Virtual Reality Tools for Organizational Research - Dr. Anand van Zelderen
2025-11-14 09:00 - 10:15 (America/New_York) | CARMA Virtual Classroom
Advances in immersive technologies are transforming how scholars can study organizational behavior. This workshop introduces synthetic field studies—a next-generation research approach that uses virtual reality (VR) to simulate lifelike organizational environments while maintaining experimental control. Building on evidence that VR video vignettes heighten participants’ attention and emotional engagement, thereby amplifying the validity of observed employee reactions, we demonstrate how researchers can design, implement, and analyze such virtual organizations as dynamic experimental contexts. The workshop further explores how generative Al (GenAl) can extend these simulations by populating them with Al-powered actors capable of enacting realistic behaviors, dialogues, and decisions. Together, these tools allow researchers to replicate complex social dynamics, test organizational interventions at scale, and bridge the long-standing gap between laboratory precision and field realism. Participants will gain hands-on insights, design principles, and ethical considerations for deploying synthetic field studies in their own organizational research.

Manipulation in Organizational Research - Dr. Kira Schabram
2025-11-14 12:00 - 13:15
While other applied sciences (e.g. medicine) embrace different types of manipulation designs, organizational scholarship has not. This course unpacks how our field came to adhere to ‘true experiments’ as the one proscriptive standard and introduces participants to a broader available toolkit. Together, we will touch on three topics. First, we will define and distinguish the different ways that manipulations can be deployed, analyzed, and interpreted in support of hypotheses, focusing on two archetypes─ treatments and primes that differ in whether the manipulation itself is of theoretical interest─ and their creative derivations (e.g., interventions and invariant prompts). Second, we will review each type’s current prevalence and usage in our field. Third, we will conclude with a discussion of the costs and benefits of each and a summation of best practices. Following Schabram, Myers, and Hardin (in press), this course highlights that researchers have more options than they may realize when it comes to manipulation designs but each choice requires different claims of accuracy and causality.

Internet Scraping
2026-01-23 09:00 - 10:15
Dr. Richard Haans, Erasmus University

An Abductive Approach to Qualitative Research
2026-01-23 12:00 - 13:15
Dr. Stine Grodal, Northeastern University

Practical Issues with Mixed Methods Research
2026-02-20 09:00 - 10:15
Dr. Matthew Grimes, University of Cambridge

Partial Identification and Causal Inference
2026-02-20 12:00 - 13:15
Dr. Justin Frake, University of Michigan

Publishing Replications: Why, What, How
2026-04-10 09:00 - 10:15
Dr. Xavier Martin, Tilburg University

Disturbing Trends in Interpreting Stochastic Network Models
2026-04-10 12:00 - 13:15
Dr. Stephen Borgatti, University of Kentucky
