PhD student in Employment Relations and Organisational Behaviour
Biography
Sarah is a management pracademic, specializing in applied organizational behavior. As an undergraduate at Harvard University (A.B. cum laude and citation in French, 2006), she trained as a member of the Health & Psychophysiology Laboratory and produced an independent honors' thesis under the supervision of Dr Wendy B. Mendes and Dr J. Richard Hackman. In 2006, she joined the LSE as part of the Institute of Social Psychology and earned an MSc. in Organizational & Social Psychology (Research) with High Merit in 2007. As part of the ISP, Sarah trained in organizational change and development under Dr Caryn Solomon, and consulted in knowledge management for Honeywell International. Since 2007, Sarah has been engaged in the Department of Management as a doctoral candidate; her primary research site is SAP AG, the leading enterprise software company.
Sarah is a global, mobile ex-pat with experience in over 30 countries. Her passions are travel, gastronomy, dance, education, and civic service. She is accredited through the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE), and is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Sarah is active with the Harvard Club of the UK and Rotary International (Rotaract Westminster, District 1130).
Research interests
Subject areas: Distributed Leadership; Influence; Status; Reputation; Networks of Practice; Blame/Credit Mechanisms; Open Innovation.
Within the discipline of organizational behavior, Sarah concentrates her studies in micro-OB – i.e., the study of individuals and processes (versus macro-OB, the study of structures and strategies). Her research aligns with her primary teaching interest: leadership. Specifically, she studies "emergent leadership" (Yoo & Alavi, 2004) or "distributed leadership" that, compared with traditional leadership originating from formal position or legitimate authority, instead derives from "broader, mutual influence process independent of any formal role or hierarchical structure and [as] diffused among the members of any given social system," (de Rue & Ashford, 2010, p. 627). Understanding how distributed leadership arises and operates, and also its consequences for organizational form and function, is essential for managing organizational development.
One organizational form that lends itself to distributed leadership is electronic networks of practice (ENoP). ENoP are "computer-mediated social spaces where individuals working on similar problems self-organize to help each other and share knowledge, advice, and perspectives about their occupational practice or common interests," (Wasko, Teigland, & Faraj, 2009, p. 254). Within the open innovation paradigm, ENoP are part community of practice (Brown & Duguid, 1991) and part user community (von Hippel, 2003); they deploy Web 2.0 tools to maximize a global corporate ecosystem. ENoP can be a significant value driver for an organization; "these types of institutions are especially important for promoting value by creating 'new combinations'," (Moran & Ghoshal, 1996, p. 42). Therefore, the management of ENoP is "a delicate and highly strategic internal capability" (Kane, 2009, p. 41) and a "core competency" (Gilbane Group, 2008). Sarah studies social influence in ENoP, and she is proud to feature SAP's Community Network (SCN) |as her exemplary case site.
In addition to social influence and its consequences for decision-making and distributed leadership, Sarah's research examines the primary antecedent of influence: status. Status is a universal index of social regard and social worth (Weber, 1922), and status hierarchies are found throughout history and across Nature. Thus, status and status contests operate in ENoP; however, the novelty of that organizational form indicates that status might function differently than it does in traditional contexts. Sarah's research delves into status motivations and incentives, with a particular concern for high status achievers (who are similar conceptually to, but not equivalent to, network theory "stars").
In parallel to her work on status, Sarah is an expert on the topic of reputation – a construct related to, but not synonymous with, status – and manages the Reputation Research Network.| She advises the Innovation Co-Creation Lab |on crowdsourcing, online communities, and related topics, and consults independently as Principal at Ouroboros Group| L.L.C.
Teaching
In AY2010-11, Sarah is taking a sabbatical from teaching. Previous teaching experience at LSE includes:
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British Journal of Industrial Relations ("Basil Blackwell Teaching") Fellow, 2008-2010
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Guest Lecturer for "Organizational Theory and Behaviour" (ID200), "Leadership in Organizations: Theory & Practice" (ID420 /ID301), and "Open Innovation" (MG418)
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Course Assistant for ID200, ID420/ID301, MG418,"Quantitative Analysis 1: Description & Inference" (MI451), and LSE Executive Summer School "Leadership: Current approaches to leadership & Applications to professional development"
Supervisors
Publications and papers
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Otner, S. M. G. (2011). "Building Web Reputation Systems". Corporate Reputation Review , 13(4), 301-302. < http://www.palgrave-journals.com/crr/journal/v13/n4/pdf/crr201026a.pdf >
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Otner, S. M. G. (2010). Most Different Systems Design (MDSD). In A. J. Mills, G. Durepos, & E, Wiebe (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Case Study Research (pp. 570-572). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
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Otner, S. M. G. (2011). Invited participation at Workshop on Information and Decision in Social Networks (WIDS). MIT, Cambridge, MA. < http://wids.lids.mit.edu/ >
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Otner, S. M. G. (2011). DachisGroup Social Business Summit. London, UK.
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Otner, S. M. G. (2010). RepNet: The (Personal) Reputation Research Network. Caucus organized at the Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting, Montréal, Canada. < http://repnet.ning.com >
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Otner, S. M. G. (2010). Exchange Economies at Work: The functions of reputation in firm-sponsored innovation communities. Invited presentation to "Who Am I Online?" workshop. Aarhus University, Denmark.
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Otner, S. M. G. (2009). Revising Reputation: Towards a Theory of Credit. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Danish Research Unit of Industrial Dynamics (DRUID). Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Otner, S. M. G. (2009). Destructive Innovation. Invited panel participation at "Innovating with Information and Communication Technologies: Social and Organizational Engagement and Transformation", the Ninth Social Study of ICT workshop (SSIT9). The London School of Economics, London, UK.
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Otner, S. M. G. (2008). The Shoemaker's Children: Consultants and the Extent in the Knowledge Economy of their Expertise. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS). Vrije University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.