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Shared leadership is characterized by exercising lateral leadership influence depending upon the task and the adroitness required for the task. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of job characteristics on shared leadership and explore the moderating effects of perceived self-efficacy, and psychological safety on the relationship between job characteristics and shared leadership.

The authors applied hierarchical regression and social network analysis using a sample of 23 teams consisting 219 employees from an Indian-based multinational BPO.

Results indicate that skill variety, task significance, autonomy and feedback are significant precursors for shared leadership, and psychological safety and perceived self-efficacy act as moderators.

The study extends the literature associated with job characteristics in relation to shared leadership. Managers can encourage shared leadership using job design and by creating a psychologically safe environment to enhance performance of the team. The cross-sectional nature of the study and data from a single organization question the generalizability of the results.

The authors provide an initial understanding of the impact of job characteristics in a team for the development of shared leadership, which has not been studied so far. Also, psychological safety and self-efficacy of individuals in teams have not been explored in the past, moderating the job characteristics and shared leadership relationship.

The paper is based on the presumption that sustainable organisational performance cannot be achieved without continuous organisational development as well as continuous development of the employees. The paper is of the opinion that, in a company or any other organisation, creating the conditions for knowledge development is of utmost importance. These conditions should enhance innovation processes fostered by employees. The paper aims to investigate this premise.

The basic idea for the research in the paper arose from the findings that proved that organisational structures do substantially facilitate creativity processes. The main part of the paper focuses on researching team cohesion and obtaining information on interpersonal relationships as a starting‐point for new knowledge to emerge.

The main finding of the qualitative case study, conducted on 172 employees of a certain manufacturing company, are that interpersonal relationships in smaller groups of people are of better quality than those in larger groups.

As a consequence of research on the company involved in the case study, suggestions in terms of improving knowledge management were made and concrete measures were taken.

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel approach to coordination of multi‐agent teams, and in particular multi‐robot teams. The new approach is based on models of organisational sociology, namely the concept of social networks. The social relationships used in the model that is presented in this paper are trust and kinship relationships, but modified for use in heterogeneous multi‐robot teams.

The coordination of a robot team is achieved through task allocation. The proposed task allocation mechanism was tested in the multi‐robot team task allocation simulation.

The social networks‐based task allocation algorithm has performed according to expectations and the obtained results are very promising. Some intriguing similarities with higher mammalian societies were observed and they are discussed in this paper. The social networks‐based approach also exhibited the ability to learn and store information using social networks.

The research focused on simulated environments and further research is envisaged in the physical environments to confirm the applicability of the presented approach.

In this paper, the proposed coordination was applied to simulated multi‐robot teams. It is important to note that the proposed coordination model is not robot specific, but can also be applied to almost any multi‐agent system without major modifications.

The paper emphasizes applicability of considering multi‐robot teams as socially embodied agents. It also presents a novel and efficient approach to task allocation.

Mental health literacy (MHL) is the ability to understand health information originating from different sources. Little is known about ethnic differences in sources for health information, and the effect these differences has on elderly MHL. In this paper, we focus on the social networks (i.e. social connections) of elderly people from different ethnic groups, and investigate the effect these networks have on MHL. Specifically, we focus on the ethnic diversity of one's peers (ethnic diversity) as a network characteristic that can interplay with his\her MHL.

The data used in this study were gathered using a survey among elderly (over the age of 60) Native Israeli Jews (N = 147) and Immigrant Jews from the Former Soviet Union (FSU, N = 131). The survey was used to assess our participants MHL, online and offline sources of mental health information and mental health service utilization. Interviews were also conducted with each participant. The interview purpose was to map the participants' social network (using a sociogram), while indicating the attributes of the participant's peers (age, gender, ethnicity, etc.) and the nature of the interaction (online vs. offline, strength of the tie, etc.). A set of hierarchal regression analyses were then used to examine which social network attributes are correlated with MHL levels.

Our findings shows that ethnic diversity within the social networks of Immigrants from the FSU contributed to their MHL more so than for native-born Jews. Specifically, face to face maintained connections with individuals from diverse ethnic groups lead to increased knowledge about how to search for mental health information. Online maintained connections with individuals from diverse ethnic groups, lead to increase attitudes that promote recognition of mental health related issues and appropriate help-seeking.

Understanding the interplay between the ethnic diversity among one's peers and his/her MHL offers an important additional prism of examining MHL; moving beyond the individual's characteristics and examining his/her social connections as well. The relevancy of these findings for reducing MHL inequalities between native-born and elderly migrants, as well as for ethnic minorities is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to study the child–brand relationship dynamic in interaction with the relationships children develop with their family, peers and teacher.

In all, six classes in French primary schools are observed for six months. Among the 112 children observed, aged 10-11 years, 24 of them are interviewed twice individually and 24 others are interviewed in focus groups.

A lack of coherence between parents, peers and the teacher, as well as with the child’s own desires, affects the child–brand relationship and reduces the child’s self-esteem. Based on this, this study proposes a four-case typology of child–brand relationship dynamics with two criteria: the child’s attitude toward the brand relationship (favorable and unfavorable) and the consistency of attitudes in his/her socialization spheres (peers, parents and teacher) relative to this relationship. Then, the most frequent trajectories children follow across these brand relationship cases are identified.

This study applies to branded clothes.

From a marketer’s perspective, this study reveals that there are different qualities in child–brand relationships. The strongest one appears when the child feels free from outside pressure and when peers, parents and the teacher create a virtuous circle for brands (or at least do not contradict the child’s desires for brands).

For public policymakers, it can be useful to be aware that when peers, parents and teachers’ opinions about brands differ, this affects the child’s self-esteem.

The study offers a dynamic approach to child–brand relationships.

The purpose of this research is to analyse knowledge flows within a transnational educational partnership and to use social network analysis to map out structural differences between the two partners and the evolution of these differences over time.

A single longitudinal case study social network analysis is undertaken over a ten‐year period based on semi‐structured interviews with key informants supported by observational and archival data.

The investigation identifies feedback, feed‐forward and feed‐across knowledge transfer processes resulting in shared personal learning within the network zone and increasing institutionalisation of acquired knowledge.

The findings are based on a single case study setting and further research with similar partnerships needs to be undertaken to establish points of comparison.

How diagrammatic representation can be used to capture key structural issues that underpin the knowledge management process in loosely formed organisational settings.

The paper presents a new diagnostic‐enabling knowledge management model that helps address issues of how knowledge flows/transfer can be analysed and identified between partners at individual, group and organisational level. This model also identifies the inter‐organisational space that bounds the social network under discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of how two types of informal social networks – those related to instrumental purposes of information sharing and those related to expressive purposes of interpersonal trust – impact teachers’ job satisfaction.

This paper uses social network analysis (SNA) degree and betweenness measures and job satisfaction scales from the Job Diagnostic Survey to collect longitudinal data from employees in one of the vocational schools in Saint Petersburg, Russia via structured interviews. Data on a total of 354 ties were analysed for 40 ego networks in 2018 and 33 ego networks in 2019.

The obtained results partially confirm the positive effect of teachers’ position in instrumental and expressive networks on job satisfaction. More centrally positioned teachers were more satisfied with peers and colleagues. They feel more secure in regard to job security, given the unique and multi-faceted knowledge they possess. Structural diversity of the network, as well as the category of a teacher (core subject or vocational subject), are found to explain the uneven evolvement of network size. The authors argue that the decrease in network size can be treated as a positive externality of changes in an informal network. The variation in teachers’ experience seems to explain both job satisfaction and network composition.

The paper is based on a case study and its findings are limited to one particular organization. Nonetheless, the proposed SNA application is of potential value for similar organizations in terms of enhancing their capacity to benefit from networks. This study uses a structured interview to collect network data and job satisfaction data. However, overt observation or secondary data on written communication (e-mail, reports) may provide additional insights about the sought impact in the context of school.

Both teachers and managers benefit from the results of the paper. Educational policymakers and schools’ administration can exploit the bird’s eye view on an organization that SNA provides. By identifying focal employees and their attitude towards school, one receives an opportunity to prevent structural holes, organizational conflicts and uneven distribution of workload. Novice teachers can nurture their well-being by enhancing personal and instrumental social networks at the start of their careers. Experienced teachers benefit from social cooperation as it fosters the exchange of experience and skills, which is vital for job retention.

This research extends the understanding of the role of different kinds of social networks in teachers’ job satisfaction. The paper provides new insights into the SNA application to vocational schools and developing economies. Authors address teachers’ informal networks both from ego and complete network analyses to provide the holistic, yet detailed view. The use of longitudinal data advances the understanding of how personal and group networks develop over time.

The skill of chairing meetings is a key one that can greatly influence personal and organisational effectiveness. However, it is often assumed that people know how to handle meetings by a process of osmosis. Sometimes this is justified but often not, and standards of chairing vary widely. In this article the basic skills of chairing meetings are identified, with emphasis being on the ways in which they can be systematically developed. This includes analysis of interactions at meetings, particularly those interactions involving the chair. The difference between procedural, process and substantive contributions is also examined and the importance of these distinctions, particularly for whoever is chairing a meeting.

Throughout this chapter you will be exposed to the meaning and types of ethnographic research. An emphasis will be made on the use of ethnography in hospitality and tourism settings. Variations of ethnography such as netnography, chrono ethnography, and ethnographic interviews are explained along with their benefits and drawbacks. This chapter includes guidance on how to conduct an ethnography including the scope and context, length of the project, access to and selection of informants, position of the researcher, issues of concealment or disclosure, and the language used to write the ethnographic narrative. Furthermore, you will be exposed to some of the principal forms of analysis in ethnography including thematic, domain, taxonomic, componential, sociograms, and typologies. Finally, this chapter provides examples of some of the main decisions involved by a researcher engaged in ethnographic inquiry.

Secondary school leadership provides multiple challenges in terms of the diversity of tasks, multiple demands on time, balancing communities and attending to instructional programming. An emerging scholarship suggests the importance of a distributed instructional leadership approach to high school leadership. However, what has been less thoroughly explored is how secondary school leadership is distributed leaders across a school district. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the social structure and positions urban high school principals occupy in the district system.

This study was conducted in one urban fringe public school district in southern California serving diverse students populations. The data were collected at three time points starting in Fall 2012 and ending in Fall 2014 from a district-wide leadership team including all central office and site leaders. All leaders were asked to assess their social relations and perception of innovative climate. The data were analyzed through a series of social network indices to examine the structure and positions of high school principals.

Results indicate that over time high school principals have decreasing access to social capital and are typically occupying peripheral positions in the social network. The high school principals’ perception of innovative climate across the district decreases over time.

This longitudinal study, one of the first to examine high school principals from a network perspective, sheds new light on the social infrastructure of urban high school principals and what this might mean for efforts at improvement.