Dr. J.N. (Julija) Mell
Julija Mell is an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour in the Department of Organisation and Personnel Management of Rotterdam School of Management. She is the Academic Director of the Cologne-Rotterdam Executive MBA. She obtained her PhD in Organizational Behavior in 2015 at Erasmus University Rotterdam and her Diploma in Psychology in 2010 at the Humboldt University Berlin, Germany.
Her research focuses on collaboration across boundaries – for example, bridging cognitive boundaries within diverse teams, bridging geographical and cultural boundaries within globally dispersed teams, and bridging structural boundaries within complex social systems and networks. Her work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Journal of Management Studies. Her research has been recognized by several awards, including the ERIM Outstanding Performance by a Young Researcher Award (2021), the ERIM Top Article Award (2021), the Academy of Management’s Managerial and Organizational Cognition Divison’s Best Paper Award (2021), and INGroup’s Best Conference Paper Award (2019).
Julija teaches on topics surrounding Organizational Behavior, Teams, Leadership, and Social Networks in RSM’s Bachelor, Master, Full-time MBA, Executive MBA, and Executive Education programs.
PhD Track Connecting Minds: On the Role of Metaknowledge in Knowledge Coordination
Knowledge coordination, that is, the process of locating, transferring, and integrating the specialized knowledge of multiple individuals, is a critical prerequisite for organizations to make fuller use of one of their most important resources: the knowledge of their employees. Yet, knowledge coordination is as challenging as it is important. This dissertation aims to further our understanding of how groups and larger collectives process information and integrate their knowledge and what factors influence the social interactions at the core of this process.
The three empirical studies contained in this dissertation examine the role of individuals’ metaknowledge - the knowledge of who knows what - in knowledge coordination processes. Findings from the first two studies indicate that individuals who have an above-average level of metaknowledge can play a critical role in catalyzing information processing and decision making in teams as well as in helping to integrate knowledge between organizational groups. The third study furthermore elucidates the role of formal rank in shaping informal organizational networks through which employees seek knowledge as well as metaknowledge.
The findings presented in this dissertation contribute to research on group cognition, knowledge integration within and between groups, and intra-organizational networks. Most importantly, together these studies underscore the importance of taking into account differences in individuals’ metaknowledge in creating a better understanding of knowledge coordination in organizations.
- Keywords
- group information processing, group cognition, knowledge integration, knowledge coordination, knowledge exchange, transactive memory systems, metaknowledge, advice networks, social networks, boundary spanning, organizational hierarchy, formal rank
- Time frame
- 2011 - 2015
Publications
Article (11)
-
Academic (10)
-
George, M., Strauss, K., Mell, J., & Vough, H. (2023). When “Who I Am” Is Under Threat: Measures of Threat to Identity Value, Meanings, and Enactment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 108(12), 1952-1978. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001114
-
Mell, J. N., van Knippenberg, D., van Ginkel, W. P., & Heugens, P. P. M. A. R. (2022). From Boundary Spanning to Intergroup Knowledge Integration: The Role of Boundary Spanners’ Metaknowledge and Proactivity. Journal of Management Studies, 59(7), 1723-1755. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12797
-
Mell, J. N., Quintane, E., Hirst, G., & Carnegie, A. (2021). Protecting Their Turf: When and Why Supervisors Undermine Employee Boundary Spanning. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(6), 1009-1019. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000960
-
Mell, J. N., Jang, S., & Chai, S. (2021). Bridging temporal divides: Temporal brokerage in global teams and its impact on individual performance. Organization Science, 32(3), 731-751. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.1406, https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.1406
-
Mell, J., DeChurch, L., Leenders, R., & Contractor, N. (2020). Identity Asymmetries: An Experimental Investigation of Social Identity and Information Exchange in Multiteam Systems. Academy of Management Journal, 63(5), 1561-1590. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2018.0325
-
van Knippenberg, D., & Mell, J. (2016). Past, present, and potential future of team diversity reearch: From compositional diversity to emergent diversity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136, 135-145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.05.007
-
Koellinger, PD., Mell, J., Pohl, I., Roessler, C., & Treffers, T. (2015). Self-employed But Looking: A Labour Market Experiment. Economica, 82(325), 137-161. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12115
-
Ziegler, M., Poropat, A., & Mell, J. (2014). Does the length of a questionnaire matter? Expected and unexpected answers from generalizability theory. Journal of Individual Differences, 35(4), 250-261. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000147
-
Mell, J., van Knippenberg, D., & van Ginkel, W. (2013). The Catalyst Effect: The Impact of Transactive Memory System Structure on Team Performance. Academy of Management Journal, 57(4), 1154-1173. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2012.0589
-
Schoeder, T., Rogers, K. B., Ike, S., Mell, J., & Scholl, W. (2013). Affective Meanings of Stereotyped Social Groups in Cross-Cultural Comparison. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 16(6), 717-733. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430213491788
-
-
Professional (1)
-
Mell, J., van Knippenberg, D., & Ginkel, W. (2014). The catalyst effect: how meta-knowledge can improve team performance. RSM Discovery - Management Knowledge, 20(4), 18-19. http://hdl.handle.net/1765/77376
-
Chapter (2)
-
Academic (2)
-
van Knippenberg, D., & Mell, J. N. (2017). Team diversity and learning in organizations. In The Oxford Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning (pp. 475-490). Ithaca/Oxford University Press.
-
Knippenberg, D., & Mell, J. (2017). Team diversity and learning in organizations. In L. Argote, & J. Levine (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning (pp. 475–490). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190263362.013.44
-
Doctoral Thesis (1)
-
Internal (1)
-
Mell, J. (2015). Connecting Minds: On the Role of Metaknowledge in Knowledge Coordination. [Doctoral Thesis, Erasmus University Rotterdam]. Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR).
-
Working paper (1)
-
Academic (1)
-
Incerti, V., Mell, J., Jang, S., Mortensen, M., & Yücesan, E. (2020). Who benefits from multiple team membership? An investigation of how the structure of MTM shapes team- and system-level performance. Advance online publication.
-
Additional activities (1)
-
Organization Science (Journal)
Editorial work (Academic)
PhD Tracks (2)
- Role: Co-promotor
- PhD Candidate: Rowan Moelijker
- Time frame: 2021 -
- Role: Co-promotor
- PhD Candidate: Miheer Prafulla Agnihotri
- Time frame: 2023 -
Events (4)
Address
Office: Mandeville Building T10-39
Burgemeester Oudlaan 50
3062 PA Rotterdam
Postbus 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
Netherlands
Supervisory Team
