprise, mediating between participants and structures of community life and normalising social enterprise in the community. They also gained benefit from social enterprise involvement.

This paper uses relational geography and aligned methods to reveal the intricate connections between social enterprise and well-being realisation in community life. There is potential to pursue this research on a larger scale to provide needed evidence about how well-being is realised in social enterprises and then extends into communities.

This paper analyses how neighbourhood governance of social care affects the scope for frontline workers to address health inequities of older ethnic minorities. We critically discuss how an area-based, generic approach to service provision limits and enables frontline workers' efforts to reach out to ethnic minority elders, using a relational approach to place. This approach emphasises social and cultural distances to social care and understands efforts to bridge these distances as “relational work”.

The authors conducted a two-year multiple case study of the cities of Nijmegen and The Hague, the Netherlands, following the development of policies and practices relevant to ethnic minority elders. They conducted 44 semi-structured interviews with managers, policy officers and frontline workers as well as 295 h of participant observation at network events and meeting activities.

Relational work was open-ended and consisted of a continuous reorientation of goals and means. In some cases, frontline workers spanned neighbourhood boundaries to connect with professional networks, key figures and places meaningful to ethnic minority elders. While neighbourhood governance is attuned to equality, relational work practice fosters possibilities for achieving equity.

Further research on achieving equity in relational work practice and more explicit policy support of relational work is needed.

The paper contributes empirical knowledge about how neighbourhood governance of social care affects ethnic minority elders. It translates a relational view of place into a “situational” social justice approach.

At the beginning of the 21st century, multiple and diverse social entities, including the public (consumers), private and nonprofit healthcare institutions, government (public health) and other industry sectors, began to recognize the limitations of the current fragmented healthcare system paradigm. Primary stakeholders, including employers, insurance companies, and healthcare professional organizations, also voiced dissatisfaction with unacceptable health outcomes and rising costs. Grand challenges and wicked problems threatened the viability of the health sector. American health systems responded with innovations and advances in healthcare delivery frameworks that encouraged shifts from intra- and inter-sector arrangements to multi-sector, lasting relationships that emphasized patient centrality along with long-term commitments to sustainability and accountability. This pathway, leading to a population health approach, also generated the need for transformative business models. The coproduction of health framework, with its emphasis on cross-sector alignments, nontraditional partner relationships, sustainable missions, and accountability capable of yielding return on investments, has emerged as a unique strategy for facing disruptive threats and challenges from nonhealth sector corporations. This chapter presents a coproduction of health framework, goals and criteria, examples of boundary spanning network alliance models, and operational (integrator, convener, aggregator) strategies. A comparison of important organizational science theories, including institutional theory, network/network analysis theory, and resource dependency theory, provides suggestions for future research directions necessary to validate the utility of the coproduction of health framework as a precursor for paradigm change.

This paper draws on social exchange theory to theorise supplier motivation to share knowledge. It examines the effects of supplier anticipated future dependence on their motivation to share knowledge with a buyer, mediated by economic, relational and learning motives. It also examines the conditional effects imposed by the current embeddedness of the relationship.

The study tested the proposed moderated mediation model using a scenario-based experimental method.

The results show that supplier anticipated future dependence increases their motivation to share knowledge, mediated by relational and learning motives. The results also show that current embeddedness has negative moderation effects on economic and learning but not relational motives.

The study deepens our understanding of supplier motivation to share knowledge as social exchange and offers insights on buyer-supplier relationship embeddedness.

The theory of third order inference is a theory of how cultural beliefs influence individuals' decisions under conditions of interdependence and uncertainty. In this study, I build on prior work extending the theory to the role of third order information on social trust in public goods dilemmas. Namely, I argue that when second order information on the beliefs of those relevant to the group task are present, this information should influence decision-making over first and third order.

I test this argument in an experimental public goods game. After measuring first order social trust, participants are randomly sorted into one of four conditions – two that pair third and second order information on social trust as parallel and two that pair them as in conflict.

The results suggest that in the presence of second order information on social trust, third order information doesn't have an effect on cooperation.

The study extends the theory of third order inference to understanding the role of social trust at the first, second, and third levels in public goods dilemmas. It puts second order information in competition with third order in predicting cooperation. It suggests that resolving the uncertainty over the second order beliefs of a collective is key to preventing inefficient equilibriums when second and third order beliefs conflict.

Drawing on similarity-attraction hypothesis and generational gap literatures, this study aims to examine the impact of age difference in a leader–member dyad on leader–member exchange (LMX). The study hypothesized that relational age would impact the subordinates-reported LMX. However, given that leaders have structural power over subordinates and hence have mechanisms of interaction available to them, the age difference might not determine their perception of quality of LMX. The study also hypothesized that generation gap in values and beliefs leads to lack of trust, on the part of subordinates, which in turn might be the reason for poor quality of LMX.

A total of 200 leader–member dyads from five organizations in the National Capital Region of India were used in this study. Data were collected via separate structured questionnaires for leaders and members, which comprised of standard scales of LMX and perceived trust, and demographics.

Hypotheses received substantial support from the data with a few exceptions. Only the loyalty dimension of perceived trust mediates the relationship between relational age and member perception of LMX.

Results have implications for relational age and LMX interventions. However, the results are to be viewed in the light of members’ perspective. While this is a common practice in LMX research, it would be interesting to explore leaders’ trust and psychological reactions as well, for additional insights into leadership practice.

Limited work has been done to explore the impact of relational age on LMX, that too mediated by trust. An attempt has been made in this study to do so via leader–member dyads.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an emic view of how one researcher negotiated complex relationships in teacher education research and learned to employ the principles of the relational cultural theory (RCT) to create a research design aimed at building and sustaining relationships with participants.

The authors offer illustrative qualitative data examples from teacher education research to highlight complexities in research relationships, essential elements of the RCT, and the affordances RCT can offer qualitative researchers invested in similar work.

By engaging pre-service teachers and ourselves as mutually engaged in this process, the authors put into practice a sense of community and relationship building the authors hope pre-service teachers will practice with their future students.

This paper provides a qualitative research design employing tenets of the RCT which centers relationships as critical to the research process. The authors offer affordances and limitations to using the RCT in research.

Several affordances are offered to researchers interested in engaging in similar work.

This paper offers an original perspective of how one researcher in teacher education negotiated complex relationships and learned to employ the principles of the RCT within these to build a research design aimed at widening research and practice in teacher education through productive and lasting relationships.