Dynamic Rela ti onships Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2023 1
This special issue sec ti on is focused on present ‐
ing the 6th Interna ti onal Conference on Manage ‐
ment and Organiza ti on SAM 2022 hosted by 
Slovenian Academy of Management, together with 
School of Economics and Business, University of 
Ljubljana, and Faculty of Economics and Business, 
University of Zagreb, with the support of CEEMAN, 
organized on June 23 ‐24, 2022 in Ljubljana, Slove ‐
nia. The theme of the conference was Integra ti ng 
Organiza ti onal Research: Individual, team, organi ‐
za ti onal and mul ti level perspec ti ves. 
The inspira ti on for the gathering alike came 
from the awareness that organiza ti ons are mul ti ‐
level social systems. Even though organiza ti ons are 
complex social systems, most scholars remain en ‐
trenched in their own disciplinary, specialized micro 
(organiza ti onal behaviour and organiza ti onal psy ‐
chology), meso (social psychology, business process 
management, project management) or macro 
(strategic management, organiza ti onal theory and 
design, engineering/systems management) re ‐
search camps. Meanwhile, managers in the digitally 
connected world must priori ti ze the execu ti on of 
compe titi ve strategic initi a ti ves and the achieve ‐
ment of challenging business objec ti ves by skilfully 
managing and con ti nually enhancing the dynamic 
interac ti ons between various levels of the organiza ‐
ti onal system. Although these dis ti nct schools of 
thought have tradi ti onally focused on analyzing or ‐
ganiza ti onal phenomena at di fferent levels of anal ‐
ysis (i.e., individual/job, team/unit, and organiza ‐
ti on/system), they will undoubtedly persist and 
provide valuable, specialized insights. Nevertheless, 
relying solely on single ‐level perspec ti ves may not 
be su fficient for e ffec ti vely addressing the increasing 
complexity of organiza ti onal life.  
It is encouraging to see that there is a growing 
body of research in organiza ti onal studies that spans 
mul ti ple levels, incorpora ti ng previously separate 
research areas and providing fresh perspec ti ves on 
business prac ti ces. The need to bridge the gap be ‐
tween macro and micro levels has been acknowl ‐
edged by the field of organiza ti onal science, 
parti cularly in areas such as human resource man ‐
agement, leadership, organiza ti onal behavior, inno ‐
va ti on management, and organiza ti onal learning. 
Recent developments in mul ti level modelling tech ‐
niques have further emphasized the importance of 
considering levels in scholarly discussions. 
The central premise of mul ti level organiza ti onal 
research is that a more comprehensive explana ti on 
of phenomena can be achieved by integra ti ng factors 
from di fferent levels of analysis. The aim and focus 
of this conference were to explore and tackle theo ‐
re ti cal, research, and methodological challenges as ‐
sociated with single ‐ and cross ‐level inves ti ga ti ons, 
with the goal of advancing our comprehension of the 
mul ti level nature of organiza ti ons. Par ti cipants from 
Introduc ti on to the Special Issue Sec ti on 
 
6th Interna ti onal Conference on Management and Organiza ti on SAM 2022: 
INTEGRATING ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH: INDIVIDUAL, TEAM, 
ORGANIZATIONAL AND MULTILEVEL PERSPECTIVES 
 
Aleša Saša Sitar 
University of Ljubljana 
Ana Aleksi ć Miri ć 
University of Belgrade 
Ma ti ja Mari ć 
University of Zagreb
DRMJ vol12 no01 2023 (print).qxp_Prelom  19/05/2023  10:36  Page 1

2 Dynamic Rela ti onships Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2023
universi ti es and schools from 17 di fferent countries 
came to Ljubljana and in two days, 43 papers were 
presented in 10 sessions. A myriad of di fferent par ‐
ti cipants and topics were present at the conference. 
The first day of the conference presenta ti ons were 
held in session HRM and OB, Job design, Leadership, 
Business process management and Digi ti zed work. 
On the second day, presenta ti ons were scheduled in 
the sessions Macro ‐ and cross ‐level issues, Innova ‐
ti ve work behaviour and Project organizing.  
In order to present the wide range of presented 
studies, we conducted a textual analysis presented 
in Figure 1. The topics covered within papers include 
broader fields of leadership, corporate social re ‐
sponsibility, human resource management, project 
management, work design, and many more across 
di fferent levels (individual, team, and organiza ‐
ti onal), di fferent industries, and di fferent countries 
(Slovenia, Croa ti a, Serbia, Hungary, Poland, Albania, 
Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, 
Norway, United Kingdom, Canada, USA, Colombia 
and Thailand). We strived to provide much ‐needed 
synthesis of underlying theories and methodological 
approaches within the loosely coupled community 
of organiza ti onal scholars by taking account of the 
fact that micro phenomena are embedded in macro 
contexts, while macro phenomena o ft en emerge 
through the interac ti on and dynamics of lower ‐level 
elements. Such an approach may add depth and 
richness to our theore ti cal reasoning and likewise 
improve conversa ti ons between researchers and 
practiti oners, by providing insigh tf ul details con ‐
cerning how organiza ti ons operate and behave. 
For the occasion of the special issue sec ti on we 
have decided to highlight two well ‐represented and 
interes ti ng topics from the conference: corporate 
social responsibility (CSR) and leadership in project 
management. Both business supporters and busi ‐
ness‐and ‐society scholars share a basic convic ti on 
that CSR is advantageous not only for the firm but 
also for its stakeholders and society as a whole 
(Burke & Logsdon, 1996). It is important to study the 
Figure 1: Textual analysis of papers presented at SAM 2022 conference
DRMJ vol12 no01 2023 (print).qxp_Prelom  19/05/2023  10:36  Page 2

Dynamic Rela ti onships Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2023 3
development of CSR prac ti ces in di fferent contexts 
(implicit vs. explicit CSR) in order to reveal how or ‐
ganiza ti ons, address stakeholder needs, as well as 
the changes in expressed ethical values and its im ‐
pact on market and the society (Carson, Hagen, & 
Sethi, 2013). Similarly, projects are invaluable for 
managing complex problems and implemen ti ng 
changes for the good of organiza ti ons and society. 
Studying leadership in the context of projects is of 
high importance because project success depends 
on di fferent characteris ti cs of the project itself such 
as complexity, size, uniqueness (Mir & Pinnington, 
2014). Projects are temporary and as such, largely 
dependent on the abili ti es of project managers. 
And, what is crucial some ti mes is how project man ‐
agers adjust to con ti ngencies of di fferent projects. 
The two papers in this special issue sec ti on address 
these topics. 
The first paper, by Erik Pelters inves ti gates the 
extent to EU companies mimic the content of codes 
of conduct from U.S. companies. This is grounded 
in the process of hybridiza ti on, i.e. a gradual align ‐
ment between the design of CSR prac ti ces by com ‐
panies in implicit and explicit CSR contexts. 
Hybridiza ti on comes alive with the help of explici ti ‐
za ti on and implici ti za ti on (Ma tt en & Moon, 2008). 
In his paper, Erik Pelters is focused on empirical ev ‐
idence of hybridiza ti on in terms of changes in codes 
of conduct over ti me. Findings point out to a no ti ce ‐
able hybridiza ti on where codes of conduct in USA 
func ti on as templates for EU companies. Explici ti za ‐
ti on of codes content takes place in companies of 
the EU context. The same applies to implici ti za ti on 
of CSR prac ti ces: content analysis demonstrated 
that companies embedded new trends within their 
codes of conduct.  
The second paper is wri tt en by Gabriella Cser ‐
há ti . It provides a content analysis of leadership ap ‐
proaches in project management with the focus on 
interac ti ons between project/organiza ti onal charac ‐
teris ti cs and project manager’s leadership style. 
More precisely, the analysis centred on the depen ‐
dence of project success on various project charac ‐
teris ti cs, including project type, complexity, goal 
clarity, uncertainty, team size, project management 
prac ti ces, and virtuality. Based on these findings, au ‐
thor suggests two implica ti ons for future research. 
First, in order to ensure project success, research ef ‐
forts should focus on interac ti ons between leader ‐
ship style and project characteris ti cs. Second, au ‐
thor calls for inves ti ga ti ng mul ti level interac ti ons 
between organiza ti onal context (such as culture and 
structure), leadership style and project success. 
 
REFERENCES 
Ma tt en, D., & Moon, J. (2008) “Implicit” and “explicit” 
CSR: A conceptual framework for a compara ti ve un ‐
derstanding of corporate social responsibility, 
Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 402 ‐424. 
Burke, L., & Logsdon, J. M. (1996). How corporate social 
responsibility pays o ff, Long Range Planning, 29(4), 
495 ‐502. 
Carson, S. G., Hagen, Ø., & Sethi, S. P. (2013). From Im ‐
plicit to Explicit CSR in a Scandinavian Context: The 
Cases of HÅG and Hydro, Journal of Business Ethics, 
127(1), 17 ‐31. 
Mir, F. A., & Pinnington, A. H. (2014). Exploring the value 
of project management: Linking Project Management 
Performance and Project Success, Interna ti onal Jour ‐
nal of Project Management, 32(2), 202–217. 
DRMJ vol12 no01 2023 (print).qxp_Prelom  19/05/2023  10:36  Page 3