Hello, I am Tom Junker, Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Resource Studies at Tilburg University. Prior to joining Tilburg University, I worked at Erasmus University Rotterdam where I did my PhD on the topic of “Working in Agile Teams”. I believe that societal transitions not only require changes in individual behaviors and societal systems, but that a group-level of analysis is essential for effective interventions.
Project Title
Mobilizing social resources in times of transition
Systemic or behavioral change(s) addressed
Systemic changes: The findings of this project may help to derive implications for how policy makers can map the social resources of a given group, identify risk groups, and develop interventions to make social resources more accessible.
Behavioral changes: This project can provide insights to how individuals can mobilize social resources and how group memberships facilitate (vs. hinder) effective societal transitions.
Theoretical approach
This project takes inspiration from social capital theory (Lin, 1999; Putman, 2001), job demands-resources theory (Bakker et al., 2023) and the social identity approach to health and behavior change (Haslam et al., 2009).
Empirical research strategies
Quantitative multilevel research designs and analyses, in the future potentially intervention research
Possibilities for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration
The social resource perspective is suitable for understanding a range of societal transitions. I would be happy to collaborate on any topic where a group-level analysis could be insightful.
Social transition(s) addressed
Humans are inherently social beings as people’s perceptions, emotions, and behaviors are shaped by the groups to which they belong. People are commonly part of multiple social groups both in the work domain (e.g., multiple project teams, committees, etc.) and in the home domain (e.g., sports, volunteering, other leisure groups). The aim of this project is to investigate (1) how societal transitions influence people’s group memberships and social resources, and (2) how group memberships and social resources can be leveraged to manage societal transitions. As such, this project is not limited to a specific societal transition but rather puts forwards how group-level analyses can help to understand and facilitate behavioral change.