CARMA

Manipulation in Organizational Research - Dr. Kira Schabram
2025-11-14 12:00 - 13:15 (America/New_York) | CARMA Virtual Classroom
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.

Tools for Open Science With Your Research
2025-11-14 10:30 - 11:45

Virtual Reality Tools for Organizational Research - Dr. Anand van Zelderen
2025-11-14 09:00 - 10:15
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.

AMJ and CARMA Research Methods Virtual Development Workshop
2025-10-24 10:00 - 14:00
Register at: https://www.aom.org/event-calendar/amj-and-carma-research-methods-virtual-development-workshop/
Led By: Quinetta Roberson and Paul Bliese
Purpose and Agenda: The first goal of the workshop is to provide insights on the types of research methods manuscripts AMJ is looking for. The second goal is to develop ideas and working manuscripts that advance research methods with the aim of later submission for review at AMJ.
Submission Requirements: Extended abstract with details on example data used to illustrate the method.
Workshop Structure: This workshop will include a plenary and pre-assigned breakout sessions.

Topic Area Workshop
2025-10-17 10:30 - 12:00
Micro and Macro Topics

Micro: Computational Modeling with Dr. Goran Kuljanin
This brief topic workshop introduces participants to computational process models. Historically, organizational science has relied on narrative construct theories, construct measurement, and associated statistical construct models (e.g., structural equations modeling) to advance knowledge. Yet, the explanatory accounts, predictive capabilities, and interventions afforded by construct research remain one step removed from processes in operation and two steps removed from their generative mechanisms. The study of processes involves theorizing and modeling the mechanisms by which entities (e.g., individuals, teams, organizations) enact sequences of actions responsible for phenomena of interest (e.g., group differences, multivariate relations, longitudinal patterns, teams outperforming their talent, organizational gender stratification, etc.). To garner process thinking, we may develop computational process models, which generally facilitate the systematic study of processes by explicitly representing and simulating entities and their actions and mechanisms. This workshop walks participants through the fundamental ideas behind developing computational process models.

Macro: Panel Data Analysis Concepts with Dr. DJ Schepker
This workshop focuses on the concepts related to analyzing panel data (e.g. multiple, repeated observations on an entity over time). We will cover differences between econometric random effects and fixed effects models, including when their use is appropriate and their theoretical meaning. We will also explore specifications across multiple types of models and the use of the hybrid model. Finally, we will conclude with discussions around when the dependence in the data (such as time effects) may be a nuisance to be controlled for versus a variable with explanatory power.

Strategic Data Collection for Qualitative Studies - Dr. Bess Rouse
2025-10-03 12:00 - 13:15
An effective strategy for conducting high-quality qualitative research under academic publication pressures begins with deliberate choices about what data to collect and how to collect it. In this talk, we’ll explore strategic approaches to designing qualitative data collection that enhance analytical potential and methodological rigor. I’ll present practical strategies for context selection, sampling, and design choices that leverage variance and process. We’ll discuss how to design studies for meaningful contrasts and comparisons, and develop research protocols that generate rich, comprehensive data. This session emphasizes the critical front-end decisions that determine what data you have available and how they enable the development of compelling theoretical insights. Participants will gain practical tools for establishing a foundation for logical, persuasive methods sections that demonstrate scholarly rigor.

Use of Control Variables in Dissertation Research
2025-10-03 10:30 - 11:45
Management dissertation projects are primarily designed to test theory-related hypotheses between independent and dependent variables. It is well understood that “control” variables play an important role in these projects, as their use can eliminate alternative explanations for results and increase confidence in study findings. Although decisions to include control variables have historically seemed simple, recent research has shown their use can introduce less obvious complexities to study design and analysis. In this panel session, authors of recent research on control variables will share their views and provide guidance on when and how to best use control variables in dissertation studies.
Panelists:

Dr. Herman Aguinis
Dr. Paul Spector
Dr. Michael Sturman

Qualitative Meta Studies - Dr. Stefanie Habersang
2025-10-03 09:00 - 10:15
Qualitative meta-studies (QMS) are increasingly recognized as a fruitful qualitative methodology in management research. QMS serves as an umbrella term for scientific inquiries that reanalyze and synthesize rich, contextualized qualitative case studies or case material to generate novel theoretical insights and enhance the transferability of qualitative findings. In this lecture, we will explore different approaches to QMS and their epistemological foundations examine the kinds of theoretical and practical insights they can generate, and challenge some of the common myths surrounding this methodology. The session provides a hands-on introduction to QMS and illustrates, through empirical examples, the core methodological choices in QMS as well as the reflective, yet often implicit, meta-practices essential for deriving meaningful results from QMS.

Social Network Analysis in the Organizational Sciences - Jessica Methot
2025-09-29 14:00 - 15:30
A social network is a set of actors (e.g., person, team, firm) and the ties connecting them (e.g., relationship, exchange, or interaction). These ties serve as conduits through which resources such as information flow; they also serve as prisms through which to make inferences and shape perceptions. Social network analysis (SNA) is the use of graph-theoretic and matrix algebraic techniques to study the social structure and strategic positions of actors in social networks. As a methodological tool, SNA allows scholars to visualize and analyze webs of ties to identify their origins and dynamics and link these structures to actors’ attitudes and behaviors. In this session, we will discuss (1) how to define the boundaries of a social network, (2) approaches (and challenges) to collecting network data, (3) metrics that can be derived from network data, (4) linking network data and theory, and (5) research questions to which social network analysis can be applied. A major appeal of network analysis is the distinctive lens it offers to examine a range of organizational phenomena at different levels; so, this session may be of interest to scholars studying topics such as trust, leadership, human capital, mentoring, DE&I, groups and teams, communication, work-nonwork interface, newcomer socialization, emotions, and employee well-being.

The Past, Present, and Future of Methods Research
2025-09-26 10:30 - 12:00
In the past 30 years, journals devoted to research methods scholarship in management studies have been established, including Psychological Methods, Organizational Research Methods, and the Academy of Management Journal. In this panel session, editors from these outlets will share their perspectives on:

Trends in research methods topics in recent years
How AI is impacting the submission and review of papers
The importance of methods research for improving practice
How to advance theory development with methods research
Challenges of reconciling conflicting reviewer recommendations
How to facilitate the implementation of best practices from methods research

After brief presentations on these topics, our editors’ panel will engage in a Q&A discussion with attendees.

Dr. Paul Bliese, Deputy Editor for the Academy of Management Journal
Dr. Lisa Lambert, Co-Editor for Organizational Research Methods
Dr. Fred Oswald, Editor for Psychological Methods

For more information: https://carmattu.com/ask-the-editors/september2025/
