Most recent papers:

• International Political Risk Management: Perspectives, Approaches and Emerging Agendas.
  Anna John, Thomas C. Lawton.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. October 19, 2017
  This paper reviews the extant and emerging perspectives on, and approaches to, political risk management, particularly in the context of foreign direct investment. The authors identify and classify the various theoretical lenses in the domain of political risk management, and suggest a future research agenda. The paper contributes by conceptually categorizing and mapping the extant research onto three approaches to the management of political risk. Through conducting a narrative literature review, the authors suggest three theoretical perspectives on political risk management: institutions; resources and capabilities; and resource dependence. They argue that the institutions approach to political risk management is reactive, responding to external stimuli, whereas the resources‐ and capabilities‐based approach is proactive, preparing and acting in anticipation. The resource dependence domain offers an intermediate approach – the active management of political risk. The authors also suggest that the effectiveness of the domains’ approaches may vary across different national contexts.

  October 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12166   open full text
• Sourcing from Africa: A Systematic Review and a Research Agenda.
  Katri Kauppi, Asta Salmi, Weimu You.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. August 28, 2017
  The African continent is rapidly growing its global economic impact and becoming a more attractive sourcing context. However, very little is known about current purchasing practices, successes and challenges on this continent. The authors investigate the specific features that characterize supply management in Africa by conducting a systematic review of the literature on sourcing in and from Africa. Their aim is to help scholars direct their future research efforts. The authors take a thematic approach in their analysis of 57 articles, and identify key findings, research challenges and opportunities. They focus on four areas previously identified as distinguishing the sourcing context in Africa: African culture and ethics; the role of African countries and suppliers in global value chains; an increasing emphasis on sustainability; and the gradual development of professional procurement practices. It is found that research in the area of supply management in the African context is still scattered, with an evident need for more theoretically rich and methodologically rigorous inquiry. The authors propose a structured, theoretically grounded research agenda for each of the themes identified, and make general observations on potential future directions.

  August 28, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12158   open full text
• Ubiquitous yet Ambiguous: An Integrative Review of Unpaid Work.
  Deanna Grant‐Smith, Paula McDonald.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 27, 2017
  The expansion of participation in unpaid work such as internships, volunteering and educationally focused work placements may constitute evidence of deleterious changes to labour markets increasingly characterized by competition, precarious work and prolonged transitions to secure employment. Unpaid work, although under‐researched, is increasingly relevant in times of ubiquitous unpaid internships and the use of volunteers in roles that would have been previously paid. Yet there remains a lack of clarity in terminology and focus across studies of unpaid work. This review article addresses this concern through two primary aims. First, we review the available literature around unpaid work setting out five themes: characterizations of unpaid work; the prevalence and underlying drivers of unpaid work; the apparent benefits of participation; the costs of participation; and regulatory and structural responses to unpaid work. Together, these themes set out a holistic interpretation of the accumulated state of knowledge in this area of inquiry including the implications for organizations, employers, higher education institutions, policy makers and unpaid workers. The second aim is to synthesise the current and emerging insights arising from the review as a matrix which delineates four distinct forms of unpaid work along two dimensions – purpose of participation and level of participatory discretion. The review and resulting matrix provides conceptual clarity around unpaid work practices that informs future research. It also raises pragmatic implications for institutional and managerial decision‐making which is cognisant of the range of risks, costs, benefits and ethical issues associated with unpaid work.

  July 27, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12153   open full text
• Men Doing and Undoing Gender at Work: A Review and Research Agenda.
  Elisabeth K. Kelan.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 30, 2017
  While research on gender in organizations has not only documented sustained gender inequality, it has also offered an understanding of how gender is enacted through doing and undoing gender. An underexplored aspect concerns how men can do and undo gender to support or hinder gender equality processes in organizations. Doing gender is then understood as creating gender difference while undoing gender would conversely mean to reduce gender difference. The former is supporting gender inequality while the latter means moving toward gender equality. This article therefore provides a systematic review of empirical articles that discuss how men are doing and undoing gender within an organizational context. It is shown that undoing gender practices of men in organizations are under‐researched and a research agenda of how men can undo gender at work is thus developed. This article makes a two‐fold contribution: first it offers a refinement of doing and undoing gender approaches and second, it develops a research agenda for exploring how men can undo gender at work.

  May 30, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12146   open full text
• Maternity Management in SMEs: A Transdisciplinary Review and Research Agenda.
  Bianca Stumbitz, Suzan Lewis, Julia Rouse.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 21, 2017
  This paper provides a transdisciplinary critical review of the literature on maternity management in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), embedded within the wider literatures on maternity in the workplace. The key objectives are to describe what is known about the relations that shape maternity management in smaller workplaces and to identify research directions to enhance this knowledge. The review is guided by theory of organizational gendering and small business management, conceptualizing adaptions to maternity as a process of mutual adjustment and dynamic capability within smaller firms’ informally negotiated order, resource endowments and wider labour and product/service markets. A context‐sensitive lens is also applied. The review highlights the complex range of processes involved in SME maternity management and identifies major research gaps in relation to pregnancy, maternity leave and the return to work (family‐friendly working and breastfeeding) in these contexts. This blind spot is surprising, as SMEs employ the majority of women worldwide. A detailed agenda for future research is outlined, building on the gaps identified by the review and founded on renewed theoretical direction.

  May 21, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12143   open full text
• Critical Business Ethics: From Corporate Self‐interest to the Glorification of the Sovereign Pater.
  Carl Rhodes, Alison Pullen.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 19, 2017
  Research in critical business ethics has demonstrated how economic self‐interest is the primary reason that businesses adopt nominally ethical practices. After reviewing this body of research, the authors propose that it can be further developed by questioning its conception of self‐interest, by exploring its non‐economic dimensions and by reconsidering the meaning of the ‘self’ that is said to have such interests. Drawing insights from feminist theory and political theology, the paper interrogates corporate business ethics as a public glorification of corporate power based on a patriarchal conception of the corporation. Genealogically rooted in early Christian ceremonial practices used to glorify God the Father, this is a glorification for the sake of glory rather than just for the sake of commercial ends. The authors further argue that corporate business ethics is rendered as the feminized servant of the sovereign corporate patriarch, always at hand to glorify the master. The meaning of corporate business ethics is hence one where the feminine is not absent, but rather is servile to a masculinity conceived in relation to domination, greatness and sovereignty. Collectively, this shows how the power wielded and desired by corporate business ethics far exceeds the pursuit of financial self‐interest; it is also related to modelling the corporation on a male God. The paper concludes by considering how research in critical business ethics can be extended through forms of inquiry that destabilize the ethical glorification of the corporation, and displace its masculinist privilege.

  May 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12142   open full text
• Central Perspectives and Debates in Strategic Change Research.
  Johanna Müller, Sven Kunisch.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 03, 2017
  This paper appraises and evaluates more than three decades of empirical research on strategic change. Strategic change research has traditionally built on either the deterministic view or the voluntaristic view – two opposing perspectives with fundamentally different assumptions about the influence of managers on the fortunes of organizations. In addition, a dialectical view on strategic change, which aims to bridge the two traditional views, has emerged. Despite the richness and value of research within these three perspectives, the continued accumulation of isolated and idiosyncratic insights adds little to the understanding of strategic change. In this paper, therefore, the authors assess, contrast and integrate research across the three perspectives in order to foster one cumulative body of knowledge about strategic change and to provide guidance for future research. Based on an analysis of 119 studies published in the leading academic journals in the fields of strategy and management, they consolidate existing knowledge and identify shortcomings in the cumulative body of research. On the basis of this assessment concerning prior research foci, study designs and assumptions, the authors propose four pathways for future research across the three perspectives that they believe can help foster full understanding of strategic change: (1) examinations of different types, processes and outcomes of strategic change; (2) expansion of the scope of actors considered in relation to strategic change; (3) exploration of the non‐linear nature of strategic change; and (4) investigations of strategic change conundrums.

  May 03, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12141   open full text
• Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in the Workplace: A Conceptual and Operational Review and Future Research Agenda.
  Ashlea C. Troth, Sandra A. Lawrence, Peter J. Jordan, Neal M. Ashkanasy.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 18, 2017
  Employees need to regulate their own emotions as well as the emotions of others to enhance the quality of interactions with their colleagues. How well this is achieved has important outcomes for both employees and the organizations in which they work. In the field of organizational science, however, differing approaches have emerged regarding the conceptualization and operationalization of emotion regulation (ER) particularly in terms of interpersonal interactions. The present review examines contemporary theoretical perspectives of ER and its measurement with a view to resolving the confusion that currently exists around interpersonal ER in a workplace context. To understand how this field of research has developed so diversely, the authors begin by demonstrating the influence of three major individual‐level ER models on interpersonal‐level approaches: (1) the ER process model; (2) emotional labor; and (3) emotional intelligence. Moreover, to make sense of the range of interpersonal‐level research underpinned by these theories, the authors present a 2×2 categorization, developed by Zaki and Williams (2013), which shows how workplace researchers have variously approached interpersonal ER as an intrinsic vs. extrinsic process, with activation of either response‐dependent or response‐independent categories. This categorization broadly shows interpersonal ER theory used in work contexts tends to fall into four groupings as: (1) a purely extrinsic process; (2) a differentiation of extrinsic interpersonal from intrinsic individual ER; (3) co‐occurring intrinsic and extrinsic interpersonal ER; or (4) interpersonal coregulation. This paper also discusses the measurement of interpersonal ER and concludes by highlighting emerging research directions.

  April 18, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12144   open full text
• The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda.
  Anne‐Madeleine Kranzbühler, Mirella H.P. Kleijnen, Robert E. Morgan, Marije Teerling.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 21, 2017
  Over the last three decades, customer experience (CE) has developed from a burgeoning concept to a widely recognized phenomenon in terms of both research and practice. To account for the complexity of consumption decisions, the CE literature encompasses both the rational information processing approach to consumer decision‐making and the experiential approach, which includes emotions, feelings and sub‐consciousness. The authors classify and examine CE research on two levels. Studies on static CE analyze experiences during touchpoints at one point in time, while studies on dynamic CE assess how experiences evolve over time. Furthermore, both static and dynamic CE research take place from two distinct theoretical perspectives: the organization and the consumer. As both theoretical perspectives essentially deal with the same phenomenon – the organizational perspective with the creation of CEs and the consumer perspective with the perception of customer experiences – there is potential for a productive symbiosis between them. The authors propose that connecting insights from both perspectives can contribute to a better understanding of what constitutes a CE for consumers and how firms can effectively manage it. First, the authors discuss the development of CE and argue that it has evolved into a broad and fragmented ‘umbrella construct’. Second, after distinguishing and defining static and dynamic CE, they systematically evaluate the state of knowledge in both the organizational and consumer perspectives. Finally, they develop an agenda for future research that integrates the consumer perspective into organizational CE research.

  March 21, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12140   open full text
• Adoption and Outcomes of ISO 14001: A Systematic Review.
  Olivier Boiral, Laurence Guillaumie, Iñaki Heras‐Saizarbitoria, Christian Valery Tayo Tene.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. February 14, 2017
  The objective of this paper is to analyze the adoption and outcomes of the ISO 14001 standard through a systematic review of the main studies on this issue published in peer‐reviewed journals between 1996 and 2015. The 94 papers analyzed make it possible to paint a comprehensive picture of the effectiveness of ISO 14001 in environmental management practices, performance in this area and social aspects such as employee awareness. The systematic review also sheds more light on the main pitfalls and success factors of the standard. Nevertheless, the similarities and even redundancies of the literature in terms of objectives, approaches and methods used tend to produce quite predictable and optimistic results, which do not reflect the complexity of the impact of ISO 14001. The paper highlights the importance of more diverse and critical approaches that might challenge the successful rhetoric of the dominant literature, which tends to focus on positive aspects and be limited to a few countries that are not representative of the wide international distribution of certification. The findings of this systematic review can also help managers in making decisions on the adoption and renewal of certification.

  February 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12139   open full text
• Pluralism in Organizations: Learning from Unconventional Forms of Organizations.
  Luc Brès, Emmanuel Raufflet, Johnny Boghossian.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. February 08, 2017
  The bureaucratic organization is still regarded as the conventional organizational form, but is ill‐suited to an increasingly pluralistic world. Research on the variety of organizational forms has increased dramatically over the past three decades and offers the potential to understand better how pluralism is manifested and managed within organizations. However, this research remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize research on unconventional organizations to explore how organizations resolve or attenuate the tensions related to pluralism. Drawing from research in leading management journals, it covers seven distinct literatures: ‘referent organization’, ‘temporary organization’, ‘pluralistic organization’, ‘meta‐organization’, ‘bridging organization’, ‘hybrid organization’ and ‘field‐configuring event’. For each literature, the authors trace the genealogy of the key concepts and review their distinct insights regarding organizational pluralism. They then synthesize and discuss their collective contributions and conclude with avenues of research for pluralism in organizations.

  February 08, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12136   open full text
• Theory Assessment and Agenda Setting in Political CSR: A Critical Theory Perspective.
  Andreas Georg Scherer.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 30, 2017
  Frynas and Stephens (Political corporate social responsibility: reviewing theories and setting new agendas. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17, pp. 483–509, 2015) reviewed the literature on political corporate social responsibility (CSR). They described existing trends and suggested an agenda for future research. They attempted to develop ‘a more inclusive pluralist research agenda in political CSR, which can integrate different perspectives on political CSR in order to account for different phenomena, including global governance changes at macro level, instrumental concerns at organizational level or cognitive dimensions at individual level, in both descriptive and normative terms’. This was an ambitious endeavour, given the rapid growth of the literature and the extensive heterogeneity of the field. There is much to like in Frynas and Stephens’ paper, as it spans a broad range of perspectives and links together discrete research topics. In the present review, however, the author focuses on a number of critical aspects in their argument. Frynas and Stephens failed to define core concepts, to reveal their normative stance on CSR and their paradigmatic position, or to address the inherent conflict of values in political CSR. And they were too optimistic about the possibilities and benefits of ‘integration’. The author suspects that their approach, when adopted in practice, will impede rather than promote social welfare. This paper starts with a brief summary of the field and continues by emphasizing critical issues in Frynas and Stephens’ analysis. It concludes with an alternative agenda for research in political CSR.

  January 30, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12137   open full text
• Crowdsourcing: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research.
  Antonio Ghezzi, Donata Gabelloni, Antonella Martini, Angelo Natalicchio.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 19, 2017
  As academic and practitioner studies on crowdsourcing have been building up since 2006, the subject itself has progressively gained in importance within the broad field of management. No systematic review on the topic has so far appeared in management journals, however; moreover, the field suffers from ambiguity in the topic's definition, which in turn has led to its largely unstructured evolution. The authors therefore investigate the existing body of knowledge on crowdsourcing systematically through a penetrating review in which the strengths and weakness of this literature stream are presented clearly and then future avenues of research are set out. The review is based on 121 scientific articles published between January 2006 and January 2015. The review recognizes that crowdsourcing is ingrained in two mainstream disciplines within the broader subject matter of innovation and management: (1) open innovation; and (2) co‐creation. The review, in addition, also touches on several issues covered in other theoretical streams: (3) information systems management; (4) organizational theory and design; (5) marketing; and (6) strategy. The authors adopt a process perspective, applying the ‘Input–Process–Output’ framework to interpret research on crowdsourcing within the broad lines of: (1) Input (Problem/Task); (2) Process (session management; problem management; knowledge management; technology); and (3) Outcome (solution/completed task; seekers’ benefits; solvers’ benefits). This framework provides a detailed description of how the topic has evolved over time, and suggestions concerning the future direction of research are proposed in the form of research questions that are valuable for both academics and managers.

  January 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12135   open full text
• MNC Considerations in Identifying and Managing LGB Expatriate Stigmatization.
  Miriam Moeller, Jane F. Maley.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 17, 2017
  Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) expatriates are rightfully sceptical, and at times fearful, of international assignment experiences, owing to the sometimes hostile reception at assignment locations as a result of their sexual orientation. The authors argue that this hostility arises from a perceived incompatibility in values between the host country and LGB expatriates. Dissonance between the two value systems leaves LGB expatriates seemingly powerless to self‐manage imposed stigmas inside and outside the workplace at international assignment locations. The authors suggest that it is essential for the multinational corporation (MNC) to help manage these stigmas by implementing human resource management (HRM) practices and policies that recognize the needs of traditional and non‐traditional expatriates as substantially different. Using organizational legitimacy theory, the authors assert that MNCs’ strategic actions should entail a set of distinct practices and policies for LGB expatriates as a way to strive for acceptance within the LGB expatriate community and beyond. Managing value congruence in this manner ensures greater willingness of the LGB talent pool to undertake international career opportunities and is likely to result in better assignment experiences and outcomes. Outcomes of LGB stigmatization are discussed and suggestions are put forward on the MNC's role in supporting LGB expatriates and their families. Propositions relative to support are offered.

  January 17, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12132   open full text
• Special Issue 2018 – Call for Papers Sustainable Corporate Governance.
  
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 05, 2017
  There is no abstract available for this paper.

  January 05, 2017   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12134   open full text
• The Informal Sector: A Review and Agenda for Management Research.
  William Phanuel Kofi Darbi, C. Michael Hall, Paul Knott.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. December 15, 2016
  Despite its connotations of non‐compliance, illegality, social exploitation and marginality, the informal sector is a substantial contributor to economic life in developing countries and, increasingly, in more technologically advanced activities. Its prevalence in developed economies has also become more widely recognized. In light of its significance, this paper reviews research on the informal sector from a management and organization scholarship perspective, rather than from an entrepreneurship view, as has been the focus until now. It sets out the atypical management practices that are inherent in the sector, explores the under‐researched relationship between formal and informal firms, and highlights definitional, conceptual and other limitations in extant research. As a step in resolving these issues, the authors present a conceptual model of formality and informality in a three‐dimensional framework that highlights an organizational infrastructure dimension, a view of firms operating along a continuum, and a multi‐level analytical context. Building on this, the authors detail opportunities for enhanced appreciation of in situ management and organizational practices in the informal sector and outline tools for pursuing a management and organization scholarship agenda. Overall, the authors argue that management scholarship has great potential to improve understanding of the informal sector, and that the informal sector provides opportunities to advance management theory, research and practice.

  December 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12131   open full text
• Unknown Knowns and Known Unknowns: Framing the Role of Organizational Learning in Corporate Social Responsibility Development.
  Zeynep Fortis, François Maon, Jeff Frooman, Gerald Reiner.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 23, 2016
  Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is now widely seen as an increasingly significant concern for firms because of moral, relational and instrumental motives. Nevertheless, practical aspects and challenges associated with CSR development in firms remains only partially understood. In this setting, the organizational learning (OL) discipline is recurrently put forward as key in the pursuit and successful development of CSR, but the existing literature remains disjointed. This study critically reviews the existing literature to conceptualize how research to date has approached CSR development in terms of OL, and to provide a two‐dimensional structuring framework of the role of OL in CSR development that emphasizes key OL‐related aspects supporting CSR development and goes beyond an organization‐centric viewpoint to consider not only learning within the organization, but also from others, and with others. In particular, the authors identify key learning processes and sub‐processes and critical areas that remain understudied. Overall, the authors propose a macro view of the work done to date at the intersection of OL and CSR, and in doing so help make the ‘OL for CSR development’ scholarship more recognizable as a sub‐discipline.

  November 23, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12130   open full text
• Consumer Behaviour and Order Fulfilment in Online Retailing: A Systematic Review.
  Dung H. Nguyen, Sander Leeuw, Wout E.H. Dullaert.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 15, 2016
  This paper provides a systematic review of consumer behaviour and order fulfilment in online retailing. The objective of this review is threefold: first, to identify elements of order‐fulfilment operations that are relevant to online consumer behaviour (purchase, repurchase, product return); second, to understand the relationship between order‐fulfilment performance and consumer behaviour; and third, to inspire future research on developing consumer service strategies that takes account of these behavioural responses to order‐fulfilment performance outcomes. The paper is based on a systematic review of literature on online consumer behaviour and order‐fulfilment operations, mainly in the fields of marketing and operations, published in international peer‐reviewed journals between 2000 and September 2015. This study indicates that the current literature on online consumer behaviour focuses mainly on the use of marketing tools to improve consumer service levels. Very little research has been conducted on the use of consumer service instruments to steer consumer behaviour or, consequently, to manage related order‐fulfilment activities better. The study culminates in a framework that encompasses elements of order‐fulfilment operations and their relationship to online consumer behaviour. This paper is the first comprehensive review of online consumer behaviour that takes aspects of order‐fulfilment operations into account from both marketing and operations perspectives.

  November 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12129   open full text
• SMEs and Marketing: A Systematic Literature Review.
  Roberta Bocconcelli, Marco Cioppi, Fulvio Fortezza, Barbara Francioni, Alessandro Pagano, Elisabetta Savelli, Simone Splendiani.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 08, 2016
  This paper presents a systematic review of recent academic literature analysing the role, organization and management of marketing activities in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). To this end, 310 articles published between 2006 and 2015 in 69 main journals devoted to small firms/entrepreneurship and management/marketing fields were analysed. This review shows that SMEs’ marketing has received great attention in both management and marketing literature in recent years. Findings reveal, on the one hand, the emerging role of networks and information and communication technologies in marketing behaviour by SMEs, and on the other hand a research gap in terms of specific marketing practices. Entrepreneurial marketing has been used as the main conceptual framework in reviewed studies, even if findings overall still point out a distance between the theoretical bases of reviewed contributions and the study of SMEs’ marketing behaviour and practices. Therefore, future research on the role of resources, relationships and networks could benefit from the combination of theories developed within the field of entrepreneurship with other approaches such as the resource‐based view, the dynamic capabilities theory and the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) framework.

  November 08, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12128   open full text
• Employer Branding: A Brand Equity‐based Literature Review and Research Agenda.
  Christian P. Theurer, Andranik Tumasjan, Isabell M. Welpe, Filip Lievens.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. October 14, 2016
  Over the past two decades, scholarly interest in employer branding has strongly increased. Simultaneously, however, employer branding research has developed into a fragmented field with heterogeneous interpretations of the employer branding concept and its scope, which has impeded further theoretical and empirical advancement. To strengthen the foundation for future work, this paper takes a brand equity perspective to review the extant literature and create an integrative model of employer branding. Using an analytical approach, the authors identify 187 articles, which they integrate along different employer brand dimensions and branding strategies: (i) conceptual; (ii) employer knowledge dimensions; (iii) employer branding activities and strategies. On the basis of this review, the authors develop an employer branding value chain model and derive future research avenues as well as practical implications.

  October 14, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12121   open full text
• A Model of Entrepreneurial Autonomy in Franchised Outlets: A Systematic Review of the Empirical Evidence.
  Olufunmilola (Lola) Dada.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. September 23, 2016
  Entrepreneurial autonomy among franchisees is a persistent management challenge. There is a lack of empirical synthesis of its drivers, its consequences, and how it can be integrated with the standardization requirements in franchise systems. Various theoretical and empirical studies have stressed that merging franchisee autonomy with the franchisor's desire for uniformity is extremely difficult. This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the relevant empirical studies in order to identify a range of influences, controls, outcomes and associated moderating and mediating factors that offer a better representation of what contributes to the understanding of franchisee entrepreneurial autonomy. By drawing together findings from a broad range of theoretical perspectives, the evidence was used to develop a comprehensive model of entrepreneurial autonomy in franchised outlets. The model not only provides a structure that brings together prior studies, but also identifies the less researched areas that can advance the management literature on the notion of autonomy in franchising. The research and practitioner implications of the review and its limitations and possible directions for future studies are discussed.

  September 23, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12123   open full text
• Evaluative Practices in Qualitative Management Research: A Critical Review.
  Gillian Symon, Catherine Cassell, Phil Johnson.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. September 13, 2016
  This paper critically reviews commentaries on the evaluation and promotion of qualitative management research. The review identifies two disjunctures: between methodological prescriptions for epistemologically diverse criteria and management journal prescriptions for standardized criteria; and between the culturally dependent production of criteria and their positioning in editorials and commentaries as normative and objective. The authors’ critical social constructionist analysis surfaces underlying positivist assumptions and institutional processes in these commentaries, which they argue are producing (inappropriate) homogeneous evaluation criteria for qualitative research, marginalizing alternative perspectives, and disciplining individual qualitative researchers into particular normative practices. The authors argue that interventions to encourage more qualitative research need to focus as much on editorial, disciplinary and institutional practices as the practices of individual researchers, and they make recommendations for changes that may allow qualitative management research to develop in a more supportive context by recognizing philosophical diversity as legitimate.

  September 13, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12120   open full text
• The Essence of Dynamic Capabilities and their Measurement.
  Ola Laaksonen, Mirva Peltoniemi.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. September 13, 2016
  The growing popularity of explaining firm performance through dynamic capabilities has motivated plenty of conceptual development in the field. However, empirical approaches to measuring dynamic capabilities have so far not been under comprehensive scrutiny. The authors; purpose is to assess the extent to which different ways of measuring dynamic capabilities in quantitative studies correspond to the theoretical essence of the concept, and develop recommendations for future research. They find that four types of operationalizations have been used: (1) managers’ evaluations; (2) financial data; (3) company's experience, actions and performance; and (4) managers’ or employees’ experience, actions and performance. Based on their analysis, the authors provide eight recommendations for future research that relate to identifying ordinary and dynamic capabilities, avoiding common method bias, taking into account the quality and fitness rather than the quantity of dynamic capabilities, and acknowledging the cumulativeness of dynamic capabilities through the use of longitudinal data. They conclude that refining the dynamic capability operationalizations would help to formulate competing hypotheses and to increase the theoretical precision of the field.

  September 13, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12122   open full text
• Strategic Renewal: Past Research, Theoretical Tensions and Future Challenges.
  Achim Schmitt, Sebastian Raisch, Henk W. Volberda.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. September 01, 2016
  Strategic renewal has become a prominent theme in a variety of organization and management research domains in recent years. It refers to the process that allows organizations to alter their path dependence by transforming their strategic intent and capabilities. With contributions from an increasing range of theoretical perspectives and research contexts, the strategic renewal literature has become fragmented and lacks common definitions and conceptual clarity, which prevent cross‐fertilization and harm further development. This study systematically reviews the various literature streams on strategic renewal to provide a more integrative perspective. The authors identify three key theoretical tensions at the heart of strategic renewal research, namely learning vs. resource, induced vs. autonomous, and co‐alignment vs. co‐creation. By exploring these key tensions, the authors define strategic renewal's conceptual core, identify gaps in the past literature, and provide guidance for future research.

  September 01, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12117   open full text
• Identity Work and Emotions: A Review.
  Ingo Winkler.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. August 26, 2016
  This paper reviews the empirical literature on identity work and identifies two distinct approaches to incorporating emotion. The majority of empirical studies use emotion to describe the experiences of identity work. In doing so, the authors (a) mention the emotions that people feel in situations that trigger identity work, (b) illustrate identity work as an emotional endeavour, and (c) describe the emotional impact of successful and unsuccessful identity work. There is also an emerging literature that examines the mutual constitution of emotions and identity work. These authors address emotional labour, affective social identification, emotional attachment and detachment, and humour when studying identity work. This paper suggests that, to understand better the relation between emotions and identity work, future research should examine the role of emotions in problematizing identity, the emotional constitution of the identity work experience, the intersection of emotions and other ways of knowing the self, and the links between emotions and power in identity work.

  August 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12119   open full text
• Cultural Intelligence: A Review and New Research Avenues.
  Dana L. Ott, Snejina Michailova.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. August 26, 2016
  Cultural intelligence (CQ), an individual's capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse situations and settings, has become the focus of a vibrant scholarly conversation and a flourishing area of multidisciplinary research. Since the introduction of the concept in 2002, substantial research has been conducted concerning its definition, the validation of its measurement, and the examination of its development and predictive capabilities. The present paper systematically reviews 73 conceptual and empirical articles published on CQ from 2002 to 2015 in management and international business journals as well as in education and psychology. The authors discuss two distinct conceptualizations of CQ, developments within the conceptual research, and opportunities for further theorizing. They also cluster the empirical studies based on how CQ was used and identify patterns, achievements and challenges within the literature. Finally, based on their analysis, they identify promising avenues for future research and propose specific questions that can further advance the scholarly conversation on CQ.

  August 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12118   open full text
• The Translation of Management Knowledge: Challenges, Contributions and New Directions.
  Dimitrios Spyridonidis, Graeme Currie, Stefan Heusinkveld, Karoline Strauss, Andrew Sturdy.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 26, 2016
  Across many sectors, new developments and discourses that emphasize change, collaboration, shifting professional boundaries and increased sharing of knowledge are taking place. One is thus challenged to question and/or develop further understanding of how and to what extent new ideas, scientific developments and technologies are translated within such contexts and thereby extend management and organization studies. To advance understanding about this significant field in the scholarly community, this special issue has assembled a diverse set of papers, which review developments in translation theory and seek to encourage new thinking and frameworks and open up new directions in management and organization studies more generally. By reflecting on these papers, the authors summarize key challenges in translational research and new framings, and point to exciting new research opportunities that can be found in fruitfully comparing, elaborating, expanding, contrasting and blending extant perspectives.

  July 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12110   open full text
• Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries as an Emerging Field of Study.
  Dima Jamali, Charlotte Karam.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 17, 2016
  Given the rising interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) globally, its local expressions are as varied as they are increasingly visible in both developed and developing countries. This paper presents a multilevel review of the literature on CSR in developing countries and highlights the key differentiators and nuanced CSR‐related considerations that qualify it as a distinctive field of study. This review entails a content analysis of 452 articles spanning two‐and‐a‐half decades (1990–2015). Based on this comprehensive review, the authors identify the key differentiating attributes of the literature on CSR in developing countries in relation to depictions of how CSR is conceived or ‘CSR Thinking’ and depictions of how CSR is practiced and implemented or ‘CSR Doing’. The authors synthesize from there five key themes that capture the main aspects of variation in this literature, namely: (1) complex institutional antecedents within the national business system (NBS); (2) complex macro‐level antecedents outside the NBS; (3) the salience of multiple actors involved in formal and informal governance; (4) hybridized and other nuanced forms of CSR expressions; and (5) varied scope of developmental and detrimental CSR consequences. The paper concludes by accentuating how the nuanced forms of CSR in the developing world are invariably contextualized and locally shaped by multi‐level factors and actors embedded within wider formal and informal governance systems.

  July 17, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12112   open full text
• Examining Organic and Mechanistic Structures: Do We Know as Much as We Thought?
  Stacey R. Kessler, Ashley E. Nixon, Walter R. Nord.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 17, 2016
  Burns and Stalker's theory of organic/mechanistic structures (1961, The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock) has been widely used. However, review of the empirical literature revealed inconsistencies in how the concepts have been operationalized. These inconsistencies may interfere with the ability to consolidate knowledge. This paper reviews the various ways in which researchers have operationalized the concepts, and summarizes the empirical findings derived from these operationalizations. In doing so, it highlights gaps and opportunities for future empirical and methodological work, suggesting the need to further our theoretical conceptualization of the concepts and to draw attention to Burns and Stalker's () largely neglected corollary of the employee experience. As such, this review provides a road map for future exploration of the wide‐ranging implications associated with organic and mechanistic structures.

  July 17, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12109   open full text
• Deconstructing the Way in which Value Is Created in the Context of Social Entrepreneurship.
  Martine Hlady‐Rispal, Vinciane Servantie.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 17, 2016
  According to existing literature, the core of social entrepreneurship (SE) knowledge is evolving and, as such, it has made important contributions to theoretical definitions and essential characterizations. However, more theoretical issues need to be addressed before the SE field can be fully explained and understood. In particular, the authors observe in the literature that, within empirical or conceptual studies, almost all authors use the term ‘value’, but seemingly assume the dimensions of value rather than define or analyse its connotations and components. This paper uses the value construct and its multi‐faceted dimensions to deconstruct the way in which value is created in the SE context. The authors argue that an analysis based on value generation, value capture and value sharing provides important insights into the specificity of SE research and can facilitate future theorizing. Through the conceptual lens of this central concept of value emanating from value theory and business model literature, the authors abductively analyse and classify the studies, providing a practical resource. The authors discuss the phenomenon, presenting an integrative framework that facilitates a clearer understanding of the social value creation process and suggest future research areas as openings for theory development in relation to value creation, its main components and flows.

  July 17, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12113   open full text
• Strategic Flexibility: A Review of the Literature.
  Danilo Brozovic.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 26, 2016
  Previous literature reviews of strategic flexibility have a number of shortcomings: they lack a specific focus in the field, provide an excessive definitional focus or lack a clear empirical overview of research in the field. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper aims to systematically analyse the literature on strategic flexibility by identifying its main characteristics, linking the different aspects together in a new conceptual framework, and considering the means to measure it. This comprehensive analytical model analyses various aspects of strategic flexibility in the relevant literature (156 contributions). Thus, the systematic and critical approach of this paper offers a novel perspective in understanding strategic flexibility, and contributes to the field by providing a consolidation of the literature and indicating future research avenues.

  June 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12111   open full text
• Accelerating the Innovation Process: A Systematic Review and Realist Synthesis of the Research Literature.
  Paul Ellwood, Paul Grimshaw, Krsto Pandza.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 16, 2016
  There is continued interest among academics, practitioners and policy‐makers in methods to achieve accelerated innovation. Academic studies of this complex phenomenon have succeeded in reaching a high degree of consensus on the antecedents of innovation speed. The aim in this review is to elucidate further the mechanisms underlying management interventions to promote speed. The review adopts a theory‐led, realist synthesis of innovation speed research – the first example of this methodology in management studies. The authors develop a new time‐based framework for categorizing the innovation‐speed literature. The framework has a CIMO logic, and is built by invoking the organizational studies literature on time. The authors contextualize the innovation‐speed literature in relation to the three generic temporal challenges faced by all organizations: reducing temporal uncertainty; resolving temporal conflicts over activities; and allocating resources amid conditions of temporal scarcity. They problematize extant explanations of innovation speed as not taking account of different temporal orientations (temporal dichotomies) within innovation work, and thereby neglecting a potential barrier to achieving accelerated innovation outcomes. They further draw on the literature on time in organizations to suggest new avenues of research, and methodological approaches new to the study of innovation speed. The principal contribution of this review is to offer a new conceptual perspective on the complex empirical research examining how innovation projects may be accelerated from original idea to launch.

  June 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12108   open full text
• The Management of Workplace Conflict: Contrasting Pathways in the HRM Literature.
  Denise Currie, Tom Gormley, Bill Roche, Paul Teague.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 18, 2016
  This paper reviews the human resource management literature on the management of workplace conflict. It suggests that workplace conflict is commonly viewed in the literature as a symptom of management failure: the notion that conflict may be intrinsic to the nature of work because employees and managers have hard‐to‐reconcile competing interests is given short‐shrift. At the same time, the paper identifies important differences in the literature, which the authors call ‘pathways’, about the best methods to manage problems at the workplace. It is argued that four contrasting pathways can be detected in the literature with regard to how organizations approach workplace conflict management practices. Each pathway is examined fully and their respective strengths and weaknesses are assessed.

  May 18, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12107   open full text
• Translating Management Concepts: Towards a Typology of Alternative Approaches.
  Marlieke Grinsven, Stefan Heusinkveld, Joep Cornelissen.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 02, 2016
  Translation has been established as an important theoretical perspective for studying the flow of management concepts. Yet, despite its potential, we find limited reflection on the various ways in which the perspective is understood and used. As the under‐theorized and fragmented discourse may hamper the progress of translation research as an academic field, it is in need of closer examination. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different conceptualizations of translation, in terms of their key foci and base assumptions, and to review the work that has accumulated into different sub‐streams. Based on a systematic literature review of 150 publications, we identify two theoretically relevant dimensions that mark important differences between these different streams of research: (1) the source of variation; and (2) the object of variation. With these dimensions, we develop a typology of four alternative approaches to translation and show how these are associated with institutional, rational, dramaturgical and political perspectives. We draw on these broader theoretical lenses to contextualize and deepen our understanding of the specific possibilities and limitations of alternative translation approaches, and we highlight the potential for further connections and integration between them.

  May 02, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12106   open full text
• Strategies and Tools for Entrepreneurial Resource Access: A Cross‐disciplinary Review and Typology.
  Hans Rawhouser*, Jaume Villanueva, Scott L. Newbert.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 21, 2016
  Given that gaining access to external resources is a critical component of entrepreneurial activity, a great deal of research has been done in an attempt to predict and explain this phenomenon. Unfortunately, this literature is largely scattered across a wide variety of somewhat disconnected research streams, which makes interpreting the insights that have been hitherto gained challenging. In response, the authors identify a sample of 76 relevant articles from the leading management and entrepreneurship journals that examine entrepreneurial access to resources. Using a narrative synthesis approach, they then organize these articles based on the strategies (projective and/or interpersonal) and tools (words, actions, associations and/or intangibles) by which entrepreneurs gain access to resources. Based on this categorization, the authors discuss the major themes in the extant literature and offer suggestions for how to move research on entrepreneurial access forward in the future.

  April 21, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12105   open full text
• Working with Language: A Refocused Research Agenda for Cultural Leadership Studies.
  Doris Schedlitzki, Pasi Ahonen, Paresh Wankhade, Gareth Edwards, Hugo Gaggiotti.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 19, 2016
  This paper critically reviews existing contributions from the field of cultural leadership studies with a view to highlighting the conceptual and methodological limitations of the dominant etic, cross‐cultural approach in leadership studies and illuminating implications of the relative dominance and unreflective use of the English language as the academic and business lingua franca within this field. It subsequently outlines the negative implications of overlooking cultural and linguistic multiplicity for an understanding of culturally sensitive leadership practices. In drawing on lessons from this critical review and the emergent fields of emic, non‐positivist cultural leadership studies, this analysis argues that the field of cultural leadership studies requires an alternative research agenda focused on language multiplicity, which enables the field to move towards emic, qualitative research that helps to empower individual cultural voices and explore cultural intra‐ and interrelationships, tensions and paradoxes embedded in leadership processes. The paper concludes by offering suggestions on methodological approaches for emic cultural leadership studies that are centred on the exploration of language as a cultural voice.

  April 19, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12100   open full text
• The Digital Journey: Reflected Learnings and Emerging Challenges.
  Sarah Quinton, Lyndon Simkin.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 19, 2016
  This paper identifies and examines the four stages of marketing's digitalization journey to date and the points of interest along the way. The metaphor of a journey provides a narrative through which to understand the complex changes that are occurring within the digitalization of marketing. The digital journey has no final destination yet, but it is possible to identify an origin and chart its route thus far. In reflecting on this journey, insights emerge, which pose ongoing challenges for businesses and for the marketing discipline. The digitalization of marketing provides new options for routes to markets, communication, brand building, relationship development, trialling pricing, product development, sourcing insights, as well as a platform for innovation. But, only if businesses embark on this journey, and then keep up with the pace once en route. The implications for business stemming from marketing's digital journey are detailed along with avenues for future research, to develop further understanding of digitalization. The theoretical contributions made by this paper include both a novel mapping of the complex trajectory of marketing's digitalization through a visualization and an articulation of the main four gaps in current research and practice knowledge within marketing. The gaps include the need for a strategic view, the issue of technical silos, the changing conceptions of time, and the tension between empowered consumers and their reliance on pre‐filtered information. This paper provides a critical appraisal of the digital journey so far, resulting in a distilled conceptualization and route map, which should help guide future researchers.

  April 19, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12104   open full text
• Shades of Grey: Guidelines for Working with the Grey Literature in Systematic Reviews for Management and Organizational Studies.
  Richard J. Adams, Palie Smart, Anne Sigismund Huff.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 19, 2016
  This paper suggests how the ‘grey literature’, the diverse and heterogeneous body of material that is made public outside, and not subject to, traditional academic peer‐review processes, can be used to increase the relevance and impact of management and organization studies (MOS). The authors clarify the possibilities by reviewing 140 systematic reviews published in academic and practitioner outlets to answer the following three questions: (i) Why is grey literature excluded from/included in systematic reviews in MOS? (ii) What types of grey material have been included in systematic reviews since guidelines for practice were first established in this discipline? (iii) How is the grey literature treated currently to advance management and organization scholarship and knowledge? This investigation updates previous guidelines for more inclusive systematic reviews that respond to criticisms of current review practices and the needs of evidence‐based management.

  April 19, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12102   open full text
• Archetypes of Translation: Recommendations for Dialogue.
  Joe O'Mahoney.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 13, 2016
  This paper reviews 128 works on translation in management studies and identifies four perspectives (diffusion, actor‐network theory, Scandinavian Institutionalism and organizational boundaries) which are argued to be underpinned by four relatively disparate theoretical archetypes (scientism, actualism, social constructivism and symbolic interactionism). It is argued that, individually, these archetypes possess strengths and weaknesses in understanding translation, yet are relatively incommensurable, which mitigates against interperspective dialogue and the insights that this might promote. With illustrations, the paper suggests that the stratified and emergent ontology proposed by critical realism can provide a more inclusive foundation for interdisciplinary engagement on translation, which combines many strengths and ameliorates several weaknesses of the individual archetypes.

  April 13, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12103   open full text
• The Challenge of Integration: A Review of the M&A Integration Literature.
  Norbert Steigenberger.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 03, 2016
  The integration of acquired or merging firms is a key driver of the success or failure of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Over the last 30 years, a substantial body of research has addressed M&A integration, offering rich but widely dispersed insights into this phenomenon. This paper takes stock of the current knowledge, based on a review of articles published in scholarly journals. The review advances the conceptual understanding of the phenomenon by inductively developing an overarching framework for the M&A integration literature, where integration success is a function of context, structural and communication‐based interventions, which interact with collective sensemaking processes and negotiations among integration stakeholders. Based on this framework, a research agenda is suggested. I proposes that, in particular, the interaction between structural interventions and leadership warrants further study. Also, little is known about integration project management and integration team composition or the interaction between integration context and collective sensemaking processes. Finally, there is a shortage of research on temporal dynamics within integration projects. The review demonstrates that M&A scholars made substantial progress regarding our understanding of the M&A integration process, yet much remains to be done.

  April 03, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12099   open full text
• Understanding and Development of Supply Chain Agility and Flexibility: A Structured Literature Review.
  Sajad Fayezi, Ambika Zutshi, Andrew O'Loughlin.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 16, 2016
  This paper provides a review of the literature while contributing to academic understanding of the concepts of agility and flexibility within the supply chain. The research identified 83 peer‐reviewed articles through a structured review technique, which is based on a three‐stage refinement process. Data reduction procedures using codification, sentence strings and a review of keywords, title, abstract and conclusion were used in the search. The papers identified focused on organizational and supply chain agility and flexibility. The acknowledged gaps in understanding and development of agility and flexibility in supply chains were identified and categorized in terms of conceptual, contextual and methodological gaps. Subsequent to the gap analysis, this paper argues that effective relationship integration with key partners is a fundamental mechanism for mitigating the problem of control dissipation, which has hindered academic understanding with respect to development and application of agile and flexible capabilities in supply chains. The findings in this paper will help academics to gain a better understanding and to develop the concepts of supply chain agility and flexibility. In addition, the findings indicate that supply chain stakeholders need to address the issue of relationship integration when undertaking, or participating in agility and flexibility development programmes, so as to maximize supply chain performance. The paper concludes by highlighting implications for managers and researchers, and proposes a number of areas for future investigation.

  March 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12096   open full text
• ‘Pedagogy as Translation’: Extending the Horizons of Translation Theory.
  Peter Lamb, Anders Örtenblad, Shih‐wei Hsu.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 16, 2016
  This paper extends the horizons of scholarly work within the bounds of translation theory by moving away from the tradition of presenting descriptive and historical accounts of translation. It departs from this tradition by offering a guide for intentional or rationally calculated translation applied to cross‐cultural management learning. It synthesizes key issues from translation theory with management learning literature, which calls for more critically oriented and more cross‐culturally sensitive pedagogy. It then outlines a five‐stage pedagogic translation process, termed ‘Pedagogy as Translation’ (PaT), which is designed to create the necessary space for students to develop and extend their translation capacity. The paper also opens up scope for further exploration into the conditions and scope of intentional and rationally calculated translation as a pedagogic innovation within management learning, and more generally with respect to knowledge transfer.

  March 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12098   open full text
• Knowledge Transfer as Translation: Review and Elements of an Instrumental Theory.
  Kjell Arne Røvik.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 16, 2016
  Based on a literature review, this paper investigates the potential of translation theory to energize the study of knowledge transfer between source and recipient organizational units. The central assumption is that translation theory is not only useful for analyzing knowledge‐transfer processes, but also has the potential to guide deliberate interventions in such processes. Based on this premise, and drawing on insights from the neighboring academic discipline of translation studies, the author outlines the elements of an instrumental translation theory, with the aim of developing knowledge about how to conduct translations of practices and ideas to achieve various organizational ends in knowledge transfers. The instrumental theory is founded on two main arguments. The first is that knowledge transfers between organizations are rule‐based translation processes. The second is that the way in which translators use various translation rules and perform translations may be decisive for outcomes of knowledge‐transfer processes. This study develops a typology of three translation modes (the reproducing, the modifying and the radical mode) and four appurtenant translation rules (copying, addition, omission and alteration), and discusses which translation rules fit which conditions. The author identifies three critical conditional variables in knowledge transfers – the translatability of the source practice, the transformability of the transferred knowledge, and the similarity between source and recipient units – and discusses the appropriateness of each translation rule in relation to these variables.

  March 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12097   open full text
• Towards a Three‐Component Model of Relational Social Constructionist Leadership: A Systematic Review and Critical Interpretive Synthesis.
  Sigrid Endres, Jürgen Weibler.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 09, 2016
  Given the increasingly acknowledged insight that people do not act as self‐contained individuals but in relation to others and embedded in context, relational social constructionist leadership (RSCL) has recently gained exciting momentum. Unfortunately, this development has not been accompanied by sufficient efforts at clarification. This systematic concept‐centric review, which consists of 47 empirical RSCL studies, contributes to a better understanding of RSCL as part of the relationality movement in leadership. The results help to clear up some misunderstandings on relational leadership and suggest a more analytical and critical treatment of RSCL approaches to advance the development of RSCL. As a major contribution for dealing appropriately with RSCL, the authors propose a three‐component RSCL model, composed of: (1) social construction (i.e. processes of intersubjectively creating social realities through ongoing interpretation and interaction), representing the leadership mechanism, (2) high‐quality relating and communicating (i.e. all the visible and invisible threads that connect people) representing the leadership content; and (3) influence (emerging at the interpersonal interaction level or the collective level), representing the leadership manifestation. This model permits: first, clearer boundaries to be drawn between RSCL and other relational leadership forms and general relationship forms; second, power and influence in RSCL to be addressed adequately; and third, potential ‘dark sides of RSCL’ to be considered in full. The authors believe that this model may help to reduce the risk of diluting the distinctiveness of RSCL, and to balance potential tendencies towards developing overly idealistic or implicit ideological leadership approaches within the promising field of RSCL.

  March 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12095   open full text
• Middle Managers and the Translation of New Ideas in Organizations: A Review of Micro‐practices and Contingencies.
  Giovanni Radaelli, Lucy Sitton‐Kent.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 09, 2016
  Translation theories argue that the transformation of new ideas is ‘in the hands of people’ and that actors at multiple organizational levels interact to affect this process. However, previous research has focused mostly on executive managers or R&D departments, while other organizational actors, who have a comparable influence on the translation process, have received little systematic analysis of their role. This study draws upon this premise to review the existing literature on middle managers’ engagement with the translation of new ideas. The findings follow middle managers throughout the translation process, i.e. from the acquisition of the new ideas to its stabilization. The authors identify the micro‐practices pursued by middle managers to affect the travel of the new idea within the organization, and the contingencies that explain when and how middle managers engage in specific translation stages. The paper concludes with discussions of the main implications and indications for middle managers and future directions for research.

  March 09, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12094   open full text
• Expanding the Domain of Festival Research: A Review and Research Agenda.
  Juliette Wilson, Norin Arshed, Eleanor Shaw, Tobias Pret.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. February 15, 2016
  Festivals are an important sub‐field within event studies which, until recently, have not been studied as separate experiences. A systematic review of the emerging literature on festivals reveals several key characteristics. While festivals are diverse in nature and geographical location, scholarly interest focuses on five main themes: the motivations for organizing, funding and attending festivals; the experiences of festival attendees; the relationship between festivals and their local environments; the economic and sociocultural impacts of festivals; and the management of festivals. Despite growing interest in festivals as research sites, little attention has been afforded to investigating festival processes. In particular, considerations of how festivals are established, and which individuals are involved in their initiation and regular staging, offer opportunities for research. This paper highlights the significant role festivals play within their local communities, including their facilitation of social cohesion and regional identity. Our study reveals that the literature rarely discusses the development of festivals over time and the wider networks in which festivals are embedded. This critical review of festival research identifies various research gaps and directions for future research to develop theory and practical understanding of festivals.

  February 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12093   open full text
• Translation Theory ‘Translated’: Three Perspectives on Translation in Organizational Research.
  Arild Wæraas, Jeppe Agger Nielsen.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. February 11, 2016
  Translation theory has proved to be a versatile analytical lens used by scholars working from different traditions. On the basis of a systematic literature review, this study adds to understanding of the ‘translations’ of translation theory by identifying the distinguishing features of the most common theoretical approaches to translation within the organization and management discipline: actor–network theory, knowledge‐based theory and Scandinavian institutionalism. Although each of these approaches already has borne much fruit in research, the literature is diverse and somewhat fragmented, but also overlapping. The authors discuss the ways in which the three versions of translation theory may be combined and enrich each other so as to inform future research, thereby offering a more complete understanding of translation in and across organizational settings.

  February 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12092   open full text
• Recovering the Divide: A Review of Strategy and Tactics in Business and Management.
  David Mackay, Mike Zundel.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 27, 2016
  With origins in military history, strategy and tactics is a frequently used conceptual couplet in the business and management literature. This paper reviews how strategy and tactics are portrayed, identifying a dominant ‘pragmatic’ account of strategy as an expression of formal, planned ends achieved through the subordinate means of tactics. Pragmatic distinctions give rise to a range of well‐known problems, in particular in strategy implementation stages. We suggest that some of these problems may be avoided when the strategy–tactics relationship is conceived differently. We elaborate two alternative distinctions: a sociological framing of tactics as mechanisms of resistance to formal, controlling strategies; and a processual perspective, which sidesteps fixed distinctions between tactics and strategy, giving rise to more fluid interrelations between both modes. Based on a review of the business and management literature, we identify key examples of each trope and conclude by drawing insights for each account on the basis of these wider discussions.

  January 27, 2016   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12091   open full text
• In Search of ‘Managerial Work’: Past, Present and Future of an Analytical Category.
  Maja Korica, Davide Nicolini, Bart Johnson.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 30, 2015
  Based on a comprehensive review of literature, the paper examines how ‘managerial work’ as a fluid analytical category has been approached methodologically, theoretically and empirically for more than 60 years. In particular, it highlights the existence of competing scholarly understandings regarding its nature, performance, meaning and politics. The authors suggest that subsequent empirical investigations have too often worked, methodologically and theoretically, to slot in, and thus effectively reduce, the term to a particular pre‐existing box, rather than exploring open‐endedly the what and how, but also the why of ‘managerial work’ as a distinct mode of situated ordering. Having represented the concept's past and present by identifying four distinct research approaches reflected in representative publications, the authors suggest that more attention should be devoted to a mode of analytical departure that promises to address directly the suggested shortcomings in the literature. Specifically, it is argued that much could be gained if contemporary notions of practice were brought into the study of managerial work. To this end, the authors outline the contours of a practice‐based approach as a sensitizing framework for understanding managerial work by highlighting the situated, relational, sociomaterial, meaning‐making and consequence‐oriented analytical foci the approach suggests, and suggesting a number of conjoint research questions, as well as acknowledging subsequent limitations.

  November 30, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12090   open full text
• The Negative Effects of Social Capital in Organizations: A Review and Extension.
  Kishore Gopalakrishna Pillai, Gerard P. Hodgkinson, Gurumurthy Kalyanaram, Smitha R. Nair.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 30, 2015
  Numerous studies have examined the positive effects of social capital in organizations, whereas the possible negative effects have attracted considerably less scholarly attention. To rectify this imbalance, this paper first undertakes a rigorous review of the published scholarly empirical evidence pertaining to the negative effects of social capital in organizations through a search of Web of Knowledge and Scopus, and then enumerates six potentially negative effects arising from increased levels of social capital. The review focuses on negative effects arising from bonding social capital and those arising from dense networks and closure, advancing new theory to elucidate the generative mechanisms that give rise to the proposed negative effects. Finally, the authors identify potential moderators of the negative effects thus theorized. Using the lens of social identification theory, the authors argue that dysfunctional identification processes restrict the processing of information and stimulate over‐commitment to established relationships, diluting in turn the dialectical process, and inhibiting individual learning within organizations, culminating in groupthink, the postponement of structural adjustments, the non‐rational escalation of commitment, and the blurring of firms’ boundaries. This review thus furthers the agenda of a more balanced inquiry into the effects of social capital in organizations.

  November 30, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12085   open full text
• Interorganizational Relationships in Marketing: A Critical Review and Research Agenda.
  Lara Agostini, Anna Nosella.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. October 21, 2015
  Over recent decades, the area of marketing interorganizational relationships (IORs) has received increasing attention from both academics and practitioners, even if a comprehensive portrayal of past research is still lacking. Hence, the aim of the present paper is to review the literature on marketing IORs in order to develop a framework meant to organize the different contributions in this area and suggest new paths for future research. The analysis suggests that three main streams of research can be identified with regard to the type of relationship between variables investigated by each article. Moreover, taking into account the purpose of the IOR, common patterns within each stream may be identified. A critical analysis of articles grounded on both the streams and the purpose of marketing IORs suggests there are still substantial gaps in knowledge, which open new paths for future research regarding both methodological issues and hot topics.

  October 21, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12084   open full text
• Reviewing Leadership Styles: Overlaps and the Need for a New ‘Full‐Range’ Theory.
  Marc H. Anderson, Peter Y. T. Sun.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. September 07, 2015
  A central topic in leadership research concerns the impact of leadership style – the pattern of attitudes that leaders hold and behaviors they exhibit. Since the year 2000, several new leadership styles have been proposed to capture important missing aspects beyond the dominant charismatic/transformational and transactional framework. The authors review the emerging literature on these new styles – ideological leadership, pragmatic leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership, spiritual leadership, distributed leadership, and integrative public leadership – as well as the recent work on servant leadership. They also comment on the Ohio State studies on leadership, and then discuss the ways in which these many styles overlap with transformational leadership and each other, and issue a call to leadership researchers to collectively develop a new ‘full‐range’ model of leadership that encompasses and distills what is unique about these various styles. The authors argue that such an integrated full‐range model is necessary for research on leadership style to progress.

  September 07, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12082   open full text
• Search and Recombination Process to Innovate: A Review of the Empirical Evidence and a Research Agenda.
  Tommaso Savino, Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli, Vito Albino.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. August 24, 2015
  The view of innovation as a process of searching and recombining existing knowledge elements has been adopted in several industries. The innovation management literature has recognized the fundamental role that search and recombination play in innovation development. However, the relevant research has provided complex, fragmented and mixed results. The authors aim to identify areas of convergence and provide directions for future research by collecting empirical evidence regarding how firms conduct the search and recombination process. They conducted a systematic literature review of 87 empirical articles in the innovation management field. The review reveals differences among the solutions adopted both within and across organizational boundaries. Specifically, it shows that the variety and diversity of knowledge elements are critical in creating breakthrough innovations. Therefore, this paper discusses how to provide access to a variety of knowledge elements. It also highlights other fundamental questions calling for further investigation, such as how scientific knowledge elements are successfully recombined and how recombination and search dynamics occur in small and medium‐sized firms. The review concludes by summarizing the current state of affairs and suggests promising directions for future investigation.

  August 24, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12081   open full text
• The Meaning, Antecedents and Outcomes of Employee Engagement: A Narrative Synthesis.
  Catherine Bailey, Adrian Madden, Kerstin Alfes, Luke Fletcher.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 29, 2015
  The claim that high levels of engagement can enhance organizational performance and individual well‐being has not previously been tested through a systematic review of the evidence. To bring coherence to the diffuse body of literature on engagement, the authors conducted a systematic synthesis of narrative evidence involving 214 studies focused on the meaning, antecedents and outcomes of engagement. The authors identified six distinct conceptualizations of engagement, with the field dominated by the Utrecht Group's ‘work engagement’ construct and measure, and by the theorization of engagement within the ‘job demands–resources’ framework. Five groups of factors served as antecedents to engagement: psychological states; job design; leadership; organizational and team factors; and organizational interventions. Engagement was found to be positively associated with individual morale, task performance, extra‐role performance and organizational performance, and the evidence was most robust in relation to task performance. However, there was an over‐reliance on quantitative, cross‐sectional and self‐report studies within the field, which limited claims of causality. To address controversies over the commonly used measures and concepts in the field and gaps in the evidence‐base, the authors set out an agenda for future research that integrates emerging critical sociological perspectives on engagement with the psychological perspectives that currently dominate the field.

  July 29, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12077   open full text
• Does Outsourcing Really Improve Firm Performance? Empirical Evidence and Research Agenda.
  Somnath Lahiri.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 21, 2015
  The phenomenon of outsourcing has spawned a rich body of scholarly work in the last two decades. Yet, the answer to one important question has remained elusive: Does outsourcing really improve firm performance? Addressing this question is important as firms across nations continue to embark on the practice of outsourcing to save operating costs and remain competitive. Scholars, practitioners and policy‐makers need to understand whether and how outsourcing benefits the firm. However, no comprehensive review of empirical evidence has been published so far that can address this question. This study reviews 57 empirical research articles that investigated the outsourcing–firm performance relationship in 47 peer‐reviewed scholarly journals over a 20‐year time‐span (1996–2015). The articles differ widely in research scope, context, level of analysis, data source, time‐span, industry sector, extent of outsourcing and measure of performance. The findings suggest that outsourcing can produce positive, negative, mixed, moderated or no significant impact on the firm. This study also provides useful directions for future research on outsourcing and firm performance.

  July 21, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12075   open full text
• Resilience in Business and Management Research: A Review of Influential Publications and a Research Agenda.
  Martina K. Linnenluecke.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 20, 2015
  This paper identifies the development of and gaps in knowledge in business and management research on resilience, based on a systematic review of influential publications among 339 papers, books and book chapters published between 1977 and 2014. Analyzing these records shows that resilience research has developed into five research streams, or lines of enquiry, which view resilience as (1) organizational responses to external threats, (2) organizational reliability, (3) employee strengths, (4) the adaptability of business models or (5) design principles that reduce supply chain vulnerabilities and disruptions. A review of the five streams suggests three key findings: First, resilience has been conceptualized quite differently across studies, meaning that the different research streams have developed their own definitions, theories and understandings of resilience. Second, conceptual similarities and differences among these streams have not yet been explored, nor have insights been gleaned about any possible generalizable principles for developing resilience. Third, resilience has been operationalized quite differently, with few insights into the empirics for detecting resilience to future adversity (or the absence thereof). This paper outlines emerging research trends and pathways for future research, highlighting opportunities to integrate and expand on existing knowledge, as well as avenues for further investigation of resilience in business and management studies.

  July 20, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12076   open full text
• What Do We Mean by Performativity in Organizational and Management Theory? The Uses and Abuses of Performativity.
  Jean‐Pascal Gond, Laure Cabantous, Nancy Harding, Mark Learmonth.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 07, 2015
  John Austin introduced the formulation ‘performative utterance’ in his 1962 book How to Do Things with Words. This term and the related concept of performativity have subsequently been interpreted in numerous ways by social scientists and philosophers such as Lyotard, Butler, Callon and Barad, leading to the coexistence of several foundational perspectives on performativity. This paper reviews and evaluates critically how organization and management theory (OMT) scholars have used these perspectives, and how the power of performativity has, or has not, stimulated new theory‐building. In performing a historical and critical review of performativity in OMT, the authors’ analysis reveals the uses, abuses and under‐uses of the concept by OMT scholars. It also reveals the lack of both organizational conceptualizations of performativity and analysis of how performativity is organized. Ultimately, the authors’ aim is to provoke a ‘performative turn’ in OMT by unleashing the power of the performativity concept to generate new and stronger organizational theories.

  July 07, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12074   open full text
• Multi‐Leader Teams in Review: A Contingent‐Configuration Perspective of Effectiveness.
  Scott B. Dust, Jonathan C. Ziegert.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 06, 2015
  Multi‐leader teams are characterized by multiple leaders exhibiting mutual influence on each other while working towards a common team goal. An unexplored assumption in this literature is that increasing the number of leaders is related to heightened team effectiveness. The authors propose that this notion is oversimplified and suggest a contingency model of multi‐leader team effectiveness. The authors suggest that the context determines the effectiveness of a particular multi‐leader team configuration, because each formation has unique internal team mechanisms. To investigate this perspective, we review the multi‐leader team literature (175 articles) by categorizing the extant theory and research as falling within nine multi‐leader configurations along two key dimensions: (1) the proportion of leaders within a team; and (2) the dispersion of leadership through role co‐enactment of team leaders. This framework enables a more coherent understanding as to the benefits and the costs of each specific multi‐leader team configuration and a clearer evaluation of the contexts in which varying configurations are most effective. Four emerging themes related to configuration–contextualization are explained and theoretical implications for interpreting leadership effectiveness in multi‐leader team settings are discussed.

  July 06, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12073   open full text
• International Business and National Culture: A Literature Review and Research Agenda.
  Cristina López‐Duarte, Marta M. Vidal‐Suárez, Belén González‐Díaz.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 30, 2015
  This literature review analyzes leading international business and management journals from 2000 to 2012 in order to explore the role of national culture in international business research. Through the analysis of the 265 selected articles, the study thematically maps the field and identifies research challenges and opportunities. It reflects on avenues for future research related to both thematic and methodological issues, among them: research focused on the impact of the home/host national culture on internationalization processes (as existing literature mainly focuses on cultural distance); the role to be played by new theoretical frameworks; and the need to consider cultural positions and cultural friction rather than traditional cultural distance when analyzing internationalization decisions.

  June 30, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12070   open full text
• Evolution of the Debate on Control Enhancing Mechanisms: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis.
  Sara Saggese, Fabrizia Sarto, Corrado Cuccurullo.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 30, 2015
  This paper aims to assess the state of the art, the structure and the evolution of the debate on control enhancing mechanisms (hereafter CEMs). It combines bibliometric and qualitative methodologies to analyze 210 articles published in scientific journals up to 2014. The findings show that the academics’ interest has increased over time, and the research has simultaneously developed along two main poles: antecedents and consequences of the proportionality principle. The analyses also reveal that the debate stems from the US studies on the legal principles of disproportionate ownership devices at the end of 19th century, and has been strongly fueled by the ‘law and finance’ theorists. This paper has both theoretical and practical implications. First, it provides insights into underexplored issues where future research efforts could be focused. Second, it supports new policy‐making interventions to CEMs and encourages investor regulation and corporate transparency.

  June 30, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12072   open full text
• How Organizational Cognitive Neuroscience Can Deepen Understanding of Managerial Decision‐making: A Review of the Recent Literature and Future Directions.
  Michael J.R. Butler, Holly L.R. O'Broin, Nick Lee, Carl Senior.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 17, 2015
  There is growing interest in exploring the potential links between human biology and management and organization studies, which is bringing greater attention to bear on the place of mental processes in explaining human behaviour and effectiveness. The authors define this new field as organizational cognitive neuroscience (OCN), which is in the exploratory phase of its emergence and diffusion. It is clear that there are methodological debates and issues associated with OCN research, and the aim of this paper is to illuminate these concerns, and provide a roadmap for rigorous and relevant future work in the area. To this end, the current reach of OCN is investigated by the systematic review methodology, revealing three clusters of activity, covering the fields of economics, marketing and organizational behaviour. Among these clusters, organizational behaviour seems to be an outlier, owing to its far greater variety of empirical work, which the authors argue is largely a result of the plurality of research methods that have taken root within this field. Nevertheless, all three clusters contribute to a greater understanding of the biological mechanisms that mediate choice and decision‐making. The paper concludes that OCN research has already provided important insights regarding the boundaries surrounding human freedom to act in various domains and, in turn, self‐determination to influence the workplace. However, there is much to be done, and emerging research of significant interest is highlighted.

  June 17, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12071   open full text
• Informal Mentoring at Work: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research.
  Suzanne Janssen, Mark Vuuren, Menno D.T. Jong.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 31, 2015
  This paper reviews the literature on informal mentoring at work. Based on two basic premises of interpersonal relationships, it discusses four promising areas in current mentoring research that could be cultivated further by future research. The first premise that we hold is that relationships never exist in a vacuum. Traditionally, however, mentoring literature has often overlooked the context of mentoring. We propose that the developmental network approach can be further extended to gather more insight into the interplay between mentoring dyads and their context. Also, mentoring literature could pay more attention to temporal influences in mentoring studies. The second premise that is applied is that relationships are not only instrumental in nature. However, mentoring research to date has mostly applied a one‐sided and transactional view to mentoring. Relational mentoring theory could be helpful in examining relational motivations of both members. Also, mentoring literature can achieve more explanatory power by examining the underlying mechanisms of mentoring, next to social exchange principles, that cause these developmental changes. In summary, in each of these four research areas, we identify and discuss fundamental questions and developments in research that can advance mentoring theory and practice.

  May 31, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12069   open full text
• Sustainability‐oriented Innovation: A Systematic Review.
  Richard Adams, Sally Jeanrenaud, John Bessant, David Denyer, Patrick Overy.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 17, 2015
  This paper is intended as a contribution to the ongoing conceptual development of sustainability‐oriented innovation (SOI) and provides initial guidance on becoming and being sustainable. The authors organize and integrate the diverse body of empirical literature relating to SOI and, in doing so, develop a synthesized conceptual framework onto which SOI practices and processes can be mapped. Sustainability‐oriented innovation involves making intentional changes to an organization's philosophy and values, as well as to its products, processes or practices to serve the specific purpose of creating and realizing social and environmental value in addition to economic returns. A critical reading of previous literature relating to environmental management and sustainability reveals how little attention has been paid to SOI, and what exists is only partial. In a review of 100 scholarly articles and 27 grey sources drawn from the period of the three Earth Summits (1992, 2002 and 2012), the authors address four specific deficiencies that have given rise to these limitations: the meaning of SOI; how it has been conceptualized; its treatment as a dichotomous phenomenon; and a general failure to reflect more contemporary practices. The authors adopt a framework synthesis approach involving first constructing an initial architecture of the landscape grounded in previous studies, which is subsequently iteratively tested, shaped, refined and reinforced into a model of SOI with data drawn from included studies: so advancing theoretical development in the field of SOI.

  May 17, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12068   open full text
• Resource Immobility and Sustained Performance: A Systematic Assessment of How Immobility Has Been Considered in Empirical Resource‐based Studies.
  Jim Andersén, Christian Jansson, Torbjörn Ljungkvist.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 11, 2015
  The core notion of the resource‐based view (RBV) is that the possession of certain resources can result in superior performance and, in order for this performance to be sustained, these resources cannot be perfectly mobile. Whereas previous reviews have mainly focused on the relationship between resources and temporary performance, no studies have systematically analyzed the extent to which empirical RBV studies have specifically considered immobility of resources. By analyzing a sample of 218 empirical RBV studies, the authors found that 17% of the studies directly measured some dimension of immobility (by, for example, actually measuring the level of social complexity, unique history, tacitness or tradability). Fewer than 2% of the studies measured the outcome of resource immobility, i.e. sustained performance differences. Based on these results, this paper discusses the consequences of overlooking this key dimension of the RBV (i.e. immobility) and suggests that, and discusses how, future research should consider resource immobility to a greater extent.

  May 11, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12067   open full text
• Job Search: A Multidisciplinary Review and Research Agenda.
  Laxmikant Manroop, Julia Richardson.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 23, 2015
  Scholarly interest in job search has grown significantly over the years and can be located in diverse research streams: namely, economics, sociology and industrial/organizational psychology. This paper reviews these bodies of literature and makes a case for integration by proposing a multidisciplinary approach to understanding job‐seeking behaviors. To this end, the paper categorizes the respective literatures on the basis of common themes located in a conceptual multidisciplinary model of job search behaviors and outcomes. This model provides a more focused understanding of the job search literature and how it has developed in the related disciplines. Based on the review and conceptual model presented, the paper draws attention to several key areas for future research to advance the field further.

  April 23, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12066   open full text
• The Concept of Distance in International Business Research: A Review and Research Agenda.
  Thomas Hutzschenreuter, Ingo Kleindienst, Sandra Lange.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 23, 2015
  This paper reviews the literature on the effects of distance arising from country differences on outcomes at the firm and subsidiary level. It provides some clarity on what has been learned so far about distance by answering four questions: Which distance? Why does distance matter? What outcomes are affected by distance? and What aggravates or alleviates the effects of distance? Based on the review of the literature, a set of future research suggestions are developed, intended to direct attention to research questions that the authors believe are among the most pressing questions in distance research and that may have the potential to advance the field substantially.

  April 23, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12065   open full text
• Foreign Location Choice: Review and Extensions.
  Jin Uk Kim, Ruth V. Aguilera.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 08, 2015
  International Business (IB) research on foreign‐location choice has experienced a revival in recent years, yet a comprehensive review has been sorely lacking. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the findings of recently published articles on the topic of foreign‐location choice and offer fruitful directions for future research. This review consists of three sections: first, the authors provide a historical overview of this research stream by tracing its origins and analyzing the general trend that has shaped research on foreign‐location choice. Next, the authors conduct a review of 137 recent articles published in leading IB and business/management journals. These articles are categorized according to common topics, and the main findings of each category are synthesized in order to bring some cohesion to this fragmented field. Lastly, the authors identify issues that remain under‐researched or require re‐thinking some taken‐for‐granted assumptions. Through this effort, they are able to connect the past, present and future of research on foreign‐location choice and to shed some new light on the IB literature.

  April 08, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12064   open full text
• Pioneering Process Research: Andrew Pettigrew's Contribution to Management Scholarship, 1962–2014.
  Harry Sminia.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 29, 2015
  This paper assesses Andrew Pettigrew's contribution to management scholarship. This review addresses the process, content, and context of his research career. Chronologically, the process will be subdivided into three distinct phases: the period leading up to the establishment of the Centre for Corporate Strategy and Change, Pettigrew's time with the Centre, and Pettigrew's research since leaving the Centre. The content of Pettigrew's research focussed on big problems and emerging phenomena such as decision‐making, organisational culture, organisation development, strategic change, human resource management, competitiveness, new public management, boards of directors, innovative forms of organising, high‐performing research teams, and business schools. His contextualist methodology for process research will be explicated. Pettigrew's contribution will be contextualised by comparing it with contemporary research. The paper concludes that there is still a need not only to examine big problems and emerging phenomena but also to provide a processual understanding of management reality. There is a need to further develop process research methodologies such as Pettigrew's contextualism, especially with respect to process research methods.

  March 29, 2015   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12063   open full text
• Does Japan Still Matter? Past Tendencies and Future Opportunities in the Study of Japanese Firms.
  Takahiro Endo, Rick Delbridge, Jonathan Morris.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 28, 2014
  This paper engages with the question ‘does Japan still matter’ by systematically reviewing publication patterns in peer‐reviewed academic journal articles addressing Japanese firms and their management practices, illustrating the academic discourse surrounding Japanese firms over four decades, and by identifying future research opportunities. Initially, particularly from the 1980s when Japanese firms came to prominence, these practices tended to be identified as ‘best practice’. However, at least in part due to socio‐economic changes, this tendency has become less prominent since the ‘bubble economy’ burst. Instead, three broader developments are observed: the examination of the continuity and change in the traditional Japanese model, a more complex approach that involves multiple themes of research, and leveraging new contexts to examine Japanese firms, including the long‐term recession, the rise of the East Asian economy, and the increasing importance of corporate social responsibility.

  May 28, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12039   open full text
• The Impact of Alliance Management Capabilities on Alliance Attributes and Performance: A Literature Review.
  Eva Niesten, Albert Jolink.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 15, 2014
  The literature on alliances has identified a variety of inter‐firm antecedents of performance, including information and knowledge sharing between partners, shared partner understanding, and a focus on collective objectives. Recent studies have focused on alliance management capabilities (AMC) – firms' abilities to capture, share, store and apply alliance management knowledge – as an important antecedent of performance. This paper reviews 90 studies on AMC and makes two important contributions to the literature. First, the review provides an overview of and classification scheme for the different types of AMC to better organise the diverse empirical findings that have been presented in the literature. The novel classification distinguishes between general and partner‐specific AMC and between AMC stored within the firm and within the alliance. Second, consistent with the dynamic capabilities perspective, this paper offers a more detailed understanding of why AMC improve performance, by highlighting the intermediate impact of AMC on alliance attributes. In particular, the review demonstrates how the different categories of AMC influence alliances in terms of information and knowledge‐sharing between partners, shared partner understanding and the pursuit of collective goals. The review also demonstrates that these attributes improve performance. The authors note promising avenues for future empirical research that involve combining the classification scheme with research on the impact of AMC on alliance attributes and performance.

  May 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12037   open full text
• Cultural Industries: Product–Market Characteristics, Management Challenges and Industry Dynamics.
  Mirva Peltoniemi.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 09, 2014
  During the last decade, cultural industries have grown in economic importance, and research interest in them has increased. Despite prolific research, there is a lack of a comprehensive view on the subject. The purpose of the present paper is to offer a reconceptualization of cultural industries by tracing their boundaries, their features and the dynamics that follow from these features. This is achieved through a review of 314 cultural industries studies, whereby a classification system of three main and six sub‐categories is constructed. On the basis of the review, a framework for future research is presented. Most importantly, future research should examine selection criteria and selection performance, and explore the relationships between tastes, sales, diversity and quality. In this way, researchers might be able to create some order in the extreme uncertainty that cultural industries managers face.

  May 09, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12036   open full text
• Identities and Identity Work in Organizations.
  Andrew D. Brown.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 07, 2014
  Identities, people's subjectively construed understandings of who they were, are and desire to become, are implicated in, and thus key to understanding and explaining, almost everything that happens in and around organizations. The research contribution that this review paper makes is threefold. First, it analyses the often employed but rarely systematically explored concept ‘identity work’, and argues that it is one metaphor among many that may be useful in the analysis of professional and more generally work identities. Second, it focuses on five fundamental, interconnected debates in contemporary identities research centred on notions of choice, stability, coherence, positivity and authenticity. Third, it outlines the roles that the concept ‘identity work’ may play in bridging levels of analysis and disciplinary boundaries, and sketches some possible future identities‐focused ideas for further research. Under‐specification has meant that ‘identity’ has not always fulfilled its analytical promise in either theoretical explorations of identities issues or in empirical studies of identities in practice; and it is to these ends that this paper seeks to contribute.

  May 07, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12035   open full text
• Romantic Relationships at Work: Why Love Can Hurt.
  Fiona Wilson.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 30, 2014
  The academic community, practitioner literature and newspapers have all taken an interest in workplace romance. This paper aims to review the literature on workplace romance and to argue that the issue of power is key to understanding the negative consequences for individuals and organizations, linking workplace romance with theories or explanatory models of power. The paper first examines definitions of workplace romance, presents evidence of its prevalence, distinguishes between different types of workplace romance, and then looks at the main issues that managers and organizations face when considering the issue. The approaches taken by research in management, law, psychology and sociology are contrasted. The motivations for romance and the place of culture are described. Secrecy, gender differences and the negative and positive outcomes for men and women are discussed. The link between romance and harassment is explored. The paper looks at what organizations have done to manage romance. The research methods that have been used are reviewed, as are the gaps and weaknesses in order to make recommendations for future research. The review synthesizes accumulated knowledge in both research and practice, ending by identifying recommendations for managers.

  April 30, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12034   open full text
• ‘If the Facts Don't Fit the Theory … ’: The Security Design Puzzle in Venture Finance.
  Simona Zambelli.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 24, 2014
  When confronting theory with evidence, divergent results surface with reference to the optimal securities that should be adopted in venture capital (VC) finance. The vast majority of the theoretical models on VC consistently predict that convertible securities, especially in the form of convertible preferred stocks, represent the optimal form of finance. While the theoretical literature seems to be supported by empirical studies in the US, the evidence outside the US shows the opposite results. Puzzling patterns emerge, especially when comparing the evidence from the US, Canada and Europe, and an intensive academic debate is under way. The evidence becomes even more challenging when considering the contrasting financing behaviour of US venture capitalists (VCs) investing in Canada. It has been documented that US VCs investing in Canada adopt a wide range of securities other than convertible stocks. If convertible securities truly represent the optimal form of VC finance, why would US VCs use different types of securities when investing in Canada? At present, researchers are still arguing about which factors would have the most significant impact on explaining the different financing behaviour of VCs around the world. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the ongoing international debate on the optimal security design and contracting behaviour in venture finance. With this review, the authors intend to contribute to the VC literature by identifying current trends, explanations and determinants underlying the puzzling empirical evidence on the financing structure adopted by VCs around the world.

  April 24, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12032   open full text
• New Developments in Translation Research.
  Dimitrios Spyridonidis, Graeme Currie, Stefan Heusinkveld, Karoline Strauss, Andrew Sturdy.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 08, 2014
  There is no abstract available for this paper.

  April 08, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12033   open full text
• Knowing, Power and Materiality: A Critical Review and Reconceptualization of Absorptive Capacity.
  Marco Marabelli, Sue Newell.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 17, 2014
  Most studies on absorptive capacity (AC) are based on assumptions that are characteristic of viewing knowledge from an epistemology of possession (knowledge is possessed by individuals and is transferrable). However, the literature on managing knowledge (or better knowledge work) acknowledges also an epistemology of practice (knowledge is unpredictable and dynamic and constituted in and through practice). Moreover, the literature on AC is relatively silent on the relationship between knowledge and power. In this paper, the authors argue that the AC construct should be interpreted in light of the possession and the practice perspectives of knowledge and power. The analysis includes a systematic literature review of AC that supports the authors' claims and, based on this, they suggest an interpretation of the construct that takes into account knowledge–power relationships. This review and theorizing contribute to a richer and processual view of AC.

  March 17, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12031   open full text
• The Business Model Paradox: A Systematic Review and Exploration of Antecedents.
  David Klang, Maria Wallnöfer, Fredrik Hacklin.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 13, 2014
  The business model has become a popular concept in business and management fields. Yet, it is suffering from a paradox between outstanding popularity and severe criticism, which appears to impede the positive development of the scholarly discourse on the business model concept. Against this background, the purpose of this study is to provide insight into the antecedents of this paradox and to understand their implications for the future development of the concept. The following contributions are made. First, the authors apply a narrative approach to recognizing and interpreting the paradox, and introduce the analysis of syntactics of scholarly discourse as a novel method of investigating management concepts. Second, as a result of elaborating on recurrent themes and tensions in scholarly discourse, the authors extend the literature on business models through theorizing on the core of the concept along the dimensions of classification, constitution and configuration. In particular, they identify the simultaneity of separation and attachment as the main antecedent of the business model paradox. Third, the authors offer implications for further advancing the development of this management concept, and highlight the need for spurring integrative research while at the same time maintaining a plurality of perspectives.

  January 13, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12030   open full text
• Social Enterprises as Hybrid Organizations: A Review and Research Agenda.
  Bob Doherty, Helen Haugh, Fergus Lyon.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 03, 2014
  The impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008, the intractable problems of persistent poverty and environmental change have focused attention on organizations that combine enterprise with an embedded social purpose. Scholarly interest in social enterprise (SE) has progressed beyond the early focus on definitions and context to investigate their management and performance. From a review of the SE literature, the authors identify hybridity, the pursuit of the dual mission of financial sustainability and social purpose, as the defining characteristic of SEs. They assess the impact of hybridity on the management of the SE mission, financial resource acquisition and human resource mobilization, and present a framework for understanding the tensions and trade‐offs resulting from hybridity. By examining the influence of dual mission and conflicting institutional logics on SE management the authors suggest future research directions for theory development for SE and hybrid organizations more generally.

  January 03, 2014   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12028   open full text
• Time and Organizational Learning: A Review and Agenda for Future Research.
  Hans Berends, Elena Antonacopoulou.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. December 24, 2013
  This paper examines the time dimensions of organizational learning. While several recent studies have addressed aspects of time in relation to organizational learning, the topic of time has received little attention in reviews of the field, and this promising domain of research is fragmented. The objective of this paper is to bring these dispersed conceptualizations and findings together and to provide a more solid conceptual foundation for the time dimensions of organizational learning as a new research avenue. Three sets of mechanisms are discerned: concerning time as duration; the timing of organizational learning; and the role of the past, present and future in organizational learning. Each of these perspectives offers unique insights, which when integrated can help map new directions for future research.

  December 24, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12029   open full text
• Dynamic Marketing Capabilities: Toward an Integrative Framework.
  Vanesa Barrales‐Molina, Francisco J. Martínez‐López, Juan Carlos Gázquez‐Abad.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 14, 2013
  In recent years, the dynamic capabilities view has attracted attention in the management literature, and theoretical papers note many research challenges. Currently, one of the most significant issues is the role of the marketing function in the development of dynamic capabilities, and some recent discussions have even introduced the new term ‘dynamic marketing capabilities’. The main area of interest is how to achieve a well‐integrated framework to serve as the starting point for empirical papers. Although the most recent research proposes a wide range of processes as possible dynamic marketing capabilities, it is difficult to find consensus among these proposals. To resolve this difficulty, this paper seeks to define the dynamic marketing capabilities construct based on accepted components in the generic dynamic capabilities view. More specifically, it defines the role of dynamic marketing capabilities through absorptive capacity and knowledge management. By identifying these components and relating them in an integrative model, the authors propose to explain how dynamic marketing capabilities work and precisely which marketing processes promote both components.

  November 14, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12026   open full text
• The Influence of Context on the Strategic Decision‐Making Process: A Review of the Literature.
  Neil Gareth Shepherd, John Maynard Rudd.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 08, 2013
  This paper critically reviews the strategic decision‐making process literature, with a specific focus on the effects of context. Context refers to the top management team, strategic decision‐specific characteristics, the external environment and firm characteristics. This literature review also develops an illustrative framework that incorporates these four different categories of contextual variables that influence the strategic decision‐making process. As a result of the variety and pervasiveness of contextual variables featured within the literature, a comprehensive and up‐to‐date review is essential for organizing and synthesizing the extant literature to explicate an agenda for future research. The purpose of this literature review is threefold: first, to critically review the strategic decision‐making process literature to highlight the underlying themes, issues, tensions and debates in the field; second, to identify the opportunities for future theory development; and third, to state the methodological implications arising from this review.

  November 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12023   open full text
• Generalizing from Research Findings: The Merits of Case Studies.
  Eric W.K. Tsang.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 07, 2013
  The case study as a key research method has often been criticized for generating results that are less generalizable than those of large‐sample, quantitative methods. This paper clearly defines generalization and distinguishes it from other related concepts. Drawing on the literature, the author shows that case study results may be less generalizable than those of quantitative methods only in the case of within‐population generalization. The author argues that case studies have merits over quantitative methods in terms of theoretical generalization, identifying disconfirming cases and providing useful information for assessing the empirical generalizability of results.

  November 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12024   open full text
• Comparative Capitalism without Capitalism, and Production without Workers: The Limits and Possibilities of Contemporary Institutional Analysis.
  Geoffrey Wood, Pauline Dibben, Stuart Ogden.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. November 07, 2013
  The aim of this paper is to consider the extent to which the comparative capitalism literature fully reflects the available empirical evidence in its attempts to model different versions of capitalism and, in particular, whether it adequately captures the roles of diverse stakeholders within the capitalist system. In doing so, particular attention is accorded to the varieties of capitalism literature, business systems theory and regulation theory. In addition, there is reflection in the paper on whether any strand of the literature is able to deal effectively with the recent economic crisis and systemic change. It is argued that more attention needs to be devoted to exploring the structural causes of change and the marginalization of the interests of key social groupings, most notably workers, from the process of institutional redesign.

  November 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12025   open full text
• Unravelling the Subsidiary Initiative Process: A Multilevel Approach.
  Anna Strutzenberger, Tina C. Ambos.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. August 28, 2013
  Strategy‐making and entrepreneurial behaviour at the subsidiary level, in particular the phenomenon of subsidiary initiative, has received increasing research attention in recent years. In the fields of international business, strategy and entrepreneurship, several studies addressing aspects of this phenomenon have been conducted. They focused on different stages of the subsidiary initiative process, different theories and also different methodological levels. This puts subsidiary initiatives as a topic at the crossroads of several disciplines, so that theory‐building remains fragmented, and there is a lack of perspective capturing the complexity of the entire subsidiary initiative process. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this paper discusses theoretical concepts and streams of thinking that have contributed to our understanding of the subsidiary initiative process, and develops an organizing framework based on stages and levels of the subsidiary initiative process. In order to integrate theories across levels, the authors identify ‘aggregation’ theories that guide the emergence of initiatives from the individual up to the network level, and also acknowledge theories that link the micro–macro divide and may help in the development of a more holistic view of subsidiary initiatives.

  August 28, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12022   open full text
• Expanding the Content Domain of Workplace Aggression: A Three‐level Aggressor–target Taxonomy.
  Jonathan Pinto.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. August 26, 2013
  Workplace aggression (WPA) has been largely considered to be a phenomenon involving individuals. However, higher‐level entities, such as groups and organizations, can also be aggressors (and targets). This aspect of WPA has not been given much scholarly attention and, even in cases where it has been studied, it has not been considered to be part of the WPA stream. By considering aggressors and targets at all three levels of analysis, the author attempts simultaneously to expand and integrate the WPA stream, draw attention to WPA involving higher‐level entities, and provide a more organization‐oriented (rather than individual‐oriented) perspective on WPA. This novel comprehensive perspective is provided through a taxonomy of nine aggressor–target combinations of WPA which can be grouped into three multilevel categories of WPA, i.e. lateral level WPA, upward level WPA, and downward level WPA. Implications for theory, research and practice of these conceptualizations are discussed.

  August 26, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12021   open full text
• Corporate Rebranding: An Integrative Review of Major Enablers and Barriers to the Rebranding Process.
  Dale Miller, Bill Merrilees, Raisa Yakimova.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. July 05, 2013
  In the field of corporate rebranding, which is an emerging area of research, the literature consists largely of descriptive case studies that are scattered across diverse contexts. These studies take divergent theoretical perspectives that often inform only aspects of rebranding, leaving researchers and managers without a comprehensive understanding of the corporate rebranding process. In adopting a holistic theory of corporate rebranding to organize a review of the literature, this study aims to present an integrated review of the major enablers and barriers to corporate rebranding, with special attention to contextual factors. Through an examination of 76 cases in 61 articles, the paper contributes a new general model of corporate rebranding. Unlike previous models of corporate rebranding, the new model incorporates both single‐ and multi‐phase enablers and barriers. Critical to successful corporate rebranding are the identification and application of six major enablers, including strong rebranding leadership and coordination among multiple functions and stakeholder groups. The new model suggests directions for future research, and the paper discusses how managers can use the model to inform rebranding practice and improve corporate rebranding outcomes.

  July 05, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12020   open full text
• Politics and Power within Multinational Corporations: Mainstream Studies, Emerging Critical Approaches and Suggestions for Future Research.
  Mike Geppert, Christoph Dörrenbächer.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 18, 2013
  Given the increased public interest in the use and misuse of power in multinationals in the aftermath of the financial crisis, it is notable that power relations in multinational corporations (MNCs) have not gained enhanced attention in the academic community. What is missing so far in the study of MNCs is a systematic examination of how power and politics within MNCs have been addressed in mainstream international business (IB) and sociological research studying the MNC. This paper starts by critically reviewing these two mainstream approaches in the study of MNCs as organizations and seeking to understand the shortcomings of former research. Next, it reviews new emergent critical perspectives, which the authors call socio‐political studies of MNCs, where power and politics are addressed not just more prominently, but also differently, from a more bottom‐up and actor‐centred perspective. After reviewing this emergent stream of research, the authors propose that future studies should take a more micro‐political perspective and focus in more detail on the micro‐foundations of power relations. In the concluding section, the authors show how future studies of MNCs can learn from both critical interactionist and discursive theories when analysing organizational politics and power relations. A framework is proposed for the study of micro‐level political game‐playing in MNCs, based on a three‐dimensional framework for organizational power (episodic, rules of the game and domination), and some key research questions for future studies are suggested.

  June 18, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12018   open full text
• Ideal Values and Counter‐ideal Values as Two Distinct Forces: Exploring a Gap in Organizational Value Research.
  Niels Van Quaquebeke, Matthias M. Graf, Rudolf Kerschreiter, Sebastian C. Schuh, Rolf Dick.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 13, 2013
  Motives and values at work have long been key topics of business and management studies. In a focused review of the literature on the nature of human values, this paper identifies a disconnect with the literature on human motivation, despite the otherwise inherent relatedness of the two fields. Specifically, extant theory and research have conceptualized values generally in terms of ideals, namely desired end‐states that individuals strive to approach. Although values, by this definition, express motivational concerns, theories of human motivation suggest that there are two forces to consider, i.e. approach and avoidance motivation. By applying this ‘two forces’ perspective to value research, this paper identifies a gap in the literature on values: namely, the idea that individuals are also influenced by counter‐ideal values, i.e. end‐states that they deliberately seek to avoid. The identification of this gap opens up new opportunities for value research in general and organizational value research in particular. To pave the way for future research, this paper critically discusses the few studies that have taken first steps in that direction and outlines research questions that may follow for issues such as employer branding and person–organization fit. This paper closes by providing suggestions on how to tackle the issue in organizational practice.

  June 13, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12017   open full text
• The Organization of Interdisciplinary Research: Modes, Drivers and Barriers.
  Frank Siedlok, Paul Hibbert.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 20, 2013
  Although the role and management of interdisciplinary research in knowledge development has received plenty of attention in recent years ambiguity remains, often hindering management efforts. To address this issue, this paper provides an integrated review of extant literature on interdisciplinary research. It focuses on integration processes and the main drivers and barriers to different modes of collaborative interdisciplinary research. The authors propose a different approach to considering interdisciplinary integration, based on two factors: the type of knowledge integration; and the durability of the context of that integration. As a result, four modes of interdisciplinary integration are characterized. The authors then consider how different groups of drivers of, and barriers to, interdisciplinary research affect those types of integration. Overall, the paper provides an integrated perspective for researchers, managers and policy‐makers concerned with understanding the organization of interdisciplinary research.

  May 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12016   open full text
• Solutions to the Exploration/Exploitation Dilemma: Networks as a New Level of Analysis.
  Christian Stadler, Tazeeb Rajwani, Florence Karaba.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. May 08, 2013
  This paper reviews the extant literature on the exploration/exploitation dilemma. Based on a systematic analysis of structural, behavioural, systemic and temporal solutions, the authors are able to show that the learning literature continues to struggle with the question of how exactly an organization can separate exploration and exploitation and at the same time enable necessary knowledge exchange and cooperation between these two notions. Paying closer attention to networks might enable future research to answer this question. In particular, a combination of structural aspects of networks and social ties has the potential to explain how the solutions currently on offer can be implemented successfully, how organizations can combine several of them, and how they can shift between them.

  May 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12015   open full text
• Power‐base Research in Marketing Channels: A Narrative Review.
  Gillian C. Hopkinson, Keith Blois.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 25, 2013
  This paper provides a contemporary and comprehensive review of work in the marketing channel field that is based on French and Raven's power‐base theory. It traces the development of theoretic, conceptual and methodological orthodoxies from the 1970s. Mirroring the movement towards the relationship marketing paradigm, the paper considers the theory's empirical contribution to knowledge of power, conflict, trust and commitment in marketing channels. Limitations relating to inconsistency of treatment, contradictory findings and the simplification of complex phenomena are identified. Nevertheless, current work extends power‐base theory to other cultures, other styles of research and to the area of supply chains. The review raises questions about the value of contribution made using this theory and notes the surprising absence within the channels literature of the broader, current debate about power. To illustrate, the paper shows how Clegg's (1989. Frameworks of Power. London: Sage) circuits of power framework, if applied to channel contexts, could address forms of power that are invisible, anonymous and not necessarily negative. Applications and methods are discussed, opening a space wherein a broadened understanding of power is integrated within a focus upon cooperative channels.

  April 25, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12013   open full text
• Service(s) Marketing Research: Developments and Directions.
  Steve Baron, Gary Warnaby, Philippa Hunter‐Jones.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. April 25, 2013
  This paper outlines the development of research in the domain of service(s) marketing from its birth as an area of academic study in the 1960s/1970s to the current time. It identifies four phases of development. Phases 1–3 relate to the period before 2004, which focuses on the development of service(s) marketing. In Phase 4, a greater focus on the concept of service (singular) – defined as the application of knowledge and skills – has resulted in developments and directions in service research that offer a different perspective through which to view more general marketing. This different perspective has explicit implications also for wider business and management research. The paper summarizes current research in this domain, which coalesces around three broad perspectives, namely, the service‐dominant logic of marketing, technology and service, and transformative service research. It concludes by outlining likely trends for service research into the future. Three interrelated directions are suggested: research on service in a changing context; research responding to academic schools of thought; and research responding to consumer trends.

  April 25, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12014   open full text
• The Concept of International Opportunity in International Entrepreneurship: A Review and a Research Agenda.
  Tuija Mainela, Vesa Puhakka, Per Servais.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. March 03, 2013
  Recent research in the field of international entrepreneurship (IE) has emphasized the concept of international opportunity. The entrepreneurial behaviors focused on international opportunities have been found to be critical in IE. International opportunities, however, are often depicted in rather abstract and unspecified ways, and the research suffers from narrow theoretical discussion in relation to the concept of opportunity. To address these issues, the authors draw from entrepreneurship research and present alternative conceptualizations of opportunities as a basis for more in‐depth study of international opportunities in IE. To further articulate a future research agenda, the authors review the state of knowledge on opportunities in the IE field by content‐analyzing articles published between 1989 and 2012. All the analyzed articles incorporate the concept of opportunity into their studies. It is found that, although the IE research has investigated many relevant elements, it is rather limited in the articulation of the conceptual features of international opportunities and opportunity‐focused behaviors. Building on these observations, the authors propose a definition of international opportunity and research questions and strategies to advance IE research on international opportunities.

  March 03, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12011   open full text
• Making Franchising Work: A Framework Based on a Systematic Review.
  Karlijn J. Nijmeijer, Isabelle N. Fabbricotti, Robbert Huijsman.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. February 17, 2013
  There is a large and fragmented literature that examines the nature of franchising. This paper aims to collect all the empirical evidence on the factors that make franchising work and to integrate this evidence in a framework. A narrative synthesis was performed of 126 peer‐reviewed empirical journal articles. This review shows how the outcomes of franchising are determined by five major clusters of factors: ownership structure, business format design, contract design, behavior of the franchisor and the franchisee and their interaction, and the age and size of the system and its units. It identifies what franchisors and franchisees need to do to be successful and which evidence gaps and conflicting results remain. To yield better outcomes for both the franchisor and the franchisee, they should work on a recognizable brand name and a good working relationship; in addition, they should have suitable skills and attitudes as well as contractual exclusive territories. For further improvement of franchisee outcomes, high‐quality franchisor support, decentralized decision‐making, selection tools and fair contracts are essential. The effects of a high franchise proportion, active ownership, knowledge exchange and standardized operating instructions are contingent on other structural and contextual factors in the system. Conflicts and tying should be prevented. Hardly any research has been undertaken into which franchise designs are valued by customers. The authors have launched a research agenda for further research, from various theoretical perspectives, into the interactions between system elements, actors and contexts.

  February 17, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12009   open full text
• Entrepreneurial Learning: Past Research and Future Challenges.
  Catherine L. Wang, Harveen Chugh.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 31, 2013
  Entrepreneurial learning (EL) has emerged as an important concept at the interface of entrepreneurship and organizational learning. Although EL research has gained momentum in the past decade, the literature is diverse, highly individualistic and fragmented, hindering the development of EL as a promising research area. In this paper, a systematic analysis of the EL literature is first conducted in order to take stock of the theoretical and empirical development and identify research themes and developmental patterns of EL research. Second, three pairs of key learning types that deserve more attention in future research are discussed, namely individual and collective learning, exploratory and exploitative learning, and intuitive and sensing learning. These learning types correspond to three key challenges that are derived from the EL research gaps identified in the systematic literature analysis, and provide fruitful avenues for future research. Third, by exploring the three pairs of learning types, further insights are drawn from entrepreneurship and organizational learning to help to advance EL research, and also feed back to the entrepreneurship literature by discussing how these learning types can help to understand the challenges at the centre of debate in the entrepreneurship literature.

  January 31, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12007   open full text
• Putting Process (Back) In: Research on the Internationalization Process of the Firm.
  Catherine Welch, Eriikka Paavilainen‐Mäntymäki.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. January 16, 2013
  This paper provides a critique of existing research on the internationalization process of the firm and proposes an agenda for future inquiry. In recent years, process approaches have received increasing attention in management research, leading to a more refined understanding of the distinction between process and variance paradigms. We apply a process lens to a well‐established sub‐field of international business, namely the internationalization process of the firm. We review how this research tradition has evolved over four decades. The review commences with a reassessment of the seminal ‘stage models’ that date back to the 1970s. It then proceeds to classify subsequent research on the basis of whether it includes process data and/or process theorizing. It is found that the majority of studies in this review do not combine process data with process theorizing. We show how, even in studies that contain some process elements, a process approach is not always sustained throughout the paper. On the basis of this review, six research themes are proposed, which would form the basis for a process agenda for future research.

  January 16, 2013   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12006   open full text
• Understanding the Self‐initiated Expatriate: A Review and Directions for Future Research.
  Noeleen Doherty.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. December 24, 2012
  The study of self‐initiated expatriates (SIEs) has gained pace in the last decade, focusing on these individuals, their motivations, their behaviours and their relevance to the global workforce. Published works produced between 1996 and 2011 are reviewed. A thematic analysis indicates that key topics of focus in current research cover: characteristics of the self‐initiated and their work‐related experiences and management; comparative studies of company‐backed versus self‐initiated expatriation and the self‐initiated as global talent flow. This paper identifies a need for clarification of the construct of SIEs, expands on the theoretical perspectives used to examine SIEs and offers a framework to facilitate coherence in the direction of future research and the application of knowledge to practice in this field of study.

  December 24, 2012   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12005   open full text
• The Dynamic Capability View in Strategic Management: A Bibliometric Review.
  Rick Vogel, Wolfgang H. Güttel.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. October 30, 2012
  The dynamic capability view (DCV) is one of the most vibrant approaches to strategic management. In this study, the extant literature published between 1994 and 2011 is analysed, using bibliometric methods in order to explore the scope of this approach and detect current research priorities. For this purpose, the method of bibliographic coupling is introduced in management research, which shifts the focus of analysis from past traditions to current trends. Several clusters of thematically related research are extracted from bibliographic networks, which represent interconnected yet distinct subfields of inquiry within the DCV. The core cluster of the current DCV, which visualizes this research field's nascent but fragile identity, focuses on learning and change capabilities and relates them to firm performance, thus merging aspects of organization theory and strategic management. In addition, several peripheral clusters of research are identified, which reflect a parallel process of differentiation in the overall field. Both trends, i.e. of integration and differentiation, attest to the emancipation of the DCV as a distinct approach to strategic management. However, the DCV still lacks consensual concepts that allow comparisons of empirical studies and advance the theoretical understanding of dynamic capabilities. In the light of the above, some implications of this analysis for further research are discussed.

  October 30, 2012   doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12000   open full text
• Kurt Lewin's Field Theory: A Review and Re‐evaluation.
  Bernard Burnes, Bill Cooke.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. September 05, 2012
  Field theory was central to Kurt Lewin's work yet, after his death, interest in it declined significantly until the 1990s when a variant, force field analysis, became widely used. This paper examines the origins, purpose and continuing relevance of field theory. It especially looks at the influences of gestalt psychology, topology and Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of science on its development. It argues that Lewin's attempt to replace conventional topology with his own Lewinian mathematics‐based topology in pursuit of scientific rigour resulted in the undermining of its relevance. The paper also compares force field analysis with Lewin's original conception of field theory and shows that it has significant weaknesses in terms of rigour. It concludes that a return to Lewin's original conception of field theory, based on gestalt psychology and conventional topology, can provide academics and practitioners with a valuable and much‐needed approach to managing change.

  September 05, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00348.x   open full text
• The Governance Role of Audit Committees: Reviewing a Decade of Evidence.
  Chaudhry Ghafran, Noel O'Sullivan.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. August 30, 2012
  Even though audit committees have traditionally been a key component of corporate governance regulation, the last decade has witnessed a greater emphasis on audit committee regulation and a parallel intensification of academic research on the subject. This review synthesizes recent empirical research seeking to investigate various aspects of audit committees’ governance role. The review is structured around current regulatory expectations of audit committees seeking to document the extent to which specific characteristics of good practice influence various components of audit committee effectiveness. It is found that larger and more independent audit committees as well as those with financial expertise are more likely to seek a higher level of external audit coverage and assurance. There is also evidence that more independent audit committees are associated with the purchase of lower levels of non‐audit services from auditors, thereby seeking to preserve the independence of the external audit process. There seems a consensus that more independent audit committees and those with greater accounting/financial expertise have a positive impact on the quality of financial statements. Evidence on the stock market reaction to audit committee issues suggests that investors both welcome the presence of audit committees and react positively when members are appointed with relevant expertise. It is also found that internal auditors view certain audit committee characteristics, specifically independence, expertise and frequency of meetings, as leading to more effective audit committee performance. In summary, therefore, this review documents a significant amount of evidence offering support to current regulations concerning the desired characteristics of audit committees.

  August 30, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00347.x   open full text
• A Multidisciplinary Cognitive Behavioural Framework of Impulse Buying: A Systematic Review of the Literature.
  Sarah Hong Xiao, Michael Nicholson.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 26, 2012
  Impulse buying (IB) is one of the most fragmented concepts in the marketing and consumer literature. This has resulted in some contradictory findings and a lack of an overarching theoretical framework for understanding the IB process and its outcomes. Based on a systematic review of the literature published over the past 60 years, the authors synthesize various research perspectives into a comprehensive multidisciplinary framework of IB – linking antecedents, triggers, the buying act and post‐purchase outcomes. The paper makes four specific contributions relevant to both academic researchers and practitioners. First, it provides a comprehensive understanding of IB as a process and outcome, by systematically reviewing the existing literature. Second, it specifically recognizes and discusses the triggers of IB, by drawing on literature related to the buying process, intentions and motivations. Third, this is the first meta‐analysis review in the area. Finally, it considers the potential consequences of IB that lead to subsequent IB, and provides a framework for future investigation. This paper also addresses a problem of relevance to both academics and practitioners, proposing further research and managerial implications.

  June 26, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00345.x   open full text
• Work–Life Balance and Parenthood: A Comparative Review of Definitions, Equity and Enrichment*.
  Caroline J. Gatrell, Simon B. Burnett, Cary L. Cooper, Paul Sparrow.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 26, 2012
  This review investigates the problems of definition and inequity with which the literature on parenthood and work–life balance is beset. It analyses research trajectories first within the established disciplines of organizational psychology and the sociologies of work and family practices, and then within the newer field of management studies. Gender, class and difference are singled out as troubling themes, especially in relation to fathers and impoverished parents. A tendency towards mono‐disciplinarity is observed within organizational psychology and sociologies of work and family practices. The review offers explanations for the historic but narrow definition within organizational psychology and sociologies of work and family practices of work–life balance as affecting mainly heterosexual dual‐career parent couples. The authors show how this narrow definition has led to inequities within research. They further identify as limiting the definition of work–life balance to be always ‘problematic’, rather than enriching, among employed parents. Consequently, a three‐factor framework is recommended, through which future studies may address the problems of definition and equity in work–life balance literature, including: a broader definition of work–life balance to include marginalized parents; the defining of parenting and employment as potentially life‐enriching; and a commendation of the transdisciplinary approach within management studies as poised to move debate forward.

  June 26, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00341.x   open full text
• Leadership Development in Organizations: Multiple Discourses and Diverse Practice.
  Christopher Mabey.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 26, 2012
  Research on leadership development in organizations is abundant, as are the resources invested in developing their leaders. Although rarely made explicit, much of this writing and activity is driven by functionalist assumptions, with a primary concern for good design and enhanced corporate performance. Given the politically sensitive, culturally complex and institutionally embedded nature of leadership, as well as controversy over the way leadership itself is best defined and developed, the author argues that this reliance on a single perspective is potentially limiting. The aim of this paper is to enhance leadership development practice in organizations by proposing a fresh and theoretically informed approach for exploring the multiple meanings of leadership development. This is done, first, by clarifying the discursive assumptions underlying studies in this field and revealing the distinctive insights that arise from functionalist, interpretive, dialogic and critical discourses of leadership development; and second, by exploring how each of these discourses, or ‘readings’, might promote quite different approaches to leadership development in organizations.

  June 26, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00344.x   open full text
• Mechanisms for Managing Ambidexterity: A Review and Research Agenda.
  Neil Turner, Juani Swart, Harvey Maylor.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 06, 2012
  Ambidexterity is of central importance to the competitive advantage of the firm, yet to date there is limited understanding of how it is managed. The theorization of ambidexterity is inadequate for complex, practical realities and, in turn, this hinders the way in which it can aid the management of ambidexterity in practice. This paper asks: What are the mechanisms for achieving ambidexterity? The authors use a systematic review to develop a research framework which integrates intellectual capital resources (organizational, social and human capital) across various levels of analysis (organization, group and individual). This review extends understanding of the generic mechanisms (i.e. temporal, structural and contextual ambidexterity) that dominate the literature. This allows for a more fine‐grained understanding of how ambidexterity is achieved and enables avenues for further research to be identified.

  June 06, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00343.x   open full text
• Workplace Bullying, Mobbing and General Harassment: A Review.
  Sara Branch, Sheryl Ramsay, Michelle Barker.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 06, 2012
  Research into workplace bullying has continued to grow and mature since emerging from Scandinavian investigations into school bullying in the late 1970s. Research communities now exist well beyond Scandinavia, including Europe, the UK, Australia, Asia and the USA. While the terms ‘harassment’ and ‘mobbing’ are often used to describe bullying behaviour, ‘workplace bullying’ tends to be the most consistently used term throughout the research community. In the past two decades especially, researchers have made considerable advances in developing conceptual clarity, frameworks and theoretical explanations that help explain and address this very complex, but often oversimplified and misunderstood, phenomenon. Indeed, as a phenomenon, workplace bullying is now better understood with reasonably consistent research findings in relation to its prevalence; its negative effects on targets, bystanders and organizational effectiveness; and some of its likely antecedents. However, as highlighted in this review, many challenges remain, particularly in relation to its theoretical foundations and efficacy of prevention and management strategies. Drawing on Affective Events Theory, this review advances understanding through the development of a new conceptual model and analysis of its interrelated components, which explain the dynamic and complex nature of workplace bullying and emphasize current and future debates. Gaps in the literature and future research directions are discussed, including the vexing problem of developing an agreed definition of workplace bullying among the research community, the emergence of cyberbullying, the importance of bystanders in addressing the phenomenon and the use of both formal and informal approaches to prevention and intervention.

  June 06, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00339.x   open full text
• International Experience in International Business Research: A Conceptualization and Exploration of Key Themes.
  James E. Clarke, Rick Tamaschke, Peter W. Liesch.
  International Journal of Management Reviews. June 01, 2012
  International experience, the experience that firms accrue from operating internationally, is a key concept in explaining firm internationalization. This paper reviews the conceptualization of international experience in the international business literature. It highlights how prior research has identified three dimensions of the international experience construct (length, scope and diversity), thereby demonstrating that international experience should be treated as a multidimensional construct. In addition, intensity is presented as a fourth and novel dimension of international experience. The importance of this multidimensional conceptualization is highlighted in an explanation of why the international diversification and international experience constructs are not synonymous. In light of the importance of international experience in explaining firm internationalization, the authors explore how the source of the firm's international experience will determine the limits to its application in foreign markets. In particular, the authors distinguish between location‐bound international experience and non‐location‐bound international experience as sources of firm‐specific advantages (FSAs). The FSAs that the firm develops from its experience with equity and non‐equity entry modes are presented as examples of specific FSAs developed within the firm's bundle of FSAs concerning internationalization. The paper concludes with some implications of the conceptualization of international experience for several issues of international business research as well as providing managerial implications.

  June 01, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00338.x   open full text