Eurorelations

23.11.2018 & 07.12.2018, 9 pm–17 pm, tba

Course for PhD students, Postdocs and early career researchers

Module: Proposal writing

ECTS: 2 ECTS

Link to the course catalogue

Ulrik Brandes, Marlis Buchmann, Catherine Herfeld, Heiko Rauhut, Jörg Rössel, Katja Rost, Michael J. Shanahan, Christoph Stadtfeld,  Marc Szydlik

Thursday, 8th until Friday, 9th November 2018 at Seminarhotel Kloster Kappel

Course for PhD students and Postdocs

Module: Thesis Workshop

ECTS: 2 ECTS for participation/ 4 ECTS for presentation

Programm Thesis Workshop 2018 (PDF, 910 KB)

Link to the course catalogue

This seminar is a two-day Workshop with professors of the UZH and the ETH to present and discuss current research projects and research ideas. The aim is to give PhD students/postdocs valuable feedback on their work, to increase the quality of research and to strengthen the common identity of Sociologists in Zurich.

David Seidl

12.10.2018, 9am–12am and 1pm–6pm AND-3-48

Course for PhD students and Postdocs

Module: Scientific Writing

ECTS: 2 ECTS

Link to the course catalogue

This one-day seminar is aimed at advanced PhD students who are interested in publishing in leading academic journals. Based on a sample of well-known published papers, the students will learn about (1) how to set up an argument, (2) how to relate theory and empirics to each other, (3) how to structure the article, (4) how to write the different (sub)sections of an article and (5) what is expected in terms of academic writing styles. The course will be taught in an interactive manner involving group discussions, group exercises and presentations.

Suggested course structure:

1. Session: Welcome and introduction (45 min): In this session the students will learn about the general structure of a research paper and the role of the different sections.

2. Session (2h): Ways of setting up an argument. In this session the participants will learn about different ways of setting up an argument. They will be asked to analyze (in groups) exemplary introductions of published papers. In particular, they will learn about how to problematize the existing literature (“research gap”) and, based on that, how to construct a research question.

3. Session (2h): Hands-on exercise on setting up an argument: Based on the learnings of the first session, the students are asked to examine the introductions of some of their own papers and to discuss ways of improving them.

4. Session (2h): Engaging with the literature: In this session the participants will learn about how to set up a focused literature review and how to engage with the literature in the discussion section. For this purpose the students will be asked to analyze prominent examples of published works.

5. Session (2h): Interweaving theory and empirics: In this session students will learn about ways of interweaving theory and empirical data. This session is particularly focused on qualitative papers.

Biographical note

David Seidl (PhD, Cambridge University) is a Professor of Management and Organization at the Department of Business Administration at the University of Zurich and is a Research Associate at the Centre for Business Research (CBR) at Cambridge University. He is also a senior editor of Organization Studies and editorial member of several other journals including Organization, Journal of Management Studies, Scandinavian Journal of Management Studies and Strategic Organization. He has published widely on organization and management in leading international journals including Academy of Management Annals, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies and Organization Studies. He has also (co)edited several special issues including most recently on “Resistance in and around organizations” (Organization Studies).  He is also author and editor of several books including the Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice (Cambridge University Press) and Niklas Luhmann and Organization Studies (Copenhagen Business School Press).

Melinda Mills

16.05.2018, 13 pm–16 pm, AND 3.46

Course for PhD students, Postdocs and early career researchers

Module: Publishing

ECTS: 1 ECTS

Link to the course catalogue

This Workshop will delve into the main issues, challenges and strategies of publishing in top peer-reviewed journals. The Workshop will begin with a general lecture and discussion of an insider’s view of how publishing works from an Editor’s perspective. This will be followed by focused topics and discussions on: the challenges of publishing in interdisciplinary projects, developing a strong paper (that will not get desk rejected), selecting a journal, responding to revisions and strategies for building attention to your work. Students will be provided with concrete examples of rejections, responses to reviewers, and the pipeline of the entire process of publication. They will also see strategies to promote the wider understanding and use of their research to academics and the public. Students are encouraged to examine which journals they would like to publish in, and welcome to bring draft papers or ideas of projects to class. The Workshop will be held in English.

Biographical note

Melinda Mills is the Nuffield Professor of Sociology, Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College. Since 2012, she has been the Editor-in-Chief of the European Sociological Review, one of the highest ranked sociology journals in the discipline. She is a regular reviewer for various journals and has published in ociology, demography (Social Forces, Journal of Marriage & Family, Population Studies) and other general science journals such as Nature Genetics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, JAMA Psychiatry, PloS One.

Frédéric Godart (INSEAD)

Tuesday, 27.02.2018, 2 pm–6 pm

The use of network-analytical tools and relational thinking for the understanding of culture has been flourishing for the last couple of years across disciplines, notably in sociology, communication studies, and management. In this workshop, I offer an overview of some of the key trends at play, and offers some ideas for the development of this new approach.

Biographical note:

Frédéric Godart is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behavior at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. His research examines the factors leading to the emergence of creativity in organisations and the global dynamics of creative industries. In particular, he explores the impact of formal and informal social networks on the emergence of novel and useful ideas, and the role played by stylistic and cultural dynamics in the formation of firms' identities. His research focuses on fashion and luxury sectors (e.g. design, modelling, watchmaking, footwear). He has published in a wide range of leading academic peer-reviewed journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, the Annual Review of Sociology, and Social Forces, practitioner-oriented journals (notably Harvard Business Review), as well as several edited books. Frédéric wrote a book on the structure and culture of the fashion industry, Sociologie de la mode (A Sociology of Fashion), which has been translated into Portuguese(Brazil) and Spanish (Argentina) languages.

Lomi Alessandro

27.04.2017, 1 pm - 5 pm, AND-3-46

Course for PhD students and Postdocs

Module: Scientific Writing

ECTS: 1 ECTS

Link to the course catalogue

The main proposition developed in this seminar is that activities of writing for academic journals are closely connected to activities of reading for them. In practice, this means that reviewing activities are an integral component in the intellectual and professional development of early-career scholars. More generally, the emphasis on reading for academic journals suggests that the notion of “contribution” can be understood only in the context of multiple conversations that authors engage with communities organized around specific journals. Strategies of competitive differentiation between academic journals (and important changes in the academic publishing industry) imply that these communities are only partially overlapping even within broadly defined “disciplines.” As a consequence submission to a journal is, at least in part, an act of affiliation – an issue that students reading sociology are professionally trained to appreciate. In the seminar, we will introduce the basic distinction between “developmental” and “evaluative” reviewing, and examine several examples of how successful authors try to frame their “contribution” in the context of ongoing theoretical conversations. We will also outline how different scientific traditions differ in what they consider a “contribution,” and discuss how scientific “impact” is both an important issue for individual careers, as well an object of current research in the emerging areas of “science of science,” and “team science.”  If time and number of participants allow it, we will also go through a “structured abstract exercise” designed to help participants reflect on their own research ideas and practices.

Background readings

Börner, K., Contractor, N., Falk-Krzesinski, H.J., Fiore, S.M., Hall, K.L., Keyton, J., Spring, B., Stokols, D., Trochim, W. and Uzzi, B., 2010. A multi-level systems perspective for the science of team science. Science Translational Medicine, 2(49), pp.49cm24-49cm24.

Eagle, N., Macy, M. and Claxton, R., 2010. Network diversity and economic development. Science, 328(5981), pp.1029-1031.

Granovetter, M.S., 1973. The strength of weak ties. American journal of sociology, 78(6), pp.1360-1380.

Ma, A., Mondragón, R.J. and Latora, V., 2015. Anatomy of funded research in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(48), pp.14760-14765.

Radicchi, F., Fortunato, S. and Castellano, C., 2008. Universality of citation distributions: Toward an objective measure of scientific impact. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(45), pp.17268-17272

Uzzi, B., Mukherjee, S., Stringer, M. and Jones, B., 2013. Atypical combinations and scientific impact. Science, 342(6157), pp.468-472;

Wuchty, S., Jones, B.F. and Uzzi, B., 2007. The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science, 316(5827), pp.1036-1039.

Biographical note

Alessandro Lomi (PhD, Cornell University, New York) is a Professor in Organization Theory and Behavior in the Faculty of Economics of the University of Italian Switzerland, Lugano where he directs the Social Network Analysis Research (SONAR) Center, and co-directs the Interdisciplinary Institute of Data Science. During the period 2008-2016 he was an elected Conseiller a la Recherche in the Human and Social Sciences Division of the Conseil national de la recherche Suisse (Swiss NSF), where he also served as vice-Chairperson of the Interdisciplinary Research Commission. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge (U.K.), and Honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Psychological Sciences of the University of Melbourne (Australia). In 2011 he was awarded a Banco Santander Cátedra de Excelencia (Chair of Excellence) Professorship at the Universidad Carlos III, Madrid (Spain). In 2008 he was Jemolo Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford (U.K.). In 2002-03 he was N.A.T.O. Senior Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico). In the less recent past, he was a Full Professor in the Faculty of Economics of the University of Bologna (Italy), an Assistant Professor at the London Business School (University of London, U.K.), a Visiting Professor at the Haas School of Business (University of California, Berkeley), and at the Stern Graduate School of Business (New York University). He is currently a Visiting Scientist at the ETH Zurich (Chair of Computational Social Science).

Catherine Herfeld, Christoph Stadtfeld, Heiko Rauhut, Jörg Rössel, Katja Rost, Marc Szydlik, Marlis Buchmann, Michael J. Shanahan, Peter-Ulrich Merz-Benz

19.-20. October 2017, Monastery Fischingen

Course for PhD students and Postdocs

Module: Thesis workshop

ECTS: 2 ECTS for participation/ 4 ECTS for presentation

Link to the course catalogue

This seminar is a two-day workshop with professors of the UZH and the ETH to present and discuss current research projects and research ideas. The aim is to give PhD students/postdocs valuable feedback on their work, to increase the quality of research and to strengthen the common identity of Sociologists in Zurich. 

Hendrik Vollmer

21.09.2017, 9am - 12am and 1pm - 6pm

Course for PhD students and Postdocs

Module: Publishing

ECTS: 2 ECTS

Link to the course catalogue

This workshop invites graduate students to engage with the main issues associated with publishing in peer-reviewed journals. The day will begin with a lecture providing an insider’s view of the organisation of peer review among editors, reviewers, and editorial broads. This will be followed by seminar sessions dedicated to the distinct steps of developing research papers towards publication: working on drafts, writing abstracts, targeting distinct journal audiences and reviewers, responding to reviewers. Students are welcome to bring their draft papers and publication projects to class.

The workshop will be held in either German or English depending on attendance. Please state your language preference when registering for the workshop.

Biographical note

Hendrik Vollmer is Associate Professor at the School of Business, University of Leicester. From 2008-2015 he was the editor-in-chief of the Zeitschrift für Soziologie, one of Germany’s leading sociological journals. He is also a member of the editorial board of Accounting, Organizations and Society, one of the few 4-star ABS journals hosted in Europe. He has published and reviewed widely in peer-reviewed journals in both sociology and accounting, and continues to produce research in both areas. Selected publications: The Sociology of Disruption, Disaster and Social Change (Cambridge University Press, 2013), What Kind of Game Is Everyday Interaction? (Rationality & Society 2013), How to Do More with Numbers (Accounting, Organizations and Society 2007).

Heiko Rauhut, Jörg Rössel, Katja Rost, Marc Szydlik, Michael J. Shanahan

Tuesday, 12.15 pm - 1.45 pm, AND-2-44

Course for PhD students and Postdocs

Module: Research Colloquium

Link to the course catalogue

21.02.2017	Bernhard Kittel: Das Verhältnis von Wirtschaftssoziologie und Verhaltensökonomie: Eine interdisziplinäre Bruch- oder Schnittstelle?
28.02.2017	Marc Keuschnigg: Social Influence and the Wisdom of Crowds
14.03.2017	Ariane Bertogg: Better Off Alone? Partnership Status and Elders' Health Vulnerabilities
21.03.2017	Martin Diewald: The Long Shadow of the Family of Origin for Offspring's Attainment: Is it in the Genes or is it Parental Resources and Behavior?
04.04.2017	Dirk Baecker: Theorie der Netzwerkgesellschaft
11.04.2017	Philipp Chapkovskii: Collective Sanctions
25.04.2017	Tina Schmid und Reto Wick: „Das weiss nur Statistik Stadt Zürich“ – Unser Datenangebot für die sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung
09.05.2017	Siegwart M. Lindenberg: Boosting Individualism: What Effects Does It Have on Organizations? A Randomized Field Experiment
16.05.2017	Melinda Mills: A Sociogenomic Approach to Study Fertility
23.05.2017	Hannes Schwandt: The Lasting Legacy of Seasonal Influenza: In-utero Exposure and Human Capital Development