Dr. (Thomas) Teekens

Postdocs

Biography

Dr. Thomas Teekens is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he works on synthesizing the theoretical insights from various SCOOP research projects. Collaborating with Martin van Hees (VU) and Rafael Wittek and Liesbet Heyse (RUG), Thomas aims to elucidate the mechanisms that underpin the sustainability of cooperation across social settings.

Before joining the VU in Amsterdam, Thomas spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher in Groningen, where he empirically studied how different professionals in healthcare, education, and other sectors tackle complex problems together. Prior to that, Thomas completed his PhD at the Sociology Department of the RUG in 2024, with a dissertation titled Sustainable Collaboration in Care. In his research, Thomas focuses on understanding how social relationships shape cooperative efforts across organizational and disciplinary boundaries, and how such collaborations can endure over time. He is particularly interested in mechanism-based approaches that link individual behavior to larger social processes, a perspective that also informs his current contributions to the SCOOP Synthesis.

SCOOP PhD Publications

Teekens, T., Giardini, F., & Wittek, R. (2025). Competing norms and shifting saliences. How norm beliefs affected behavior among Dutch health care interns during the COVID-19 lockdown. Rationality and Society, 37(2), 201-229. https://doi.org/10.1177/10434631251315324

Teekens, T. (2024). Sustainable Collaboration in Care: Joint Production Motivation and Interprofessional Learning in an Interorganizational Network. [Doctoral Thesis, University of Groningen]. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.952108697

Teekens, T., Giardini, F., Kirgil, Z. M., & Wittek, R. (2023). Shared understanding and task-interdependence in nursing interns’ collaborative relations: A social network study of vocational health care internships in the Netherlands. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 37(6), 999-1009. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2023.2209123

Teekens, T., Giardini, F., Zuidersma, J., & Wittek, R. (2021). Shaping resilience: how work team characteristics affect occupational commitment in health care interns during a pandemic. European Societies, 23(S1), S513-S529. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2020.1830144