We are looking for a motivated social scientist with a background in, for example, human resource management or organizational behavior/psychology, who is interested in improving our understanding of employment relationships by further exploring social exchange theory as a theoretical basis for studying contemporary employment relationships
Social exchange theory is the most prominent theoretical explanation of the dynamics within employment relationships. To date, however, most research has focused on backward-looking exchange in employment relationships, explaining dynamics within employment relationships by looking at the exchange of commitments in the past (e.g., workers looking at their past rewards to decide if they want to stay in a company). However,
forward-looking exchange, which focuses on the impact of future exchanges within relationships on dynamics within the employment relationship (e.g., workers considering potential future rewards to decide about their efforts and commitment in the current employment relationship), has received little attention so far. In this project, you will contribute to research aimed at better understanding the impact of forward-looking exchanges on employment relationships.
You will lay the conceptual groundwork for understanding the role of forward-looking exchanges in employment relationships and explore how backward-looking and forward-looking exchanges might interact in explaining dynamics within employment relationships. Specifically, you will conduct both qualitative and quantitative studies to explore the concept, develop measurement instruments, and test these instruments in relation to dynamics and outcomes within employment relationships. Your home base for this project will be the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Organization Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. As a postdoc, you will work with Prof. Dr. Bianca Beersma (VU Department of Organization Studies), Dr. Jos Akkermans (VU Department of Management and Organization), and Dr. Jeroen de Jong (Radboud University Nijmegen Department of Strategic HRM). You will also collaborate with international team members, including Prof. Dr. Nele De Cuyper and Prof. Dr. Anneleen Forrier (both KU Leuven, Belgium).
Your duties In collaboration with the above team, you will perform the following tasks. Note that the specific goals and outcomes of the projects will be finalized in collaboration with the team after starting the project. For example, it might be possible to decide on an emphasis on qualitative or quantitative elements.
- Conduct a literature review of forward-looking exchanges in employment relationships.
- Conduct an exploratory, qualitative study on forward-looking exchange.
- Lead the development of a new measure for forward-looking exchange.
- Conduct a quantitative study of the antecedents and outcomes of forward-looking exchange dynamics.
- Write journal articles based on the above research.
- Teach bachelor and master students; teaching topics will be aligned with research topics (0.2 fte teaching in case of a full-time appointment). For example, you will supervise master thesis students who do research on the above topic.