PhD Defence: Pepijn van Neerijnen
In his dissertation ‘The Adaptive Organization: The Socio-Cognitive Antecedents of Ambidexterity and Individual Exploration’ ERIM’s Pepijn van Neerijnen focuses on the influence of socio-cognitive factors such as reflexivity, transactive memory systems, and paradoxical cognition as antecedents to organizational ambidexterity and individual exploration.
Pepijn defended his dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Monday, 12 September 2016 at 13:00. His supervisor was Prof. Justin Jansen and his co-supervisors were Prof. Pursey Heugens and Dr Tom Mom. Other members of the Doctoral Committee were Prof. Taco Reus (RSM), Prof. Michaela Schippers (RSM), Prof. Marius van Dijke (RSM), Prof. Dimo Dimov (University of Batch) and Prof. Zeki Simsek (University of Connecticut).
About Pepijn van Neerijnen
Pepijn van Neerijnen (Naarden, April 23, 1980) obtained his MSc. in Business Administration from the Rotterdam School of Management at the Erasmus University with a specialization in Strategic Management. After completing his bachelor in Communication Management at the Hogeschool van Utrecht, Pepijn decided to enroll at RSM. After his graduation Pepijn stayed in touch with his thesis supervisor Shahzad Ansari as they had written an article together which was based on his master thesis and which was to be presented at the Strategic Management Conference in Copenhagen (2006). It was at one of these meetings that he learned there was a job opening at the Strategic Management Department at RSM as a full-time lecturer. Pepijn immediately jumped at the opportunity and started as a full-time lecturer in January 2007. As he became increasingly interested in research, Pepijn started a PhD project in parallel to his position as full-time lecturer in 2008. In this dual role Pepijn has been given the opportunity to teach a large variety of different courses at the bachelor and master level. Moreover, he had the pleasure of supervising many bachelor and master thesis students. Also, he successfully initiated and coordinated several qualitative and quantitative research projects during this period.
From the studies in his dissertation, study 3 has already been published in Organization Studies, study 1 has been nominated for the best paper proceedings of the Business Policy and Strategy track of the Academy of Management Conference in Boston (2012), and study 2 will be presented at the Academy of Management Conference in Anaheim (2016). Besides these papers, that will be submitted to international journals in 2016, Pepijn has presented numerous other papers at international conferences such as the Strategic Management Society Conference, the Organization Science Winter Conference, and EURAM.
Currently Pepijn is employed as an Assistant Professor at the Amsterdam Business School at the University of Amsterdam. Here he focusses predominantly on research and management responsibilities. Amongst other things he is coordinator of the internship program, manager corporate relationships of the business administration program, and a member of the workers council of the Faculty of Economics and Business. In his current research Pepijn is particularly interested in how organizations adapt to change over time and how factors situated at different levels within the organization affect these –dynamic- adaptive outcomes. A common denominator in his work is the focus on information processing within social systems
Thesis Abstract
In order to remain a high level of environmental fitness an organization must be able to simultaneously explore and exploit. As these activities are contradictory in nature this generates significant pressures within the organization. In particular, because long-term adaptation requires not only the simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation but also their combination. Top-management and employees have to manage this differentiation and integration challenge, despite their natural inclination to shy away from it as it is emotionally charged and cognitively demanding.
This dissertation focuses on the influence of socio-cognitive factors such as reflexivity, transactive memory systems, and paradoxical cognition as antecedents to organizational ambidexterity and individual exploration. These factors effect the information processing and learning behaviours and thus their willingness and ability to successfully deal with these tensions.
Jointly the studies in this dissertation underscore the importance of the socio-cognitive antecedents of ambidexterity. Much insight has already been gained by studying factors related to organizational design or top management team characteristics. Greater attention to the socio-constructionist underpinnings of the management of the ambidexterity paradox can further extend our knowledge on this important area. This dissertation represents one of the first steps in this direction.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
