Showing papers in "Academy of Management Journal in 2015"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the business practices of risk management and organizational resilience, focusing on responses to large scale economic and natural disruptions, and discuss the connections between organizational resilience and societal resilience.
Abstract: An editorial is presented discussing the business practices of risk management and organizational resilience, focusing on responses to large scale economic and natural disruptions. Topics addressed include discussion of understanding organizations as complex systems with networks and resources; connections between organizational resilience and societal resilience; and government, private, and civil society tri-sector cooperation
406 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a comprehensive theory of collective organizational engagement, integrating engagement theory with the resource management model, is presented, and the authors propose that engagement can be considered an organiza...
Abstract: We present a comprehensive theory of collective organizational engagement, integrating engagement theory with the resource management model. We propose that engagement can be considered an organiza...
398 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the effect of board of director gender diversity on the broad spectrum of securities fraud was studied, and three key insights were derived based on ethicality, risk aversion, and diversity.
Abstract: We formulate theory on the effect of board of director gender diversity on the broad spectrum of securities fraud, and generate three key insights. First, based on ethicality, risk aversion, and diversity, we hypothesize that gender diversity on boards can operate as a significant moderator for the frequency of fraud. Second, we advance that the stock market response to fraud from a more gender-diverse board is significantly less pronounced. Third, we posit that women are more effective in male-dominated industries in reducing both the frequency and severity of fraud. Results of our novel empirical tests, based on data from a large sample of Chinese firms that committed securities fraud, are largely consistent with each of these hypotheses.
378 citations
TL;DR: As organizational environments become increasingly dynamic, complex, and competitive, leaders are likely to face intensified contradictory, or seemingly paradoxical, demands as discussed by the authors, and they develop the constru...
Abstract: As organizational environments become increasingly dynamic, complex, and competitive, leaders are likely to face intensified contradictory, or seemingly paradoxical, demands. We develop the constru...
362 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the contextual differences between the East and the West in terms of institutions, philosophies, and cultural values and how they are manifest in contemporary management practices and provide directions for future research and encourage an agentic view to creating new theories and paradigms.
Abstract: Management scholarship has grown tremendously over the past 60 years. Most of our paradigms originated from North America in the 1950s to the 1980s, inspired by the empirical phenomena and cultural, philosophical, and research traditions of the time. Here following, we highlight the contextual differences between the East and the West in terms of institutions, philosophies, and cultural values and how they are manifest in contemporary management practices. Inspired by theory development in management studies over time, we offer insights into the conditions facilitating new theories, and how these might apply to emergent theories from the East. We discuss the contributions of the six papers included in this special research forum as exemplars of integrating Eastern concepts and contexts to enrich existing management theories. We highlight the difficulty with testing Eastern constructs as distinct from Western ones by discussing the properties of equivalence, salience, and infusion in constructs. We provide directions for future research and encourage an agentic view to creating new theories and paradigms.
307 citations
TL;DR: As advances in communication technologies have made organizations more easily connected to their workforce outside of normal work hours, there is increased concern that employees may experience hei... as mentioned in this paper, and this concern has been recognized as a serious issue.
Abstract: As advances in communication technologies have made organizations more easily connected to their workforce outside of normal work hours, there is increased concern that employees may experience hei...
227 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that such mixed effects arise because individuals may engage in behaviors alternately to verify their self-perceptions or to self-enhance, and present a moderated mediation model to account for varying relations between ostracism and job performance.
Abstract: Self-esteem level has been positioned as a key mediating mechanism accounting for the effects of ostracism on behaviors, invoking the notion that individuals seek to verify their self-perceptions by behaving in a way that is consistent with those self-perceptions. However, evidence supporting the relation of ostracism and self-esteem level to behavioral outcomes has been mixed. We argue that such mixed effects arise because individuals may engage in behaviors alternately to verify their self-perceptions (suggesting a relation between self-esteem level and behavioral outcomes) or to self-enhance (suggesting no relation between self-esteem level and behavioral outcomes). Within this framing, the question becomes: When do we self-verify and when do we self-enhance? To that end, we position contingent self-esteem--or the extent to which individuals base their self-worth on outcomes in a particular domain--as a determining factor in whether we self-verify or self-enhance, and present a moderated mediation model to account for varying relations between ostracism and job performance. Our predictions regarding self-verification and self-enhancement motivation are fully supported across two field samples using multi-wave, multi-source study designs. Theoretical and practical implications for self-verification and self-enhancement motivation, as well as negative interpersonal behaviors at work, are discussed
199 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the role of design thinking in the management of large organizations, and focus on how design principles can be applied to the design of the workplace and the nature of work itself.
Abstract: This editorial written by myself and Marc Gruber of EPFL. It explores the role of design thinking in the management of large organisations, and focuses on how design principles can be applied to the design of the workplace and the nature of work itself. As Head of Service Design at the RCA, my contribution is on how to apply design thinking methods for managers and the 6 key elements described in this approach
In the last decade the importance of design and the value of design thinking as a tool for innovation has been recognized by both business and government. Design has become a strategic tool for business helping to translate technological innovation into user value, connecting with consumer needs and creating compelling product and service experiences that create new business value. In this paper we consider a further application of design thinking by considering how managers can apply it to the design of the workplace experience. Many enterprises, especially those in the knowledge economy, are defined by their human resources and their capacity to attract and retain talent. In this competitive environment the design of the employee experience and the services that support them and enable them to deliver value to the clients and colleagues, is a key differentiator. Applying design thinking to the design of work itself, the systems that support it, and the physical and virtual environments in which it takes place can help business and organizational leaders to attract and retain top talent, as well as to enhance productivity and operational effectiveness. In this paper we explore the key factors and principles by which leaders and managers can apply design thinking to transform the workplace experience and we propose 6 key elements for managers to enable that transformation and enhance social capital and business and organisational performance.
195 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine intra-organizational contestation over different temporal structures needed to entrain to discrepant temporal environments and explain how contestation, temporal reflexivity, interpretive shifts, and mutual appreciation of interdependencies led to the reconstitution of Fairtrade's development model to bridge competing temporal structures.
Abstract: We study the influence of a pervasive Western organizational mentality--clock-time orientation--in market-based models for human development. While a linear, clock-time orientation optimized for markets is meant to enhance efficiency, coordination, and control, it may be unsuitable for managing emergent, complex, and indeterminate processes such as development. To examine how the tension between market and development temporalities plays out at the organizational level, we draw on an ethnography of Fairtrade International, an organization connecting markets in the North with low-income community development in the South. We examine intra-organizational contestation over different temporal structures needed to entrain to discrepant temporal environments. We explain how contestation, temporal reflexivity, interpretive shifts, and mutual appreciation of interdependencies led to the reconstitution of Fairtrade's development model to bridge competing temporal structures. We contribute by (a) elucidating an agentic view of time, where time is used as a cultural resource to regulate attention and render social phenomena amenable to particular types of managerial action; (b) developing the notion of "ambitemporality," where organizations accommodate seemingly contradictory temporal orientations; and (c) explaining how deep-seated Western organizational mentalities truncate the power of development models, and how these models may benefit from embracing processual approaches associated with Eastern thought
178 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore whether the foreign professional experiences of influential executives predict firm-level creative output, and introduce a new theoretical model, the foreign experience model, to predict creative output.
Abstract: This research explores whether the foreign professional experiences of influential executives predict firm-level creative output. We introduce a new theoretical model, the foreign experience model ...
176 citations
TL;DR: The authors distinguish between family companies, where multiple family members as owners and/or managers, and single-founder companies, involving only the founder and no other family members, and distinguish between "family companies" and "lone-founder" companies.
Abstract: We distinguish between “family companies,” involving multiple family members as owners and/or managers, and “lone-founder companies,” involving only the founder and no other family members. We appl...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined responses to institutional complexity by analyzing when and how organizations respond to a coercive institutional demand from a powerful constituent when other important constituents do not accept the demand as legitimate.
Abstract: In this study, we examined responses to institutional complexity by analyzing when and how organizations respond to a coercive institutional demand from a powerful constituent when other important constituents do not accept the demand as legitimate. We experimentally manipulated institutional complexity and gauged the time to compliance of 100 childcare managers in the Netherlands, and then asked them to describe and explain their anticipated responses to multiple pressures. We found that institutional complexity leads decision makers to delay compliance, but usually not passively: decision makers used the time before compliance to attempt to reduce institutional complexity by neutralizing opposing pressures, challenging the coercive pressure, adapting the practice to suit opponents and their own personal beliefs, and/or waiting to see how the situation would unfold as multiple parties influenced one another. We found two factors influenced decision makers' choice of responses: (1) their interpretation of institutional complexity and (2) their personal beliefs toward the practice itself. Our findings contribute to an emerging understanding of how decision makers interpret and respond to institutional complexity, and thus complement recent studies in the institutional complexity literature
TL;DR: This thematic issue explores how management in the information age potentially differs and challenges the existing theoretical frameworks and assumptions on information, attention, and decision making.
Abstract: More than five decades after the seminal works on how individuals process information and make decisions within organizations were published (Cyert & March, 1963; Simon, 1957), the thesis that individuals, groups, and organizations are bounded in their rationality and ability to attend to information continues to remain salient. Individuals and organizations display cognitive and motivational biases, both in their attention to information and in their decisions based on that information (De Dreu, Nijstad, & van Knippenberg, 2008; Ocasio, 2011; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). The nature and volume of information, and managers' behaviors in seeking and using information, have undergone massive transformation over these past 50 years, which have seen the emergence of electronics, computers, and the Internet. Advances in information technology, mobile communications, and big data collection and storage mean that more people and firms have access to more information than ever before (George, Haas, & Pentland, 2014; Hilbert & Lopez, 2011). Yet, our frameworks of attention and decision making have not seen corresponding radical shifts. Perhaps, the underlying processes of decision making remain the same despite the transformative change in context. Alternatively, it is plausible that our theoretical advances have not matched the speed of change in information contexts confronted by businesses and policymakers alike. The growing ubiquity of information provides unprecedented opportunities—for learning, creativity , and innovation, as well as for performance. Understanding how to leverage these possibilities becomes an important challenge for management research and practice. However, the abundance of information also implies increasing competition for the attention of individuals, groups, and organizations ; increasing potential for information overload to fuel biases in decision making; increasing costs of collecting, storing, and sharing information ; and an increasing risk that all this information becomes a distraction from more relevant information or indeed from the job itself. Thus, a key challenge in the information age is to manage this wealth of available information and channel it to productive ends. In this thematic issue, we explore how management in the information age potentially differs and challenges our existing theoretical frameworks and assumptions. We assembled articles that address the rapidly evolving opportunities and challenges of managing in this new information-rich context. These articles are motivated by emergent themes and trends that set the stage for current and future scholarly research on information, attention, and decision making. We follow a brief analysis of these articles with potential directions for future research and highlight broader pastures where systematic research could further improve our understanding of how we live and work in the information age. Disciplines Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/mgmt_papers/203
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss how well traditional prescriptions for feedback apply during creative projects, since creativity often relies on nonlinear and non-linear and how to apply traditional prescriptions to creative projects.
Abstract: While there is a large amount of literature on feedback, it is unclear how well traditional prescriptions for feedback apply during creative projects, since creativity often relies on nonlinear and...
TL;DR: Emotional labor has been described as a dynamic self-regulatory process that unfolds over the course of customer interactions, with employees continuously monitoring and adjusting their felt and emotional states as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Emotional labor has been described as a dynamic self-regulatory process that unfolds over the course of customer interactions, with employees continuously monitoring and adjusting their felt and ex
TL;DR: A multilevel study investigating the diffusion of robotic surgery in the Italian health care system between 1999 and 2010 finds that a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods allowed for the spread of the technology.
Abstract: We report on a multilevel study investigating the diffusion of robotic surgery in the Italian health care system between 1999 and 2010. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods allowed...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that cognitive style is a critical contingency explaining the social capital of brokering and closed networks, and integrate insights from cognitive psychology into current network theory.
Abstract: Integrating insights from cognitive psychology into current network theory on the social capital of brokering and closed networks, we argue that cognitive style is a critical contingency explaining...
TL;DR: In China, many successful private-firm entrepreneurs hold representational appointments in political councils such as the People's Congress (PC) or People's Political Consultative Conference (PPCC).
Abstract: In China, many successful private-firm entrepreneurs hold representational appointments in political councils such as the People's Congress (PC) or People's Political Consultative Conference (PPCC)...
TL;DR: Social exchange theory is a broad theory that has been used to explain trust as an outcome of various exchange relationships, and research commonly presumes trust exists between exchange partners t... as discussed by the authors,.
Abstract: Social exchange theory is a broad theory that has been used to explain trust as an outcome of various exchange relationships, and research commonly presumes trust exists between exchange partners t...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the management of natural resources, including the growth of competition for land among countries, energy crops and food growers, financial investors, the impact of oil price reduction on the energy minerals, and the use of the term "resources" in the "Academy of Management Journal."
Abstract: The author discusses the management of natural resources. Topics discussed include the growth of competition for land among countries, energy crops and food growers, and financial investors, the impact of oil price reduction on the energy minerals, and the use of the term "resources" in the "Academy of Management Journal." Also mentioned the factors that makes the scarcity in resources.
TL;DR: Theories of status rarely address unearned status gain this article, defined as an unexpected and unsolicited increase in relative standing, prestige, or worth attained not through individual effort or achiev...
Abstract: Theories of status rarely address “unearned status gain,” defined as an unexpected and unsolicited increase in relative standing, prestige, or worth attained not through individual effort or achiev...
TL;DR: In this article, a generalization-instantiation process is proposed to understand the heterogeneity of financial industry culpability, where one firm reveals financial misconduct, others in the industry suffer lower valuations, but do so heterogeneously.
Abstract: We suggest that, when one firm reveals financial misconduct, others in the industry suffer lower valuations, but do so heterogeneously. To understand this heterogeneity, we conceptualize such contamination as a generalization-instantiation process: investors generalize the culpability to the industry category and perceive the instantiation of generalized culpability within the industry bystander firms. This theoretical separation allows us to hypothesize the factors that affect the degree to which both of these elements of the contamination process occurs. Specifically, we predict that characteristics of the misconduct firm or event--factors that lend to investors' familiarity with the misconduct firms, or that prompt attributions of blame for the misconduct--affect the potency of the generalization of culpability to the industry, while characteristics of the industry bystander firms--investors' familiarity with such firms, or factors that lend to investors' perceptions that they have strong governance--affect the firms' vulnerability to being perceived as instantiating the generalized culpability. We tested our hypotheses on a sample of 725 firms across 84 financial misconduct events, and the results of our event analyses broadly support our predictions. Our study thus has implications for future research on the social view of financial markets, organizational misconduct, and corporate governance
TL;DR: This paper developed and test predictions about how demographic differences influence dyadic deference in multidisciplinary research teams, and how differential patterns of dyadic diserence emerge to shape team-level effectiveness.
Abstract: We develop and test predictions about how demographic differences influence dyadic deference in multidisciplinary research teams, and how differential patterns of dyadic deference emerge to shape team-level effectiveness. We present a dual pathway model that recognizes that two distinct mechanisms--task contributions and social affinity-- account for how team members' demographic attributes contribute to deference. Furthermore, we propose that the extent to which these different mechanisms are prevalent in a team has implications for the team's research productivity, with deference based on social affinity detracting from it and deference based on task contributions enhancing it. Using longitudinal data from a sample of 55 multidisciplinary research teams comprising 619 scientists, we found general support for our conceptual model. Our findings underscore the importance of accounting for multiple interpersonal mechanisms to understand the complex, multilevel nature of deference in teams
TL;DR: This article found that workplace help-seeking and help-giving can be intertwined behaviors enacted through an organizational routine, which shifts the theoretical emphasis from one of exchange and cost to one of joint engagement.
Abstract: The literature on help-giving behavior identifies individual-level factors that affect a help-giver's decision to help another individual. Studying a context in which work was highly interdependent and helping was pervasive, however, we propose that this emphasis on the initial point of consent is incomplete. Instead, we find that workplace help-seeking and help-giving can be intertwined behaviors enacted through an organizational routine. Our research, therefore, shifts the theoretical emphasis from one of exchange and cost to one of joint engagement. More specifically, we move beyond the initial point of consent to recast help-seeking and help-giving as an interdependent process in which both the help-seeker and the help-giver use cognitive and emotional moves to engage others and thereby propel a helping routine forward. In contrast to the existing literature, an organizational routines perspective also reveals that helping need not be limited to dyads, and that the helping routine is shaped by the work context in which help is sought. Finally, we extend these insights to the literatures on routines and coordination and debate how our results might generalize even if helping is not part of an organizational routine
TL;DR: In this article, the authors enrich the PE fit literature by exploring different aspects of PE fit phenomena in the Western world, such as person-environment fit (PE fit) and environmental fit.
Abstract: Extant theorizing concerning person–environment fit (PE fit) is culture bound in that it focuses predominantly on PE fit phenomena in the Western world. We enrich the PE fit literature by exploring...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors established the existence of "trickle-down effects", where the perceptions, attitudes, or behavior of one person in an organization affects those of another person at a meeting.
Abstract: Organizational research has established the existence of trickle-down effects, wherein the perceptions, attitudes, or behavior of one person in an organization affects those of another person at a ...
TL;DR: In this article, a longitudinal, grounded-theory approach was employed to investigate the occurrence of an identity crisis in an emerging collective of organizations attempting to form a new academic field.
Abstract: We employed a longitudinal, grounded-theory approach to investigate the occurrence of an identity crisis in an emerging collective of organizations attempting to form a new academic field. The findings indicate that legacy identities and the nested structure of such organizations have implications for the formation of identity at this level. Specifically, the co-evolution of organization-level and collective-level identities, and the interdependencies between the levels, rendered the collective identity formation process as multiphased, complex, contentious, and continuously precarious--ultimately leading to an identity crisis that was resolved not by arriving at a "consensual identity," but, rather, a "coherent identity." The findings contribute to the nascent stream of literature on collective identity beyond the organizational level by explicating identity-work processes involved in the precipitation, manifestation, and resolution of an identity crisis in an emerging field.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the effects of anticipatory impression management in the context of acquisitions and introduce impression offsetting, which is an anticipatory alternative to the traditional impression management.
Abstract: Drawing on expectancy violation theory, we explore the effects of anticipatory impression management in the context of acquisitions. We introduce impression offsetting, an anticipatory impression m...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the case of major U.S. symphony orchestras and the changes in their concert programming between 1879 and 1969 to find that middle-status organizations are more aligned and middle status individual leaders make more conventional choices than their low- and high-status peers.
Abstract: Beside making organizations look like their peers through the adoption of similar attributes (“alignment”), this paper highlights the fact that conformity also enables organizations to stand out by exhibiting highly salient attributes key to their field or industry (“conventionality”). Building on the conformity and status literatures, and using the case of major U.S. symphony orchestras and the changes in their concert programming between 1879 and 1969, we hypothesize and find that middle-status organizations are more aligned and middle-status individual leaders make more conventional choices than their low- and high-status peers. In addition, the extent to which middle-status leaders adopt conventional programming is shown to be moderated by the status of the organization and by its level of alignment. Thus, this paper offers a novel theory and operationalization of organizational conformity, and contributes to the literature on status effects, and, more broadly, to the understanding of the key issues o...