Co-research: A new methodology for new times

This article describes an innovative methodology based on inter-organizational collaboration between academics and practitioners, using a “co-research” method that builds on but goes beyond the methodology of insider/outsider research teams. Co-research establishes a dialectical process of enquiry by drawing on the complementary perspectives, interests, skills, and knowledge bases of academics and practitioners. Co-research is based on a triad of research roles. First, the academic responsible for the research, who manages the research team and who contributes an “outsider” view of the organization. Second, the host manager employed by the organization being researched. This person brings an “insider” perspective on the organization. Third, the co-researcher from a different organization who carries out the research alongside the academic(s). He or she is an “insider” in that they are familiar with the type of organization being researched, but an “outsider” in that their own organization has a different context and processes. This article argues that co-research is effective in producing valid organizational research, partly through the harnessing of inside/outsider knowledge and partly through “surprise and sense-making” (Louis, 1980). The research paradigm is one of knowledge generation through a negotiated and dialectical approach to organizational processes.     

Defining the term new in new employee research

Researchers and managers use the term ‘new’ to describe organizational members who have recently joined an organization, but how long are arriving recruits considered ‘new employees’, and what factors drive this new‐to‐old transition? In this paper I hypothesize that co‐worker perceptions of an individual's ‘newness’ in the organization are a function of (1) the individual's relative position in the firm's tenure distribution and (2) the frequency of interaction between the rater and the individual. To evaluate these hypotheses I conducted a sociometric survey among four entrepreneurial organizations (N = 200), asking respondents to evaluate the newness of their co‐workers. The results support both hypotheses, but suggest that relative tenure (defined as a member's percentile rank in the firm's tenure distribution) is the strongest predictor of organizational newness perceptions. More specifically, ‘new employees’ are the 30% of the organization with the lowest tenure. This means that organizational growth and turnover have a major effect on how long arriving recruits are considered new employees, which in turn has implications for new employee research in areas like socialization, mentoring, training and career development.     

Paradigm shifts: new techniques to answer new questions

The advent of a multiple-channels approach to spatial vision 20 years ago raised important questions that were difficult to approach empirically, given the technology and analytic tools of the time. These questions concerned the interaction or combination of different components of a stimulus--questions that have recently resurfaced in more complex form. Classical psychophysical methods for assessing whether two stimulus aspects are coded independently (e.g., masking, adaptation, and cue-summation) provide only limited information about the nature of whatever interactions are discovered. In both older work in detection and recent work in complex pattern discrimination, we have used a double-judgment paradigm in which the observer rates two aspects of a stimulus simultaneously. The paradigm provides a rich source of information about the codes underlying each psychophysical decision and which are unique in permitting us to psychophysically investigate effects resulting from neural noise in the system. Our analyses draw on theories of dimensional interaction in signal detection theory and in information theory, and on methods from several branches of statistics, including categorical data analysis and structural equation modeling. We review the theoretical, technological, methodological, and personal influences that led us to develop this approach.     

新起点新蓝图新任务——热烈祝贺两会胜利闭幕

春回大地,万象更新。在“十一五”规划开局之年的早春时节,来自全国各地的5000多位人大代表、政协委员肩负着人民的重托,聚首北京,出席十届全国人大四次会议和全国政协十届四次会议。两会在民主、团结、求实、和谐的气氛中圆满完成了各项预定的议程,胜利地落下了帷幕。我们和全     

打造新时代的天师道风貌

天师道文化自祖天师张道陵创教起,至今已有1800多年的历史。如果加上其前身的道家学说和方仙道崇拜,历史就更加悠久。数千年来,宗派传承,历代高道孜孜不倦地探索,创造了与儒、释并立的中国主流文化之一。其深厚的文化沉淀,丰富的人文哲理,至今仍闪烁着先辈智慧的光芒。当然,在漫长的历史进程中,天师道文化也不可避免地掺杂了一些糟粕。发掘和继承传统的精华,摒弃不合时代的糟粕,使天师道更好地适应现代社会,适应世界科学文明高速发展的潮流,是我们这一代人义不容辞的责任。故撰写此文,权当与全体道教同仁及所有热爱道教文化的社会贤达之士共…     

Mary's new perspective

Book Information The Semantics of Media. By Jeff Ross. Dordrecht, Kluwer. 1997. Pp. vii + 137. £56.75.