RC Cafe - March 14, 3:00-4:00 pm ET (open space til 4:30 pm)

• Jody Hoffer Gittell, Relational Coordination Collaborative, Brandeis Universitiy
• Ajay Mehra, LINKS Center for Social Network Analysis, University of Kentucky
• Jill Marsteller, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
• Sijia Wei, Integrated Health Services and Outcomes Research, Northwestern University
• Heba Naim Ali, Relational Coordination Analytics, Brandeis University

Additional Perspectives

• Anindita Roy Bannya, University of New South Wales
• Richard Wylde, National Health Service
• Christina Yuan, Johns Hopkins University
• Ingrid Nembhard, The Wharton School
• Jim Best, Independent Consultant

Relational coordination and social networks have much in common though they are rarely used together (Gittell & Ali, 2021; Soltis, et al, 2023). The combination of relational coordination (Gittell, 2002; Gittell, et al., 2010) and social networks (Borgatti, et al., 2009; Brass, 1981) has the potential to better describe, assess, and improve the coordination of work in complex organizational systems, including complex multi-level health systems (Khosla, Marsteller, Hsu & Elliott, 2016; Burns, Nembhard & Shortell, 2022). 

In the March RC Cafe we will bridge this gap and begin to innovate towards a future that uses relational coordination and social networks simultaneously.  We will start the Cafe with brief primers on relational coordination and social networks from leading scholars in the field, then discuss why and how to integrate the two methods.  Participants will break into working groups to discuss different approaches to integrating the two methods, conceptually and/or practically, building on their past, current or future work.  We will come back together to share our ideas and to consider whether to develop an integrated approach including visualization tools going forward.

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Background Readings

Borgatti, S. P., Mehra, A., Brass, D. J., & Labianca, G. (2009). Network analysis in the social sciences. Science, 323(5916), 892-895.

Brass, D. J. (1981). Structural relationships, job characteristics, and worker satisfaction and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 331-348.

Burns, L. R., Nembhard, I. M., & Shortell, S. M. (2022). Integrating network theory into the study of integrated healthcare. Social Science & Medicine, 296, 114664.

Gittell, J. H., & Ali, H. N. (2021). Relational analytics: Guidelines for analysis and action. Routledge. Chapter 1.

Gittell, J. H., Seidner, R., & Wimbush, J. (2010). A relational model of how high-performance work systems work. Organization Science, 21(2), 490-506.

Gittell, J. H. (2002). Coordinating mechanisms in care provider groups: Relational coordination as a mediator and input uncertainty as a moderator of performance effects. Management Science, 48(11), 1408-1426.

Khosla, N., Marsteller, J. A., Hsu, Y. J., & Elliott, D. L. (2016). Analysing collaboration among HIV agencies through combining network theory and relational coordination. Social Science & Medicine, 150, 85-94.

Soltis, S. M., Brass, D. J., & Lepak, D. P. (2018). Social resource management: Integrating social network theory and human resource management. Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), 537-573.

Soltis, S. M., Methot, J. R., Gittell, J. H., & Harris, T. B. (2023). Leveraging relational analytics in human resource research and practice. Human Resource Management.