Showing papers in "Academy of Management Review in 2016"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how the organizational identity of a technology venture must adapt to meet the expectations of critical resource providers at each stage of its organizational life cycle and provide a temporal perspective on the interactions among identity, organizational legitimacy, institutional environments, and entrepreneurial resource acquisition for technology ventures.
Abstract: To acquire resources, new ventures need to be perceived as legitimate. For this to occur, a venture must meet the expectations of various audiences with differing norms, standards, and values as the venture evolves and grows. We investigate how the organizational identity of a technology venture must adapt to meet the expectations of critical resource providers at each stage of its organizational life cycle. In so doing, we provide a temporal perspective on the interactions among identity, organizational legitimacy, institutional environments, and entrepreneurial resource acquisition for technology ventures. The core assertion from this conceptual analysis is that entrepreneurial ventures confront multiple legitimacy thresholds as they evolve and grow. We identify and discuss three key insights related to entrepreneurs’ efforts to cross those thresholds at different organizational life cycle stages: institutional pluralism, venture-identity embeddedness, and legitimacy buffering.
283 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use realist philosophy of science to ontologically rehabilitate the objectivity of entrepreneurial opportunities by elucidating their propensity mode of existence, and explain that the subjectivities of the process of opportunity actualization do not contradict the objective existence of opportunities.
Abstract: The idea that entrepreneurial opportunities exist “out there” is increasingly under attack by scholars who argue that opportunities do not preexist objectively but are actively created through subjective processes of social construction. In this article we concede many of the criticisms pioneered by the creation approach but resist abandoning the preexisting reality of opportunities. Instead, we use realist philosophy of science to ontologically rehabilitate the objectivity of entrepreneurial opportunities by elucidating their propensity mode of existence. Our realist perspective offers an intuitive and paradox-free understanding of what it means for opportunities to exist objectively. This renewed understanding enables us to (1) explain that the subjectivities of the process of opportunity actualization do not contradict the objective existence of opportunities, (2) acknowledge the category of agency-intensive opportunites, (3) develop the notion of “nonopportunity,” and (4) clarify the ways individuals ...
271 citations
TL;DR: The concept of HRM system strength has been widely accepted in the field as mentioned in this paper and has been used in subsequent theory and research, devoting particular attention to identifying consistencies and inconsistencies from the original intent and implications of the construct for related areas and topics.
Abstract: Since the 2004 publication of “Understanding HRM–Firm Performance Linkages: The Role of the ‘Strength’ of the HRM System,” the concept of HRM strength has been widely accepted in the field. We reflect on how the construct of HRM system strength has been used in subsequent theory and research, devoting particular attention to identifying consistencies and inconsistencies from the original intent and implications of the construct for related areas and topics such as strategic HRM, HRM architecture, social psychological contracts, and organizational climate strength. Our review indicates that subsequent work has considerably added to the original; however, challenges remain in capitalizing on this construct in both theory and research. We conclude by offering promising directions for further developing the construct of HRM system strength.
246 citations
TL;DR: This article propose a typology of four differing conceptions of history in organizational research: history as evaluating, explicating, conceptualizing, and narrating, and identify five principles of historical organization studies (dual integrity, pluralistic understanding, representational truth, context sensitivity, and theoretical fluency).
Abstract: The promise of a closer union between organizational and historical research has long been recognized. However, its potential remains unfulfilled: the authenticity of theory development expected by organization studies and the authenticity of historical veracity required by historical research place exceptional conceptual and empirical demands on researchers. We elaborate the idea of historical organization studies—organizational research that draws extensively on historical data, methods, and knowledge to promote historically informed theoretical narratives attentive to both disciplines. Building on prior research, we propose a typology of four differing conceptions of history in organizational research: history as evaluating, explicating, conceptualizing, and narrating. We identify five principles of historical organization studies—dual integrity, pluralistic understanding, representational truth, context sensitivity, and theoretical fluency—and illustrate our typology holistically from the perspective ...
215 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined how individual stakeholders' contributions to joint value creation are shaped by stakeholders' mental representations of their relationships with the other participants in value creation, and how these mental representations are affected by the perceived behavior of the firm.
Abstract: Firms play a crucial role in furthering social welfare through their ability to foster stakeholders’ contributions to joint value creation—value creation that involves a public good dilemma arising from high task and outcome interdependence—leading to what economists have labeled the “team production problem.” We build on relational models theory to examine how individual stakeholders’ contributions to joint value creation are shaped by stakeholders’ mental representations of their relationships with the other participants in value creation, and how these mental representations are affected by the perceived behavior of the firm. Stakeholder theorists typically contrast a broadly defined “relational” approach to stakeholder management with a “transactional” approach based on the price mechanism—and argue that the former is more likely than the latter to contribute to social welfare. Our theory supports this prediction for joint value creation but also implies that the dichotomy on which it is based is too ...
181 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop an account of a multi-objective corporation as a means for enabling a greater range of management decisions so as to permit more direct corporate engagement in the diverse goals of various stakeholders.
Abstract: Social welfare, or the good society, is of central concern to the Academy of Management. We begin by observing that, in theory and practice, social welfare appears to be a multifarious, multidimensional, pluralistic concept. In light of this, we develop an account of a multi-objective corporation as a means for enabling a greater range of management decisions so as to permit more direct corporate engagement in the diverse goals of various stakeholders. In the course of doing this, we critique aspects of single-objective theories of corporate function and argue that a key objection to multi-objective views can be avoided. Our analysis is built on a stakeholder agency framework wherein corporate actions reflect the outcome of an intracorporate “marketplace.” We suggest that improvements in social welfare are more likely when intracorporate markets among stakeholders can operate unconstrained by some single-valued objective.
172 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a circumplex of change recipients' affective and behavioral responses to change events is proposed to highlight the central, active roles change recipients play in organizational change events.
Abstract: Following a long period during which scholarly attention was paid predominantly to the role of change agents in organizational change, change recipients and their experiences have finally begun to take center stage. Yet the typical view of recipients has been as passive reactors to change. In this article we take steps toward highlighting the central, active roles change recipients play in organizational change events. We discuss and distinguish between dimensions of valence and activation and introduce a circumplex of recipients’ affective and behavioral responses to change events. We describe the primary and secondary appraisal processes through which each response type emerges and discuss outcomes of each response type. We use our model to explain how change context and process variables affect recipients’ responses to change. Finally, we discuss implications of our model for theory, research, and practice.
169 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors distinguish between three paths to personal identification: threat-focused, opportunity-focused and closeness-focused paths and articulate a model that includes each of them, examining the contextual features, how individuals' identities are constructed, and the likely outcomes that follow in the three paths.
Abstract: Despite recognizing the importance of personal identification in organizations, researchers have rarely explored its dynamics. We define personal identification as perceived oneness with another individual, where one defines oneself in terms of the other. While many scholars have found that personal identification is associated with helpful effects, others have found it harmful. To resolve this contradiction, we distinguish between three paths to personal identification—threat-focused, opportunity-focused, and closeness-focused paths—and articulate a model that includes each. We examine the contextual features, how individuals’ identities are constructed, and the likely outcomes that follow in the three paths. We conclude with a discussion of how the threat-, opportunity-, and closeness-focused personal identification processes potentially blend, as well as implications for future research and practice.
158 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Effectuation as Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship" by R.J. Arend, H. Sarooghi, and A. Burkemper.
Abstract: A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Effectuation as Ineffectual? Applying the 3E Theory-Assessment Framework to a Proposed New Theory of Entrepreneurship" by R.J. Arend, H. Sarooghi, and A. Burkemper in volume 40 of the periodical.
137 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors formally define the behavioral configuration of asking open questions combined with attentive listening as "respectful inquiry," and draw on self-determination theory to provide a motivational account of its antecedents, consequences, and moderators within a leader-follower relationship.
Abstract: Practitioners repeatedly note that the everyday behavior of asking followers open questions and attentively listening to their responses is a powerful leadership technique. Yet, despite such popularity, these practices are currently undertheorized. Addressing this gap, we formally define the behavioral configuration of asking open questions combined with attentive listening as “respectful inquiry,” and we draw on self-determination theory to provide a motivational account of its antecedents, consequences, and moderators within a leader-follower relationship. Specifically, we argue that respectful inquiry principally satisfies followers’ basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Against this background, we highlight “paradoxical” contexts where respectful inquiry is likely to be especially rare but would also be especially valuable. These paradoxical contexts include situations where interpersonal power difference, time pressure, physical distance, cognitive load, follower dissat...
135 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop the concept of corporate governance deviance and seek to understand why, when, and how a firm adopts governance practices that do not conform to the dominant governance logic.
Abstract: We develop the concept of corporate governance deviance and seek to understand why, when, and how a firm adopts governance practices that do not conform to the dominant governance logic. Drawing on institutional theory, coupled with both the entrepreneurship and corporate governance literature, we advance a middle-range theory of the antecedents of corporate governance deviance that considers both the institutional context and firm-level agency. Specifically, we highlight the centrality of a firm’s entrepreneurial identity as it interacts with the national governance logic to jointly create corporate governance discretion (i.e., the latitude of accessible governance practices) within the firm. We argue that as a firm’s governance discretion increases, it will be more likely to adopt overconforming or underconforming governance practices that deviate from established norms and practices. Moreover, we propose that adopting a deviant corporate governance practice is contingent on the governance regulatory en...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the problem of how contemporary managers engage with the critiques of the past and how this corporate engagement with the past affects the legitimacy of current business and propose a theoretical basis for holding a corporation responsible for decisions made by prior generations of managers.
Abstract: Corporations are increasingly held responsible for activities up and down their value chains but outside their traditional corporate boundaries. Recently, a similar wave of criticism has arisen about corporate activities of the past, overseen by prior generations of managers. Yet there is little or no scholarly theorizing about the ways contemporary managers engage with these critiques or how this corporate engagement with the past affects the legitimacy of current business. Extending theorizing about political corporate social responsibility and organizational legitimacy, we address this omission by asking the following: (1) What is the theoretical basis for holding a corporation responsible for decisions made by prior generations of managers? (2) What is the process by which such claims are raised and contested? (3) What are the relevant features that render a charge of historical harm-doing more or less legitimate in the current context? (4) How will a corporation’s response to such charges affect the ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present three historical approaches with the potential to understand the historical embeddedness of strategic processes and practices: realist history, interpretative history, and poststructuralist history.
Abstract: Despite the proliferation of strategy process and practice research, we lack understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes and practices. In this paper, we present three historical approaches with the potential to remedy this deficiency. First, realist history can contribute to a better understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes; in particular, comparative historical analysis can explicate the historical conditions, mechanisms, and causality in strategic processes. Second, interpretative history can add to our knowledge of the historical embeddedness of strategic practices, and microhistory can specifically help to understand the construction and enactment of these practices in historical contexts. Third, poststructuralist history can elucidate the historical embeddedness of strategic discourses, and genealogy can in particular increase our understanding of the evolution and transformation of strategic discourses and their power effects. Thus, this paper demonstrates how in their specific ways historical approaches and methods can add to our understanding of different forms and variations of strategic processes and practices, the historical construction of organizational strategies, and historically constituted strategic agency.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose that a major instance of corporate irresponsibility leads to the emergence of a stakeholder mnemonic community that shares a common recollection of the past incident.
Abstract: Why are some serious cases of corporate irresponsibility collectively forgotten? Drawing on social memory studies, we examine how this collective forgetting process can occur. We propose that a major instance of corporate irresponsibility leads to the emergence of a stakeholder mnemonic community that shares a common recollection of the past incident. This community generates and then draws on mnemonic traces to sustain a collective memory of the past event over time. In addition to the natural entropic tendency to forget, collective memory is also undermined by instrumental “forgetting work,” which we conceptualize in this article. Forgetting work involves manipulating short-term conditions of the event, silencing vocal “rememberers,” and undermining collective mnemonic traces that sustain a version of the past. This process can result in a reconfigured collective memory and collective forgetting of corporate irresponsibility events. Collective forgetting can have positive and negative consequences for t...
TL;DR: The authors argue that bounded rationality is a separate source of transaction costs and that these costs are not equally mitigated by all forms of hierarchy, allowing certain hierarchical forms to be associated with particular frames and social referents that naturally enhance specific bounded rationality based conflicts.
Abstract: We augment transaction cost economics’ bounded rationality assumption with heuristics (framing) and cognitive biases to expand the understanding of hierarchical governance in the theory. In transaction cost economics opportunism traditionally takes the front seat, while bounded rationality is primarily relegated to the support role of invoking incomplete contracts. The theory also suggests that hierarchical governance effectively mitigates opportunism-based transaction costs, making it difficult to explain why hierarchies are not always used. However, when an augmented bounded rationality assumption is incorporated into transaction cost economics, we argue, first, that bounded rationality is a separate source of transaction costs and, second, that these costs are not equally mitigated by all forms of hierarchy. Instead, different hierarchical forms are associated with particular frames and social referents that naturally enhance specific bounded rationality–based conflicts, allowing certain hierarchical f...
TL;DR: In this article, the concept of emotional competence is introduced, which refers to the ability to experience and display emotions that are deemed appropriate for an actor role in an institutional order, where emotions are central to the constitution of people as competent actors and lend reality and passionate identification to institutions.
Abstract: We develop the concept of emotional competence, which refers to the ability to experience and display emotions that are deemed appropriate for an actor role in an institutional order. Emotional competence reveals a more expansive view of emotions in institutional theory, where emotions are central to the constitution of people as competent actors and lend reality and passionate identification to institutions. We distinguish two facets of emotional competence—private, which is needed to engage in self-regulation, and public, which is needed to elicit other-authorization—and two criteria for assessing emotional competence—the deemed naturalness and authenticity of emotions within an institutional order. These distinctions delineate four processes through which emotional competence ties personal experience and social performance to fundamental institutional ideals, the institution’s ethos. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of this model for researching institutional processes.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role of history in organization studies by theorizing how collective memory shapes societal institutions and the logics that govern them and identify two sources of discontinuity that can disrupt this memory-making process and create notable disjunctures in the evolution of societal logics.
Abstract: We examine the role of history in organization studies by theorizing how collective memory shapes societal institutions and the logics that govern them. We propose that, rather than transhistorical ideal types, societal logics are historically constituted cultural structures generated through the collective memory of historical events. We then develop a theoretical model to explain how the representation, storage, and retrieval of collective memory lead to the emergence of societal logics. In turn, societal logics shape memory making and the reproduction and reconstruction of history itself. To illustrate our theory, we discuss the rise of the corporate logic in the United States. We identify two sources of discontinuity that can disrupt this memory-making process and create notable disjunctures in the evolution of societal logics. We conclude by discussing how changes in collective memory and the historical trajectory of societal logics shape organizational forms and practices.
TL;DR: As a synthesis of organization theory and history, the field of organizational history is mature enough to contribute to wider theoretical and historiographical debates and is sufficiently developed for a theoretical consideration of its subject matter as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: As a synthesis of organization theory and historiography, the field of organizational history is mature enough to contribute to wider theoretical and historiographical debates and is sufficiently developed for a theoretical consideration of its subject matter. In this introduction to the Special Topic Forum on History and Organization Studies, we take up the question, “What is organizational history?” and consider three distinct arguments that we believe frame the next phase of development for historical work within organization studies. First, we argue that following the “historic turn,” organizational history has developed as a subfield of organization studies that takes seriously the matter of history, promoting historical research as a way to enrich the broad endeavor of organization. Second, if “history matters,” then organization theory needs a theoretical account of the past that goes beyond the mere use of history as a context to test or as an example to illustrate theory. Third, the focus on “his...
TL;DR: The authors assess the performative effects of social science theories on public policy and outline how future management research can tackle questions of social justice and thereby promote an inclusive approach to financial regulation that better serves social welfare.
Abstract: While many studies explain how social science theories shape social reality, few reflect critically on how such theories should shape social reality. Drawing on a new conception of social welfare and focusing on financial regulation, we assess the performative effects of theories on public policy. We delineate how research that focuses narrowly on questions of efficiency and stability reinforces today’s technocratic financial regulation that undermines social welfare. As a remedy, we outline how future management research can tackle questions of social justice and thereby promote an inclusive approach to financial regulation that better serves social welfare.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on the historiographical concepts of "generational units" and "collective memories" as a framework for understanding the emergence of entrepreneurially oriented cohesive groups within regions.
Abstract: We draw on the historiographical concepts of “generational units” and “collective memories” as a framework for understanding the emergence of entrepreneurially oriented cohesive groups within regions. Generational units are localized subgroups within generations that have a self-referential, reflexive quality by virtue of the members’ sense of their own connections to each other and the events that define them. Collective memories are shared accounts of the past shaped by historical events that mold individuals’ perceptions. The two concepts provide a valuable point of departure for incorporating historical concepts into the study of entrepreneurial dynamics and offer a framework for understanding how entrepreneurs’ historically situated experiences affect them. Our framework breaks new theoretical ground in several ways. First, we synthesize disparate bodies of literature on generational units, collective memory, and organizational imprinting. Second, we specify mechanisms through which imprinting occurs...
TL;DR: The Special Topic Forum on Management Theory and Social Welfare as discussed by the authors provides an overview of the motivation behind the special issue and highlights the contributions of the six articles that make up this forum and identifies some common themes.
Abstract: In this Introduction to the Special Topic Forum on Management Theory and Social Welfare, we first provide an overview of the motivation behind the special issue. We then highlight the contributions of the six articles that make up this forum and identify some common themes. We also suggest some reasons why social welfare issues are so difficult to address in the context of management theory. In addition, we evaluate means of assessing social welfare and urge scholars not to make (or imply) unwarranted “wealth creation” claims.
TL;DR: The 3E framework is ill-suited for evaluating process explanations in general and contributions based on performativity in particular as discussed by the authors. But, in that case, what options do we have?
Abstract: Is it reasonable to evaluate process explanations such as effectuation using criteria that assume a world of efficient causation and linear variance? To address this question, our comment covers the following points. First, we review efforts by scholars within the management discipline to clarify what theory is and how to evaluate it. Second, we introduce process explanations and consider whether the 3E framework is capable of evaluating such contributions. Third, we consider recent explanations of entrepreneurial processes premised on performativity. Our overall assessment is that the 3E framework is ill-suited for evaluating process explanations in general and contributions based on performativity in particular. But, in that case, what options do we have? We address this question in the last section of this dialogue.
TL;DR: The authors developed a "rock bottom" model of generating a new positive work identity, where individuals who eventually hit rock bottom come to realize that the identity has been lost, which can lead to a path to recovery or to dysfunction.
Abstract: Although people often value work identities, events sometimes threaten these identities, creating situations where individuals struggle to overcome the identity threat. Building on the theories of identity and escape from self, we develop a “rock bottom” model of generating a new positive work identity. Specifically, individuals who eventually hit rock bottom come to realize that the identity has been lost, which can lead to a path to recovery or to a path to dysfunction. The path to recovery involves escape through identity play and the oscillation between disciplined identity play and identity refinement/validation. The path to dysfunction involves escape though cognitive deconstruction. Regulatory focus is important in distinguishing between those who engage in identity play to generate possible new positive identities (i.e., promotion focus) and those who engage in cognitive dysfunction (i.e., prevention focus). A deeper understanding of why some recover and others languish provides an opportunity to ...
TL;DR: The authors examine the effects of how laypeople construe different components of networks, such as individuals and their social intelligence, social relations, and social capital, and explain how each belief affects people's attitudes toward both the utility and morality of networking, with consequences for their engagement in different forms of networking.
Abstract: There is growing evidence of a “knowing-doing gap” in networking: many people feel conflicted or ambivalent about engaging in instrumental networking, even while recognizing the importance of being well-connected. Here we turn to an important piece of the puzzle that has been undertheorized: laypeople’s beliefs about the nature of networks. Borrowing from the literature on lay theories in motivational psychology, we examine the effects of how laypeople construe different components of networks—individuals and their social intelligence, social relations, and social capital—as relatively fixed or malleable. We explain how each belief affects people’s attitudes toward both the utility and morality of networking, with consequences for their engagement in different forms of networking (searching for new ties, maintaining existing ties, and leveraging social capital). We also consider these beliefs’ downstream consequences for the size, diversity, and cohesiveness of networks people build. Overall, by examining...
TL;DR: It is shown that research on the three main concepts in the article has expanded to a wide range of fields, far beyond the management discipline, and a stream of research building on the framework proposed in the paper has emerged.
Abstract: We reflect on our 2005 article, “Social Capital, Networks, and Knowledge Transfer,” which received the Academy of Management Review Decade Award in 2015. We first discuss the origin of the idea for the paper and how it evolved during the rigorous review process. Then we identify the reasons for the article’s high number of citations by scholars worldwide and trace the research advances that have occurred since it was published. We show that research on the three main concepts in the article has expanded to a wide range of fields, far beyond the management discipline. In particular, a stream of research building on the framework proposed in the article has emerged.
TL;DR: In this article, the quality of a leader's relationships with all members of their relational system, not only their leader, is considered to better understand how leader departures affect subordinates' organizational attachment.
Abstract: Management scholars have noted that leader departures often foreshadow higher turnover intentions (or lower organizational attachment) of subordinates left behind, especially when relationships between the departing leader and subordinates (leader-member exchanges) have been high quality. In this article we posit that the quality of subordinates’ relationships with all members of their relational system, not only their leader, must be considered to better understand how leader departures affect subordinates’ organizational attachment. Our proposed relationships are illustrated in a theoretical model that includes phenomena at the individual level (i.e., a subordinate’s identification with the departing leader and with his or her organization), group level (i.e., turnover contagion), and organizational level (i.e., organization-wide developmental climate). As such, we propose that elucidating how leader departures affect organizational attachment requires multilevel theorizing and constructs. We also discu...
TL;DR: The law of requisite variety is widely employed in management theorizing and is linked with core strategy themes such as contingency and fit as mentioned in this paper, and it has been used as an archetypal borrowed concept.
Abstract: The law of requisite variety is widely employed in management theorizing and is linked with core strategy themes such as contingency and fit. We reflect upon requisite variety as an archetypal borrowed concept. We contrast its premises with insights from the institutional literature and commitment literature, draw propositions that set boundaries to its applicability, and review the ramifications of what we call “complexity misalignment.” In this way we contradict foundational assumptions of the law, problematize adaptation- and survival-centric views of strategizing, and theorize the role of human agency in variously complex regimes.