Showing papers in "Administrative Science Quarterly in 2018"

Strategic Silence: Withholding Certification Status as a Hypocrisy Avoidance Tactic

Abstract: We examine why organizations that obtain prominent certifications may at times elect not to publicize them. Drawing on the impression management literature, we argue and show that concerns about be...

Dismantling Knowledge Boundaries at NASA: The Critical Role of Professional Identity in Open Innovation:

Abstract: Using a longitudinal in-depth field study at NASA, I investigate how the open, or peer-production, innovation model affects RD yet it challenged not only the knowledge-work boundaries but also the professional identity of the R&D professionals. This led to divergent reactions from R&D professionals, as adopting the open model required them to go through a multifaceted transformation. Only R&D professionals who underwent identity refocusing work dismantled their boundaries, truly adopting the knowledge from outside and sharing their internal knowledge. Others who did not go through that identity work failed to incorporate the solutions the open model produced. Adopting open innovation without a change in R&D professionals' identity resulted in no real change in the R&D process. This paper reveals how such processes unfold and illustrates the critical role of professional identity work in changing knowledge-work boundaries and shifting the locus of innovation.

“I’m Not Mopping the Floors, I’m Putting a Man on the Moon”: How NASA Leaders Enhanced the Meaningfulness of Work by Changing the Meaning of Work:

Abstract: It is assumed that leaders can boost the motivation of employees by communicating the organization’s ultimate aspirations, yet evidence on the effectiveness of this tactic is equivocal. On some occasions, it causes employees to view their work as more meaningful. At other times, it causes them to become dispirited. These inconsistent findings may in part be explained by a paradox: the very features that make ultimate aspirations meaningful—their breadth and timelessness—undermine the ability of employees to see how their daily responsibilities are associated with them. To understand how leaders can help employees resolve this paradox, I analyzed archival evidence to explore the actions of President John F. Kennedy when leading NASA in the 1960s. I found that Kennedy enacted four sensegiving steps, each of which helped employees see a stronger connection between their work and NASA’s ultimate aspirations. When this connection was strongest, employees construed their day-to-day work not as short-term tasks ...

The Evolution of Management Models: A Neo-Schumpeterian Theory

Abstract: In the last century and a half, U.S. industry has seen the emergence of several different management models. We propose a theory of this evolution based on three nested and interacting processes. F...

From Synchronizing to Harmonizing: The Process of Authenticating Multiple Work Identities:

Abstract: To understand how people cultivate and sustain authenticity in multiple, often shifting, work roles, we analyze qualitative data gathered over five years from a sample of 48 plural careerists—peopl...

Brokerage as a Public Good: The Externalities of Network Hubs for Different Formal Roles in Creative Organizations:

Abstract: Although much is known about how brokerage positions in social networks help individuals improve their own performance, we know little about the impact of brokers on those around them. Our study in...

The Acquisitive Nature of Extraverted CEOs

Abstract: This study examines how extraversion, a personality trait that signifies more or less positive affect, assertive behavior, decisive thinking, and desires for social engagement, influences chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) decisions and the ensuing strategic behavior of firms. Using a novel linguistic technique to assess personality from unscripted text spoken by 2,381 CEOs of S&P 1500 firms over ten years, we show that CEOs’ extraversion influences the merger and acquisition (M&A) behavior of firms above and beyond other well-established personality traits. We find that extraverted CEOs are more likely to engage in acquisitions, and to conduct larger ones, than other CEOs and that these effects are partially explained by their higher representation on boards of other firms. Moreover, we find that the acquisitive nature of extraverted CEOs reveals itself particularly in so-called “weaker” situations, in which CEOs enjoy considerable discretion to behave in ways akin to their personality traits. Subsequent analyses show that extraverted CEOs are also more likely than other CEOs to succeed in M&As, as reflected by stronger abnormal returns following acquisition announcements.

Change above the Glass Ceiling: Corporate Social Responsibility and Gender Diversity in Japanese Firms

Abstract: This article examines how local organizations respond to the global norm of corporate social responsibility (CSR), focusing on the case of workplace gender diversity in Japan Though many global in

Managers’ Political Beliefs and Gender Inequality among Subordinates: Does His Ideology Matter More Than Hers?

Abstract: To explore whether managers’ beliefs and attitudes influence gender inequality among their subordinates, we theorize about the relationship between managers’ political ideology, situated on a liberal–conservative continuum, and differences in the hiring, work team selection, and promotion of male versus female subordinates, as well as how a manager’s gender moderates this relationship. We analyze novel microdata from the U.S. legal industry from 2007 to 2012 and find that large law offices whose partners are more liberal hire a larger percentage of female associates, that more-liberal partners are more likely to select female associates to be members of their client teams, and that associates whose supervising partners are more liberal have greater gender parity in promotion rates. Further, we find that the ideology of male partners is significantly more influential than the ideology of female partners in affecting these differences. We find little evidence that sorting on the part of higher-quality femal...

Routine Regulation: Balancing Conflicting Goals in Organizational Routines*:

Abstract: To examine how organizational routines serve as a source for balancing conflicting organizational goals, we use an inductive study of Alessi, an Italian design company, to trace how organizational ...

Labor of Love: Amateurs and Lay-expertise Legitimation in the Early U.S. Radio Field:

Abstract: Many actors claim to be experts of specialized knowledge, but for this expertise to be perceived as legitimate, other actors in the field must recognize them as authorities. Using an automated topi...

Fast Tracks and Inner Journeys: Crafting Portable Selves for Contemporary Careers:

Abstract: Through a longitudinal, qualitative study of 55 managers engaged in mobile careers across organizations, industries, and countries, and pursuing a one-year international master’s of business administration (MBA), we build a process model of the crafting of portable selves in temporary identity workspaces. Our findings reveal that contemporary careers in general, and temporary membership in an institution, fuel people’s efforts to craft portable selves: selves endowed with definitions, motives, and abilities that can be deployed across roles and organizations over time. Two pathways for crafting a portable self—one adaptive, the other exploratory—emerged from the interaction of individuals’ aims and concerns with institutional resources and demands. Each pathway involved developing a coherent understanding of the self in relation to others and to the institution that anchored participants to their current organization while preparing them for future ones. The study shows how institutions that host members ...

Field Expansion and Contraction: How Communities Shape Social and Symbolic Boundaries:

Abstract: To investigate how participants shape a field’s social and symbolic boundaries over time, I conducted an in-depth longitudinal study of five core and peripheral communities in the emerging nanotech...

Status Spillovers: The Effect of Status-conferring Prizes on the Allocation of Attention:

Abstract: We investigate the effect of a status-enhancing prize on the attention that a recipient’s “neighbors” subsequently receive. Do neighbors—individuals who work in economic, intellectual, or artistic domains that are proximate to prize winners—bask in the reflected glory of the ascendant actor and therefore gain as well? Or does competition for attention ensue, attenuating the recognition neighbors would otherwise have garnered? We study the spillover effects of status shocks using life sciences research articles published from 1984 through 2003. Exploiting expert-assigned article keywords, we identify papers that are topically related to publications of future appointees to the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). In difference-in-difference specifications, we find that these scientific neighbor articles experience substantial declines in citation rates after HHMI appointments are announced. That is, neighboring articles attract less attention when authors of papers near them receive a presti...

Anchored Personalization in Managing Goal Conflict between Professional Groups: The Case of U.S. Army Mental Health Care:

Abstract: Organizational life is rife with conflict between groups that pursue different goals, particularly when groups have strong commitments to professional identities developed outside the organization....

Fraud and Market Participation: Social Relations as a Moderator of Organizational Misconduct:

Abstract: This paper extends organizational research on distrust to explain the effects of organizational misconduct on continued market participation after a fraud. I argue that social relations between fra...

Renegotiating Spheres of Obligation: The Role of Hierarchy in Organizational Learning

Abstract: To achieve organization-wide goals, sometimes multiple local groups must synchronize their learning activities. This paper uses an ethnographic study of a cancer treatment center to develop theory on organizational learning by identifying a process that helped synchronize learning across many local and interdependent groups by taking advantage of hierarchy. Change agents—in this case, consultants—identified the managers of the various groups that would need to change for an organization-wide goal to be achieved, and they met with each manager to renegotiate his or her formal obligations. Through the renegotiation process, the managers came to better understand the organization-wide goal, and the change agents better understood each group’s work. After the managers understood and accepted their renegotiated obligations, they changed how they administered resources and expectations in their groups, and the members of their respective groups adapted their practices in response. This process illustrates how t...

Train Them to Retain Them: Work Readiness and the Retention of First-time Women Workers in India:

Abstract: To explore when and why workplace training facilitates the retention of first-time workers from historically underrepresented groups in formal employment, I combine ethnographic fieldwork at an Ind...

The Artisan and His Audience: Identification with Work and Price Setting in a Handicraft Cluster in Southern India:

Abstract: Using ethnographic, experimental, and survey data from a handicraft cluster in southern India, this paper reports on a study of when and why people who identify with their work might sacrifice financial rewards in their economic decisions. Based on findings from ethnographic fieldwork, I hypothesize that the monetary value that individuals who identify with their work seek for their output depends on their audience: when they encounter discerning audiences, who are knowledgeable about and appreciative of their work, they underemphasize financial gains; transactions with non-discerning audiences, however, result in a focus on monetary rewards. I propose that the mechanism underlying this behavior is product attachment: people who identify with their work develop affection for the output of their labor and prefer to transact with audiences who will take care of their products beyond the point of sale, even if doing so results in lower monetary rewards. I substantiate this theory with a field experiment by d...

Posting and Slotting: How Hiring Processes Shape the Quality of Hire and Compensation in Internal Labor Markets:

Abstract: Recent research highlights the benefits of internal hiring––filling a job by hiring a worker currently employed by the organization––and more than half of jobs are filled that way. Yet we know surp...

Latitude or Latent Control? How Occupational Embeddedness and Control Shape Emergent Coordination

Abstract: We examine how different occupational communities that are embedded in organizations exercise control processes to achieve emergent coordination as they create complex products together. We compare two types of organizations, equipment manufacturing and film production, and find that although occupational control was important for emergent coordination in both settings, this relationship varied according to two aspects of occupational embeddedness: organizational acknowledgment of occupational control and occupational interdependence. In the equipment manufacturing setting, occupational control was latent: the communities visibly conformed to organizational control processes while exercising occupational control behind the scenes to coordinate emergently. In the film setting, the organization granted the occupational community significant latitude over its tasks, which enabled members to coordinate emergently to solve problems the majority of the time. We propose that these two aspects of occupational embeddedness must be analyzed together with occupational control processes to explain how integration unfolds in knowledge-based settings in ways that organizational control processes are ill-equipped to manage.

The Structural Origins of Unearned Status: How Arbitrary Changes in Categories Affect Status Position and Market Impact:

Abstract: Focusing on the categorical nature of many status orderings, we examine the relationship among status, actors’ quality, and market outcomes. As markets evolve, the number of categories that structu...

Path-dependent Routines in the Evaluation of Novelty: The Effects of Innovators’ New Knowledge Use on Brokerage Firms’ Coverage:

Abstract: This paper examines how path dependencies in evaluation routines affect a brokerage firm’s decision to provide coverage to a company that builds on new knowledge. Companies depend on brokerage firm...

Interactions and Interests: Collaboration Outcomes, Competitive Concerns, and the Limits to Triadic Closure:

Abstract: Organizational theorists have extensively documented the increased likelihood that two organizations will form a relationship if they have preexisting relationships with the same third party, a phe...

Osmotic Mobilization and Union Support during the Long Protest Wave, 1960–1995:

Abstract: To examine whether and how social movements that target private firms are influenced by larger protest cycles, we theorize about osmotic mobilization—social movement spillover that crosses the boundary of the firm—and how it should vary with the ideological overlap of the relevant actors and the opportunity structure that potential activists face inside the firm. We test our hypotheses by examining the relationship between levels of protest in U.S. cities around issues like Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, and the women’s movement and subsequent support for labor-union organizing in those cities. Combining nationally representative data on more than 20,000 protest events from 1960 to 1995 with data on more than 150,000 union organizing drives held from 1965 to 1999, we find that greater levels of protest activity are associated with greater union support, that spillover accrued disproportionately to unions with more progressive track records on issues like Civil Rights, and that these effects were dispropor...