Most recent papers:

• Strategic Flexibility in New High‐Technology Ventures.
  Ye Dai, John C. Goodale, Gukdo Byun, Fangsheng Ding.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 20, 2017
  Strategic flexibility is a vital capability for new ventures to update their strategies in a timely manner. However, the role of external knowledge sources in new ventures’ endeavours to develop strategic flexibility are unclear. Drawing on the knowledge‐based and relational views, we explore the effect of two sources of external knowledge: new product development (NPD) alliances, representing tightly coupled sources, and loosely coupled sources such as industry associations. Our field study of 148 high‐tech ventures found that the extent to which firms utilize knowledge from NPD alliances has a curvilinear relationship with strategic flexibility, whereas the extent to which firms utilize loosely coupled sources has a positive linear relationship with strategic flexibility. We also found that in new ventures, decentralization of decision‐making and institutional support enhance knowledge integration, positively moderating these relationships.

  October 20, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12288   open full text
• When a Sinner Does a Good Deed: The Path‐Dependence of Reputation Repair.
  Haibing Shu, Sonia Man‐Lai Wong.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 20, 2017
  This study examines how shareholders will interpret a socially desirable action taken by firms with a damaged corporate reputation status. We first explain theoretically why shareholders’ path‐dependent judgments of a tainted firm increase the likelihood of shareholders making less favourable judgments of the firm's socially desirable actions. We then test the theoretical predictions using a sample of Chinese listed firms that were sanctioned for securities fraud and subsequently made donations to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake relief funds. We find that the shareholders evaluate the donations made by fraud‐tainted firms less favourably than those made by firms that have not been sanctioned for fraud. Furthermore, the shareholders’ evaluations of the donations made by fraud‐tainted firms is less favourable if the firms have committed more serious fraud and undertaken fewer positive remedial actions in the post‐fraud period. Overall, our evidence demonstrates that shareholders’ path‐dependent judgments of fraud‐tainted firms constitute a major obstacle that constrains the effectiveness of reputation repair.

  October 20, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12312   open full text
• Reconceptualising Hierarchies: The Disaggregation and Dispersion of Headquarters in Multinational Corporations.
  Phillip C. Nell, Philip Kappen, Tomi Laamanen.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 20, 2017
  In this paper, we provide an introduction to the Special Issue entitled ‘Divide and Rule? The Emergence and Implications of Increasingly Disaggregated and Dispersed Headquarters Activities in Contemporary Firms’. The purpose is two‐fold. First, we propose a conceptualization of headquarters activities as a dynamic system in which activities can be distributed organizationally and spatially. We explicitly break with the dominant view of the prior research on ‘the headquarters’ as a single, identifiable unit in one specific location. Second, building on the manuscripts accepted for publication in this Special Issue, we outline research implications and put forward an agenda for research on the emergence and continuous management of disaggregated and dispersed headquarters systems.

  October 20, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12313   open full text
• Achieving Social And Economic Equality By Unifying Business And Ethics: Adam Smith As The Cause Of And Cure For The Separation Thesis.
  Scott L. Newbert.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 14, 2017
  Adam Smith's famous argument that self‐interested decisions will ultimately improve social welfare seems inconsistent with the social and economic inequality characterizing Smith's time and today. I contend that these inequalities are the result of Smith's failure to explicitly situate the economic man he describes in The Wealth of Nations within the broader social context he articulates in The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, an omission which has since given rise to the separation thesis, which states that business decisions have no moral content and moral decisions have no business content. In response to this modern‐day Adam Smith problem, I integrate Smith's notions of sympathy, intimacy, and justice into a unification thesis that articulates how individuals might balance their self‐interested and benevolent motives. By reuniting the discourses of business and ethics, this research may inform contemporary theories of business ethics and provide normative guidance for managers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12322   open full text
• The Legitimacy of Inequality: Integrating the Perspectives of System Justification and Social Judgment.
  Patrick Haack, Jost Sieweke.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 14, 2017
  To explain the legitimation of inequality among the members of a social system, we blend system justification theory and the theory of social judgment. We identify adaptation and replacement as two major mechanisms of inequality legitimation and examine their influence in the unique setting of a natural experiment, the reunification of socialist East Germany and capitalist West Germany. We show that the new members of a society in which inequality is broadly endorsed and perceived as enduring will adapt to this perception and come to view inequality as acceptable. This process of adaptation reflects the subtle but powerful influence of collective legitimacy on an individual's tacit approval of inequality. Inequality also becomes legitimate as older cohorts are replaced by younger cohorts; however, this effect is weaker than the effect of adaptation. We contribute to the literature by demonstrating that developing and testing a theory of how inequality becomes legitimized can provide new insights into the ideational antecedents of inequality. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 14, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12323   open full text
• Virtual Mobility and the Lonely Cloud: Theorizing the Mobility‐Isolation Paradox for Self‐Employed Knowledge‐Workers in the Online Home‐Based Business Context.
  Elizabeth Daniel, MariaLaura Di Domenico, Daniel Nunan.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 13, 2017
  We advance both mobility and paradox theorizing by advocating the new concepts of "mobility‐isolation paradox" and "paradoxical imagination". These emerged from examining the nuanced, multifaceted conceptualizations of the mobility‐isolation tensions facing home‐based, self‐employed, online knowledge‐workers. We thereby enhance current conceptual understandings of mobility, isolation and paradox by analyzing knowledge‐workers' interrelated, multidimensional experiences within restrictive home‐based working contexts. We compare the dearth of research and theorizing about these autonomous online knowledge‐workers with that available about other types of knowledge‐workers, such as online home‐based employees, and the more physically/corporeally mobile self‐employed. This research into an increasingly prevalent knowledge‐worker genre addresses these knowledge gaps by analyzing home‐based knowledge‐workers' views, and tensions from paradoxical pressures to be corporeally mobile and less isolated. Despite enjoying career, mental and virtual mobility through internet‐connectedness, they were found to seek face‐to‐face social and/or professional interactions, their isolation engendering loneliness, despite their solitude paradoxically often fostering creativity and innovation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 13, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12321   open full text
• The Impact Of Knowledge Worker Mobility Through An Acquisition On Breakthrough Knowledge.
  Haemin Dennis Park, Michael D. Howard, David M. Gomulya.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 07, 2017
  Acquisitions enable firms to access new knowledge from target firms, along with the scientists who created the knowledge, to enhance their own knowledge creation outcomes. We explore how the retention of target firm scientists and acquired knowledge characteristics affect new knowledge creation outcomes for the acquiring firms. Using a sample of 111,227 patents following 301 high‐tech acquisitions in 1990‐2000, we find that acquiring firms that avoid the exodus of target firm scientists increase their likelihood of creating highly impactful knowledge. Moreover, the characteristics of acquired knowledge and organizational context of the acquiring firms moderate this relationship. The positive effect of target firm scientist retention on the likelihood of creating highly impactful knowledge during the post‐acquisition period is stronger when the acquired knowledge is complex, whereas such a relationship is weaker when the acquired knowledge stock is similar to that of the acquiring firm. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12320   open full text
• “Why Even Bother Trying?” Examining Discouragement Among Racial‐Minority Entrepreneurs.
  François Neville, Juanita Kimiyo Forrester, Jay O'Toole, Allan Riding.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 07, 2017
  We extend organizational research on racial‐minority social and economic inequality by developing a mixed embeddedness perspective to investigate whether and why certain racial‐minority entrepreneurs become discouraged with important entrepreneurial tasks—namely, seeking capital from financial institutions. Concretely, we examine borrowing discouragement among three predominant racial‐minority entrepreneur groups in the United States—African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans—using two independent samples from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. Our findings indicate that African Americans and Hispanic Americans are more likely to be discouraged than White Americans, while Asian Americans are less likely to be discouraged than African Americans. Our theory and findings suggest that for certain racial minorities, socio‐historical experiences and shared knowledge of inequalities may influence individual behavior through increasing discouragement toward important opportunities and entrepreneurial tasks. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12319   open full text
• Knowledge Worker Mobility in Context: Pushing the Boundaries of Theory and Methods.
  Mike Wright, Valentina Tartari, Kenneth G. Huang, Francesco Di Lorenzo, Janet Bercovitz.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 04, 2017
  Scholars are paying more attention to knowledge workers (KW) as they gain importance in the knowledge‐based economy. Knowledge worker mobility (KWM) can involve various forms of employee and entrepreneurial movements: the transfer of employees from one organization to another either through locational movement or through a change in ownership, the transfer of employees within the same organization but in different units and/or geographies, and the spinning off by employees into new ventures. KWM spans a variety of different contexts which have rarely been explored in prior research. We focus on advancing our understanding of KWM in context, pushing the boundaries of theory and methods by developing a framework focusing on five main contextual dimensions: organizational context and roles, geographical and spatial context, social context and teams, institutional and cultural norms, and temporal dynamics. We summarize the papers presented in the special issue and also identify an agenda for further research. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12316   open full text
• Pre‐Exit Bundling, Turnover Of Professionals, And Firm Performance.
  Rhett A. Brymer, David G. Sirmon.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 04, 2017
  Context‐emergent turnover theory (CETT) focuses on the contextual factors that influence the turnover‐firm performance relationship, yet to date, has not investigated how particular firms weather the detrimental effects of loss more effectively than others. We build on the CETT literature by theorizing that different human resource bundling strategies are central contextual factors that impact human resource exit. Specifically, we argue that bundling human resources prior to exit in greater concentrations deflects some harmful effects of turnover. Pre‐exit bundling ensures that remaining professionals post‐exit retain both the capacity necessary to meet job demands and the critical tacit knowledge of firm routines that maintain effectiveness. Our study examines the loss of professionals in a panel of the largest U.S.‐based law firms. We find general support for our theory. Results show that losing professionals when the pre‐exit bundling had produced greater service‐, hiring‐, and geographic‐concentration lessens the negative effects of loss. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12315   open full text
• Do Higher Wages Reduce Knowledge Worker's Job Mobility? Evidence for Swedish Inventors.
  Olof Ejermo, Torben Schubert.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 04, 2017
  Based on linked employer‐employee panel data on all Swedish inventors, this paper analyzes how wages affect inventors' job mobility. It is commonly assumed that higher wages reduce mobility because they reduce the value of outside opportunities. We argue that higher wages also send performance signals to potential employers, who raise their wage offers in response. By disentangling the effects of higher wages, we show evidence of a utility and an opportunity cost effect, which reduce mobility, and a performance‐signaling effect, which increases mobility. In our data, the effects cancel each other out, with no effects of wages on mobility rates on average. We find, however, that for star inventors, who have sufficiently strong alternative performance signals (e.g. strong patent records), the performance signal sent by wages is crowded out by the alternative signals. Accordingly, for star inventors we find that higher wages decrease mobility. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12317   open full text
• Leaving employment to entrepreneurship: The value of coworker mobility in pushed and pulled‐driven startups.
  Vera Rocha, Anabela Carneiro, Celeste Varum.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 04, 2017
  By combining insights from the widespread research on entrepreneurial spin‐offs and from the emerging literature on hiring choices in startups, we investigate the role of coworker mobility in pushed and pulled spin‐off survival. Using rich register data and a multi‐stage model addressing self‐selection and endogeneity issues, we cover 28,353 spin‐offs launched between 1992 and 2007. We find that spin‐offs hiring coworkers from the parent firm survive longer. This survival bonus is greater in pushed‐driven startups. We investigate two different mechanisms through which coworker mobility may improve spin‐off survival – knowledge transfer and reduced searching costs. While both mechanisms play a role in explaining the survival bonus in pulled spin‐offs, coworker mobility seems to help pushed spin‐offs to survive mostly by reducing initial recruitment costs. This work provides novel insights on the role of context surrounding new venture creation and inter‐firm labor mobility. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  October 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12318   open full text
• How a Firm's Domestic Footprint and Domestic Environmental Uncertainties Jointly Shape Added Cultural Distances: The Roles of Resource Dependence and Headquarters Attention.
  Guus Hendriks, Arjen H.L. Slangen, Pursey P.M.A.R. Heugens.
  Journal of Management Studies. September 30, 2017
  Even though many firms conduct most of their business domestically, international management research has remained remarkably silent on the role of a firm's domestic footprint in its internationalization strategy. We shed light on that role by exploring how the size of a firm's domestic footprint influences the cultural distance that the firm adds to its country portfolio when expanding internationally. Integrating resource dependence theory and the attention‐based view, we hypothesize that a firm's domestic footprint has a negative relationship with added cultural distance (ACD), and that domestic policy uncertainty strengthens this relationship whereas domestic demand uncertainty weakens it. We find robust support for our hypotheses in a sample of the world's largest retailers covering the period 2000‐2007, indicating that a firm's domestic footprint and domestic environmental uncertainties jointly shape cross‐cultural expansion strategies. Our findings suggest that ACDs reflect headquarters executives' desire to avoid ineffective foreign expansions, hinting at possible biases in studies of the performance effects of distance. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  September 30, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12314   open full text
• To the Rescue!? Brokering a Rapid, Scaled and Customized Compassionate Response to Suffering after Disaster.
  Trenton A. Williams, Dean A. Shepherd.
  Journal of Management Studies. September 20, 2017
  Suffering comes in many forms that significantly impact organizations’ operations and performance. As a result, recent research on compassion organizing seeks to explain how efforts to notice, feel, and respond to suffering create organizational (and societal) benefits. Widespread suffering can be generated by natural disasters, which in turn can trigger compassionate organizational responses. In this paper, we build on social capital theory to theorize about how compassionate ventures leverage network relationships to identify and mobilize resources. We also explore how differences in these approaches influence the magnitude, speed, and customization of the response, all of which are theorized indicators of the effectiveness of compassion organizing in alleviating suffering. We use structural equation modelling to test our model and find that compassionate ventures with stronger ties to the local community are more likely to bundle (i.e., stretch) resources, which facilitates a speedy, customized, and large magnitude response. In contrast, those with stronger ties outside the local community are more likely to pursue (i.e., chase) new resources, which results in a large magnitude response, but one that is not associated with speed or customization. We discuss the implications of our findings and make recommendations for future research.

  September 20, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12291   open full text
• Managing Persistent Tensions On The Frontline: A Configurational Perspective On Ambidexterity.
  Alexander Zimmermann, Sebastian Raisch, Laura B. Cardinal.
  Journal of Management Studies. September 07, 2017
  Ambidexterity research has noted that firms' simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation causes organizational tensions that are difficult to resolve. To make these tensions manageable, scholars have generally suggested that senior managers take the central role in designing organizational solutions, such as the structural separation or contextual integration of the exploratory and exploitative tasks. Yet, in an inductive study of 10 corporate innovation initiatives, we find that our informants assigned far less importance to the senior managers' initial design choices than to the frontline managers' subsequent configurational practices. Frontline managers used these practices to constantly adapt and align their initiatives' organizational contexts, which allowed them to cope with persistent exploration‐exploitation tensions in their daily business activities. Based on these empirical insights, we develop a configurational perspective on ambidexterity, where frontline managers play a more central, proactive, and strategic role than purported by the established design perspective on ambidexterity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  September 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12311   open full text
• Explaining mandate loss of regional headquarters: The difference between full and partial loss.
  Perttu Kähäri, Iiris Saittakari, Rebecca Piekkari, Wilhelm Barner‐Rasmussen.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 26, 2017
  The fluidity of regional headquarters (RHQ) mandates is a core aspect of disaggregating HQ activities in MNCs. While ‘slicing' of global value chains has received attention in previous research, the parallel disaggregation of management activities has not. Our longitudinal study of 374 RHQ between 1998 and 2010 redresses this omission by asking why RHQ lose their mandates. We apply the concept of absorptive capacity and find two different explanatory mechanisms for full and partial mandate loss driven by RHQ‐specific capabilities and location‐specific capabilities. Full mandate loss is associated with deficient RHQ‐specific capabilities and realised absorptive capacity. By contrast, partial mandate loss is driven by an RHQ's lack of the location‐specific capabilities to respond to local changes, leading to removal of mandates for some subunits only. The distinction between full and partial loss offers a more nuanced and granular explanation of how geographic regions of MNCs are composed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  August 26, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12310   open full text
• The Surprising Duality of Jugaad: Low Firm Growth and High Inclusive Growth.
  Dean A. Shepherd, Vinit Parida, Joakim Wincent.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 26, 2017
  Western theories on creativity emphasize the importance of access to resources and the generation of innovations as a source of sustainable competitive advantage for firms. However, perhaps the emphasis on slack resources and the firm as the level of analysis may be less appropriate for understanding the benefits of individual creative problem solving in resource‐poor environments of the east; focusing solely on the firm is not sufficiently inclusive and may underestimate the benefits of creative problem solving under resource scarcity. Through an inductive interpretive case study of 12 problem solvers in the highly resource‐poor environment of rural India, we identified the antecedents, dimensions and duality of outcomes for an Indian cultural source of creative problem solving called jugaad. Jugaad relies on assertive defiance, trial‐and‐error experiential learning and the recombination of available resources to improvise a frugal quick‐fix solution. Our inductive framework provides new insights into the dual outcomes of creative problem solving from an eastern perspective; jugaad is unlikely to be a source of competitive advantage for firm growth but represents a source of enhanced wellbeing for inclusive growth. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  August 26, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12309   open full text
• Global Cities, Connectivity, and the Location Choice of MNC Regional Headquarters.
  René Belderbos, Helen S. Du, Anthony Goerzen.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 22, 2017
  Regional headquarters (RHQs) perform a crucial bridging function between corporate headquarters, regional affiliates, and other regional actors. Their bridging role and associated connectivity needs lead MNCs to locate their RHQs in highly connected ‘global cities’. We examine how the interplay between global city connectivity, geographic distance, and RHQ roles determine the likelihood that particular cities are chosen as a location for MNCs’ RHQ investments. Our inferences are based on an analysis of location choices for 1031 RHQs among 48 global cities. We find that while the geographic distance of a global city to the MNC's regional affiliates diminishes the likelihood that a given city is chosen, these distance effects disappear when the global city is highly connected. Well connected global cities, furthermore, attract investment in RHQs by MNCs from more distant countries‐of‐origin. On average, city connectivity is a more important characteristic for RHQs that have an entrepreneurial role.

  August 22, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12290   open full text
• Firm Bosses or Helpful Neighbours? The Ambiguity and Co‐Construction of MNE Regional Management Mandates.
  Eva A. Alfoldi, Sara L. McGaughey, L. Jeremy Clegg.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 22, 2017
  As multinational enterprises (MNEs) increasingly disaggregate and disperse corporate headquarters (CHQ) activities, the allocation of regional management mandates (RMMs) to local operating subsidiaries is becoming more common. RMMs explicitly break with the traditional assumption of a clear separation between centralised and local decision‐making. Yet we know little of how RMMs are enacted by the units involved, or how they evolve over time. Based on a case study of Unilever, we find that RMMs are inherently ambiguous, and identify circumstances under which ambiguity manifests and triggers cycles of sensemaking and sensegiving about the meaning of the mandate. These cycles result in the co‐construction of the mandate by multiple units, with changes in RMM scope and governance over time. We also find that sensemaking and sensegiving are most intense among boundary‐spanning middle managers. Our work challenges prevailing assumptions that mandates are largely unambiguous when assigned and are unilateral or dyadic accomplishments; demonstrates the importance of sub‐unit level analysis in MNEs; and highlights the potential of structuration theory to enrich our understanding of sensemaking and sensegiving in organisations.

  August 22, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12287   open full text
• Disaggregating the Corporate Headquarters: Investor Reactions to Inversion Announcements by US Firms.
  Arjen H. L. Slangen, Marc Baaij, Riccardo Valboni.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 22, 2017
  Internationally disaggregated headquarters arise from cross‐border relocations of headquarters components. To shed more light on the business consequences of such component relocations, we analyse stock market reactions to inversion initiatives, which are plans by US firms to offshore their registered seat. Combining business economics and institutional theory, we develop an explanatory framework centred on repatriation taxes on foreign income. Since inversions enable US firms to free themselves from such taxes in the US, we hypothesize that inversions by firms that face higher US tax costs in repatriating income will be received more positively by investors, and especially so if the inversion's destination country has no repatriation tax. Yet by freeing themselves from US repatriation taxes, inverting firms deprive the US government of tax revenues and will therefore likely lose legitimacy among US officials. The risks associated with losing such legitimacy, we argue, are higher for firms that are more dependent on the US government, causing the relationship between the US tax costs of repatriating income and investor reactions to inversions to be less positive for such firms. We find substantial support for our framework in an event study of up to 117 inversions announced over the period 1990–2016. Our findings argue for a nuanced, contingency view of the business consequences of inverting and suggest that legitimacy losses are not always as hazardous as previously thought.

  August 22, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12286   open full text
• Picking the Measuring Stick: The Role of Leaders in Social Comparisons.
  Karan Sonpar, Ian J. Walsh, Federica Pazzaglia, Miranda Eng, Ali Dastmalchian.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 01, 2017
  Organizational members frequently evaluate how their abilities and standing compare with those of their colleagues. Although these comparisons can have a negative impact on organizations, little attention has been paid to the role of leaders in these processes. Drawing on interviews with individuals in leadership positions in business schools, we develop a framework to explain what triggers leaders’ attention to social comparisons among faculty and how they become involved in them. Central to this framework are leaders’ self‐schemas, which encompass their preferences about the criteria members should use in making comparisons. Leaders’ self‐schemas are activated by discrepancies between their own comparative judgements and those they perceive members to be making and impel them to act in ways consistent with their preferred bases of comparison. Our framework repositions social comparisons as a multi‐perspectival, political phenomenon in which leaders see themselves as playing a role in shaping members’ evaluations and workplace interactions.

  August 01, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12284   open full text
• MNE Headquarters Disaggregation: The Formation Antecedents of Regional Management Centers.
  Andreas P. J. Schotter, Maximilian Stallkamp, Brian C. Pinkham.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 28, 2017
  This research examines region‐bound headquarters disaggregation in multinational enterprises (MNEs). We link the formation of regional management centres – both dedicated regional headquarters (RHQs) and regional management mandates (RMMs) granted to operating subsidiaries – to the complexity argument underlying organizational information processing theory. We demonstrate how different dimensions of complexity associated with the number and dispersion of an MNE's subsidiary network in a focal region affect whether, and in which form, region‐bound headquarters disaggregation takes place. Additionally, we consider boundary conditions affecting RMC formation based on within‐region experience, global MNE footprint, and between‐region effects. Empirically, we utilize a large global dataset of Japanese MNE foreign investments between 1992 and 2014, which allows us to perform event history analyses.

  July 28, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12285   open full text
• Prying Eyes: A Dramaturgical Approach to Professional Surveillance.
  Laura M. Visser, Inge L. Bleijenbergh, Yvonne W. M. Benschop, Allard C. R. van Riel.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 07, 2017
  This study examines how professionals engage with the increased surveillance of their daily work. We develop an understanding of professional surveillance at the micro‐level of interaction by drawing on dramaturgical literature. Based on qualitative interviews and observational data of healthcare professionals using a new technology to communicate simultaneously with each other and individual patients, we analyse how professionals use different elements of the theatre (e.g., stages and scripts) to enact surveillance. The significance of our contribution lies especially in the dramaturgical reconceptualization of surveillance as enacted, making it an integral part of displaying one's professionalism.

  July 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12283   open full text
• Toward a Cognitive View of Signalling Theory: Individual Attention and Signal Set Interpretation.
  Will Drover, Matthew S. Wood, Andrew C. Corbett.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 07, 2017
  Research on organizational signalling tends to focus on the effects of isolated or congruent signals, assuming highly rational responses to those signals. In this study, we theorize about the cognitive processes associated with the attention paid to and interpretation of multiple, often incongruent signals that organizations send to consumers, financiers, and other stakeholders who make organizational assessments. Contributing a cognitive perspective of signal attention and interpretation, alongside the introduction of signal sets, we provide a more complete picture of how organizational signalling unfolds in the field. Our research opens new frontiers for future inquiry into the cognitive foundations of signal attention, multi‐signal interpretation, and incongruent signals.

  July 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12282   open full text
• Context Factors and the Performance of Mobile Individuals in Research Teams.
  Chiara Franzoni, Giuseppe Scellato, Paula Stephan.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 13, 2017
  We use survey data for 4336 scientific teams, located in 16 countries, where all members were working within a single lab, to test three context factors that potentially affect the capability of internationally mobile individuals to enhance the innovation performance of their research units. We formulate hypotheses on context factors rooted in the knowledge recombination and learning‐by hiring theories. The results show that three context factors are positively associated with international mobility and the performance of the research units: the degree to which knowledge in the relevant subfield of science is geographically concentrated, the creative intent of the activities performed and the decision power of the mobile individual.

  June 13, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12279   open full text
• Who's the Boss at the Top? A Micro‐Level Analysis of Director Expertise, Status and Conformity Within Boards.
  Dennis B. Veltrop, Eric Molleman, Reggy B. H. Hooghiemstra, Hans van Ees.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 25, 2017
  In this paper we address how director expertise impacts a director's social status and conformity within the board. Our results, derived from two unique multi‐source datasets of peer ratings on director status and conformity of non‐executive directors from Dutch organizations, indicate that industry‐specific expertise and financial expertise differently impact directors’ social status and influence within the board. We find that directors’ individual performance orientation – the motivation to demonstrate expertise – acts as an important contingency for expertise to increase directors’ status within the board. Additional analyses using archival data and interviews with non‐executive directors substantiate our findings and provide additional insight into the dynamics operating within boards. This study extends existing research on boards of directors and provides unique micro‐level insights into the boardroom dynamics that connect director expertise to director status and conformity within boards.

  May 25, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12276   open full text
• Crafting papers for publication: Novelty and convention in academic writing.
  Gerardo Patriotta.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 16, 2017
  In this article, I discuss how different social actors and established conventions intervene in the construction of academic articles. I first provide a ‘backstage' overview of the review process at JMS, with a focus on how editors and reviewers influence the development of a manuscript. I then discuss the use of conventions as a powerful tool for communicating a message and conveying it to an audience. Next, I consider how authors use references to engage in conversations with other scholars and establish the baseline for a contribution. Finally, I reflect on the role of the reader as the ultimate recipient of a journal article. I conclude with some considerations on the craft of writing for publication. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

  May 16, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12280   open full text
• Socio‐Emotional Wealth Separation and Decision‐Making Quality in Family Firm TMTs: The Moderating Role of Psychological Safety.
  Pieter Vandekerkhof, Tensie Steijvers, Walter Hendriks, Wim Voordeckers.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 12, 2017
  Socio‐emotional wealth (SEW), defined as the firm's non‐financial aspects meeting the family's affective needs, has become the dominant paradigm in family firm research. Recent debate acknowledges potential SEW heterogeneity within family firms. This study considers the effect of polarizing opinions on SEW preservation among TMT members as a source of separation in the TMT. More concretely, we study the effect of SEW separation on TMT decision‐making quality, while taking into consideration behavioural integration as a team process and psychological safety as a team context. Based on a unique multiple respondent sample of 300 managers from 55 Belgian private family firms, we find that behavioural integration mediates the negative effect of SEW separation on TMT decision‐making quality. In addition, we find that the negative effect of SEW separation on behavioural integration is mitigated by psychological safety and even turns into a positive effect at high levels of psychological safety.

  May 12, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12277   open full text
• The Mind and Heart of Resonance: The Role of Cognition and Emotions in Frame Effectiveness.
  Simona Giorgi.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 12, 2017
  This article synthesizes the large and burgeoning literature on framing to unpack how frames achieve resonance with an audience. The analysis identifies two main resonance types: cognitive, based on an appeal to audiences’ beliefs and understandings, and emotional, based on an appeal to audiences’ feelings, passions, and aspirations. For each type, this paper delves into distinct mechanisms, applications, and outcomes to shed light on the complex bases for audiences’ reactions to framing and the factors that can hinder or favour resonance. Applications for this conceptualization of resonance and future venues of research are identified and discussed.

  May 12, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12278   open full text
• Social Value Creation in Inter‐Organizational Collaborations in the Not‐for‐Profit Sector – Give and Take from a Dyadic Perspective.
  Christiana Weber, Kathrin Weidner, Arne Kroeger, James Wallace.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 20, 2017
  Organizations in the not‐for‐profit (NFP) sector are increasingly collaborating with other organizations to mutually raise overall joint value created. However, literature on inter‐organizational collaborations in the NFP sector lacks a clear, empirically proven understanding about which factors drive such joint value creation and whether and how these factors and their effects differ for the two parties involved. Based on the relational view and an analysis of 121 partnership dyads, we identify that some factors governing the successful creation of joint value differ for the two partners while others are relevant to both parties. Those latter factors, in turn, differ in their effects on the respective outcome.

  April 20, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12272   open full text
• When Elites Forget Their Duties: The Double‐Edged Sword of Prestigious Directors on Boards.
  Jana Oehmichen, Daniel Braun, Michael Wolff, Toru Yoshikawa.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 20, 2017
  Previous research indicates that the performance effect of prestigious directors is ambiguous. Our study addresses this issue by integrating the theoretical lens of board capital and the institutional perspective. We argue that prestigious directors can bring benefits as well as costs. We claim that the emergence of these costs depends on the institutional context, specifically the institutional characteristics of the country's corporate elite circle which is characterized by the elite cohesion and the elite exclusiveness. Our empirical results with a 15‐country sample covering the period of 2005 to 2014 provide evidence for the overall existence of a positive performance effect of prestigious boards. However, our results also indicate that these beneficial effects of prestigious boards are mitigated in countries with high elite exclusiveness. Hence, under these certain institutional conditions, the elite‐favouring behaviour of prestigious directors also brings costs.

  April 20, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12275   open full text
• From Animosity to Affinity: The Interplay of Competing Logics and Interdependence in Cross‐Sector Partnerships.
  Naeem Ashraf, Alireza Ahmadsimab, Jonatan Pinkse.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 10, 2017
  Drawing on and extending institutional logics and resource dependence theories, this paper posits that for cross‐sector partnerships to survive, organizations need to share compatible institutional logics, but depend less on each other's resources. Asymmetrical cross‐sector partnerships may lead to a breakup if organizations are forced to operate under incompatible institutional logics. The findings of this study show that the challenges posed by incompatible logics of partners could be mitigated by the degree of resource interdependence between organizations. Capturing the effects of context and transactions on the actors’ strategic behaviour, the findings, based on a dataset of project‐level partnership ties between 1312 organizations in the carbon‐offset market, support these hypotheses. The paper concludes by discussing implications of organizations' responses to keep acting under or reinterpreting existing institutional logics in asymmetrical cross‐sector relationships.

  April 10, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12273   open full text
• Reconciling Conflicting Policy Objectives in Public Contracting: The Enabling Role of Capabilities.
  Sandro Cabral.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 04, 2017
  This paper analyses how capabilities can reconcile conflicting objectives in policy driven public contracting. Results obtained from a quasi‐experiment involving a policy intervention to favour small firms (SMEs) in Brazil show that public manager's contract‐management capabilities can promote cost savings, increased responsiveness (government‐level outcomes), and enhanced buyer‐supplier coordination when favoured firms are successful in public contracting. Execution capabilities of private suppliers positively influence firm‐level outcomes by attenuating the severity of sanctions against favoured firms due to deficient provision. The paper highlights the mechanisms for leveraging performance in public‐private interactions when conflicting goals are present despite inherent contract incompleteness and bureaucratic rigidity, thus adding to the current knowledge of strategic management in the context of public organizations.

  April 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12269   open full text
• Social Value Creation and Relational Coordination in Public‐Private Collaborations.
  Nigel D. Caldwell, Jens K. Roehrich, Gerard George.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 04, 2017
  Public‐private collaborations, or hybrid organizational forms, are often difficult to organize because of disparate goals, incentives, and management practices. Some of this misalignment is addressed structurally or contractually, but not the management processes and practices. In this study, we examine how the coordination of these social and work relationships, or relational coordination, affects task performance and the creation of social value. We employ a dyadic perspective on two long‐term relationships that are part of a wider ecosystem. We illustrate the social value creation process, identifying mutual knowledge and goal alignment, as necessary to create relational coordination. We find that the degree of professional embeddedness moderates the link between coordination and task performance, and explore the role that organizational and ecosystem experiences play. We develop a model of how relational coordination influences social value creation in hybrids. The findings have implications for social value creation, hybrid collaborations, and organizational design.

  April 04, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12268   open full text
• Public‐Private Collaboration, Hybridity and Social Value: Towards New Theoretical Perspectives.
  Bertrand V. Quélin, Ilze Kivleniece, Sergio Lazzarini.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 30, 2017
  Focusing on the collaboration intersecting public, non‐profit and private spheres of economic activity, we analyse the conceptual forms of hybridity embedded in these novel inter‐organizational arrangements, and link them to different mechanisms of creating social value. We first disentangle alternative notions of hybrid arrangements in existing literature by proposing a conceptual typology on two theoretically complementary yet distinct dimensions: hybridity in governance and hybridity in organizational logics. We show how both forms of hybridity can jointly occur in complex public‐private and cross‐sector collaborations, and propose the notion of value as a crucial bridging point between these perspectives. Crucially, we develop a conceptual framework on key theoretical mechanisms leading to economic and social value in these inter‐organizational collaborations. Our work deepens the understanding of how diverse, hybrid forms of collaboration can create value and builds critical links between previously disparate streams of literature on public‐private interaction, cross‐sector collaboration and social enterprises.

  March 30, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12274   open full text
• Alliances between Firms and Non‐profits: A Multiple and Behavioural Agency Approach.
  M. Rivera‐Santos, C. Rufín, U. Wassmer.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 30, 2017
  We analyse business‐NGO (B2N) alliances through the lenses of multiple agency and behavioural agency theories to identify the sources of agency problems and the most effective choice of mitigation mechanisms. We contend that three types of agency relationships constitute B2N alliances: the relationship between the firm's managers and B2N alliance employees; the relationship between the NGO's managers and the B2N alliance employees; and the novel ‘claimed principal‐agent relationship’ involving the external beneficiary, the NGO's managers and the alliance employees. We argue that B2N alliances’ three types of agency problems stem from (1) the relative emphasis on public vs. private goods, both at the employee and at the partner levels, and (2) the level of the external beneficiary's voice. We then predict the mechanisms to mitigate these problems: hiring altruistic over self‐interested individuals; narrowly specifying the employees’ activities; emphasizing input‐based and intrinsic incentive mechanisms; and investing significantly into non‐intrusive monitoring mechanisms.

  March 30, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12271   open full text
• Understanding Value Creation in Public‐Private Partnerships: A Comparative Case Study.
  Elisa Villani, Luciano Greco, Nelson Phillips.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 22, 2017
  Public‐Private Partnerships (PPPs) are an important form of hybrid organization that may, if properly designed and managed, generate innovative solutions to complex problems by combining different institutional logics. Using data from a comparative case study of the creation of two PPPs in the Italian healthcare sector, we draw on ideas from business model design and organizational hybridity to explore how complexity can be managed inside PPPs and how this drives the creation of value for stakeholders. We link the literature on hybrid organizations with the one on business models by looking at the organizational mechanisms and processes that are implemented in PPP project governance, assets and processes. We go on to develop a theoretical model showing how effective business model design can help to bridge different logics and create value for stakeholders in the creation and operation of PPPs.

  March 22, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12270   open full text
• The Scaffolding Activities of International Returnee Executives: A Learning Based Perspective of Global Boundary Spanning.
  Michael J.D. Roberts, Paul W. Beamish.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 13, 2017
  This study contributes to the literature on global boundary spanning by taking a learning perspective that positions the boundary spanner as an active change agent. Grounded in a practice‐based theory of knowledge, it considers boundary spanning as the negotiation of knowledge and relationships across fields of practice. We argue that global boundary spanning is a long‐term commitment to help internal members become aware of foreign knowledge practices, see these practices as valuable, and adopt them internally. We frame the activities of the boundary spanner within a scaffolding framework that theorizes boundary spanning as a combination of ability, persistent willingness, and opportunity. Here scaffolding refers to the cognitive, relational, and material supports enacted by boundary spanners that facilitate organization members’ engagement in practices that allow for the awareness, capacity building, and commitment to adoption of foreign practices. We draw on interviews from international returnee managers employed in large Korean financial firms.

  March 13, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12266   open full text
• The Convergence and Divergence of Job Discretion Between Occupations and Institutional Regimes in Europe from 1995 to 2010.
  David Holman, Anthony Rafferty.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 24, 2017
  Drawing on technical change and institutional theories, this paper examines the convergence and divergence of job discretion between occupations and institutional regimes in Europe from 1995–2010. Latent growth modelling of a pseudo‐panel data set derived from the European Working Conditions Survey reveals that significantly different rates of change have led to an increasing polarization of job discretion between occupations and between Nordic and other European countries. Across occupations the findings are in keeping with routine‐biased technical change rather than skill‐biased technical change theories and suggest that the effects of technical change on job discretion depend largely on whether technology substitutes or complements job tasks. Across countries, the results are in line with employment regime theory, which suggests that institutional differences (particularly employment policies and trade union influence) are driving cross‐national variation in job discretion. Overall, a more comprehensive empirical and theoretical understanding is provided of factors shaping change in a key aspect of job quality, namely job discretion.

  February 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12265   open full text
• Riding off into the Sunset: Organizational Sensegiving, Shareholder Sensemaking, and Reactions to CEO Retirement.
  Hansin Bilgili, Joanna Tochman Campbell, Alan E. Ellstrand, Jonathan L. Johnson.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 24, 2017
  We test hypotheses derived from resource dependence and sensemaking/sensegiving theoretical lenses in the context of CEO succession, focusing on an under‐researched yet prevalent type of executive turnover – CEO retirement. Using event study methodology and a sample of CEO retirements from S&P 1500 firms during the 2003–12 period, we find that, all else equal, shareholders’ perceptions of organizations’ capacity to serve their interests are adversely affected when a retirement related change occurs in the leadership structure. Specifically, in line with resource dependence theory, we find that CEO retirement disclosures typically generate negative abnormal returns. Furthermore, in line with the sensemaking perspective, we find that the magnitude of shareholders’ reactions is contingent on the lexical sensegiving cues contained in the organizational narratives that are released to capital markets via executive retirement announcements. Overall, our theory and results point to CEO retirement events as consequential in the eyes of shareholders, challenging an important assumption of extant succession research. Moreover, they suggest that shareholders’ interpretation of these events is influenced by organizational sensegiving, highlighting the important role of organizational communication around succession events.

  February 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12264   open full text
• Resource Dependence and Network Relations: A Test of Venture Capital Investment Termination in China.
  Yanfeng Zheng, Jun Xia.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 24, 2017
  This study examines how venture capital (VC) firms terminate investments in an emerging economy context. We contend that due to the weak institutional environment, it is appropriate to draw on insights from power and social relation perspectives for a better understanding of the phenomenon. Specifically, we argue that a termination decision hinges on not only the dependence relationship between a VC firm and its portfolio companies, but also the social relationships among VC firms. Event history analyses of approximately 12,000 VC deals made in China between 2001 and 2012 reveal that when a VC firm has a greater number of investments in an industry, it is more likely to terminate investments on a portfolio company in that industry. Moreover, such effect on termination is moderated by the focal VC's embeddedness with its syndicate partners and collaboration opportunities with other VC firms outside the immediate access of the syndicate partners. Our study sheds light on research on VC decision making in emerging markets by integrating insights from resource dependence relationships and interorganizational network characteristics.

  February 24, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12255   open full text
• In Pursuit of Time: Business Plan Sequencing, Duration and Intraentrainment Effects on New Venture Viability.
  Christian Hopp, Francis J. Greene.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 09, 2017
  In this study, we examine three under‐explored dimensions of the temporal relationship between formal written business plans and the achievement of new venture viability. First, we theorize and investigate the effects of plan sequencing; arguing that a business plan written early on in new venture development increases the prospects of venture viability. Second, we examine plan duration effects, and argue that there is a curvilinear relationship between spending time on a plan and achieving venture viability. Finally, we investigate plan intraentrainment effects (synchronization with other gestation activities). We theorize that if plans are synchronized with other gestation activities, venture viability is more likely. Using longitudinal data and controlling for truncation and endogeneity issues, we find that it is beneficial to plan early but that this is contingent on how long a founder spent on a plan and whether or not a plan is intraentrained with other gestation activities.

  February 09, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12251   open full text
• ‘Am I Still One of Them?’: Bicultural Immigrant Managers Navigating Social Identity Threats When Spanning Global Boundaries.
  Aimée A. Kane, Natalia Levina.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 06, 2017
  We examine the practice of nominating bicultural immigrants to manage knowledge‐intensive projects sourced from their host to their home countries. We focus on their actions vis‐à‐vis global collaborators and unpack psychological processes involved. Managers in these positions have to navigate the workplace social identity threat that arises from being associated with the home country group – a lower status group in this context. How they navigate this threat shapes the way they use their bicultural competencies and authority as managers. When they embrace their home country identity, immigrant managers tend to enable knowledge‐based boundary spanning through actions empowering home country collaborators, such as teaching missing competencies, connecting to important stakeholders, and soliciting input. Instead, when distancing from their home country identity, they tend to hinder collaborators by micromanaging, narrowing communication channels, and suppressing input. We develop theoretical implications for the study of global boundary spanning, bicultural managers, and workplace social identity.

  February 06, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12259   open full text
• Are Managers Motivated to Explore in the Face of a New Technological Change? The Role of Regulatory Focus, Fit, and Complexity of Decision‐Making.
  Saeedeh Ahmadi, Saeed Khanagha, Luca Berchicci, Justin J. P. Jansen.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 06, 2017
  We develop a psychological perspective on managers’ exploration orientation. Our study suggests that the regulatory focus of managers may in different ways, impact their orientation toward search, risk‐taking, and experimentation. Moreover, we argue that these relationships are contingent not only on the extent to which the organizational context fits with the motivational disposition of managers, but also on the complexity of decision‐making. Using an experimental setting, we find that managers’ regulatory focus affects their willingness to experiment with a wide range of alternatives and to deviate from existing best practices. Moreover, the promotion focus of managers heightens their exploration orientation in an organizational context with promotion‐focused cues in highly complex decision‐making. This study has important implications for our understanding of managers’ exploration orientation under conditions of complexity.

  February 06, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12257   open full text
• Boundary Capabilities in MNCs: Knowledge Transformation for Creative Solution Development.
  Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Andrew Parker.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 06, 2017
  The management of knowledge across country units is critical to multinational corporations (MNCs). Building on the argument that boundary spanning leads to the development of creative problem solving outcomes, this study advances the concept of MNC knowledge transformation and examines its relationship with solution creativity. Using questionnaire data on 67 problem solving projects, we find that opportunity formation is an underlying mechanism linking MNC knowledge transformation to the development of creative solutions. These insights contribute to our understanding of boundary spanning in global organizations by substantiating MNC knowledge transformation and elaborating the relationship between boundary spanning and creative solution development. If successful at knowledge transformation, collaborators from across the MNC can construct previously unimagined opportunities for the generation of creative outcomes.

  February 06, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12253   open full text
• Rethinking ‘Top‐Down’ and ‘Bottom‐Up’ Roles of Top and Middle Managers in Organizational Change: Implications for Employee Support.
  Mariano L. M. Heyden, Sebastian P. L. Fourné, Bastiaan A. S. Koene, Renate Werkman, Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 03, 2017
  In this study we integrate insights from ‘top‐down’ and ‘bottom‐up’ traditions in organizational change research to understand employees’ varying dispositions to support change. We distinguish between change initiation and change execution roles and identify four possible role configurations in which top managers (TMs) and middle managers (MMs) can feature in change. We contend that both TMs and MMs can play change initiation and/or change execution roles, TMs and MMs have different strengths and limitations for taking on different change roles, and their relative strengths and limitations are compounded or attenuated based on the specific configuration of change roles. We subsequently hypothesize employee support for change in relation to different TM‐MM change role configurations. Our findings show that change initiated by TMs does not engender above‐average level of employee support. However, change initiated by MMs engenders above‐average level of employee support, and even more so, if TMs handle the change execution.

  February 03, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12258   open full text
• Toward a Framework of Leader Character in Organizations.
  Mary M. Crossan, Alyson Byrne, Gerard H. Seijts, Mark Reno, Lucas Monzani, Jeffrey Gandz.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 03, 2017
  While the construct of character is well grounded in philosophy, ethics, and more recently psychology, it lags in acceptance and legitimacy within management research and mainstream practice. Our research seeks to remedy this through four contributions. First, we offer a framework of leader character that provides rigor through a three‐phase, multi‐method approach involving 1817 leaders, and relevance by using an engaged scholarship epistemology to validate the framework with practicing leaders. This framework highlights the theoretical underpinnings of the leader character model and articulates the character dimensions and elements that operate in concert to promote effective leadership. Second, we bring leader character into mainstream management research, extending the traditional competency and interpersonal focus on leadership to embrace the foundational component of leader character. In doing this, we articulate how leader character complements and strengthens several existing theories of leadership. Third, we extend the virtues‐based approach to ethical decision making to the broader domain of judgement and decision making in support of pursuing individual and organization effectiveness. Finally, we offer promising directions for future research on leader character that will also serve the larger domain of leadership research.

  February 03, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12254   open full text
• How Does Performance Feedback Affect Boundary Spanning in Multinational Corporations? Insights from Technology Scouts.
  Thomas Klueter, Felipe Monteiro.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 26, 2017
  As much as prior research has shed light on the boundary‐spanning processes of global organizations and their (positive) impact on an MNC's performance, whether, when and how past performance ultimately shapes an MNC's boundary‐spanning activities remains an open question in management research. To tackle these questions, we examine the behaviour of technology scouts in global organizations who span organizational and national boundaries to tap into novel knowledge and span internal boundaries to present this knowledge to constituents inside the MNC. Drawing on the behavioural theory of the firm, we propose that the intensity of organizational boundary spanning, the likelihood of spanning national boundaries and the way technology scouts span internal boundaries to engage with members inside the organization are sensitive to how the MNC has performed relative to its aspirations. We support our theoretical expositions with insights gained from interviewing senior industry professionals with direct experience in technology scouting in MNCs.

  January 26, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12252   open full text
• Boundary Spanning Activities of Corporate HQ Executives Insights from a Longitudinal Study.
  Julian Birkinshaw, Tina C. Ambos, Cyril Bouquet.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 19, 2017
  What are the boundary spanning activities undertaken by the Corporate Headquarters (HQ) executives of a Multinational Corporation? We address this question through a five‐year longitudinal case study of one company as it shifted from a traditional HQ in one location, to a dual HQ in two locations, to a virtual HQ split across multiple locations. By observing how HQ executives prioritized their time over the course of this transition, we identified four generic boundary spanning activities: two (spearheading and facilitating) focused on making connections across boundaries, two (reconciling and lubricating) focused on overcoming differences in worldview across boundaries. By considering these activities together, and how they vary in importance over time, we show how each boundary spanning activity adds value to the MNC and improves the effectiveness of the internal and external network. An important feature of our study is that we operationalize boundary spanning at the activity level, i.e., in terms of the specific actions taken by corporate HQ executives, to provide a more granular understanding of how boundary spanning works in practice.

  January 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12260   open full text
• Maintaining Moral Legitimacy through Worlds and Words: An Explanation of Firms' Investment in Sustainability Certification.
  Melanie Richards, Thomas Zellweger, Jean‐Pascal Gond.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 19, 2017
  A prominent way for firms to manage their moral legitimacy is to invest in sustainability certifications. However, a significant subset of firms remain reluctant to invest in sustainability certifications even decades after the establishment of such certifications. Our paper seeks to elucidate this variance by exploring how firms in the coffee, tea, and chocolate industries legitimise themselves on moral grounds through external communication to stakeholders. Drawing on insights from French Pragmatist Sociology, we suggest that firms primarily rely on two distinct sets of legitimacy principles that reflect their identity orientation: the ‘civic and green’ world and the ‘domestic’ world. Specifically, our results show that reliance on the domestic world is negatively related to firms' investment in sustainability certifications. Our findings also suggest that the strength of the relationship between these distinct methods of moral legitimising and certification varies depending on whether firms are characterised by first‐ or multi‐generation family control.

  January 19, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12249   open full text
• Seizing the Ethical High Ground: Ethical Reputation Building in Corrupt Environments.
  S. Ramakrishna Velamuri, S. Venkataraman, William S. Harvey.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 16, 2017
  We study how ethical behaviour by firms leads to ethical reputation building. Based on our in‐depth studies of two firms in India and Zimbabwe that resisted corruption and survived for extended time periods, we propose that in addition to behaving ethically, firms need to elicit favourable responses from a critical mass of stakeholders from both strong and weak tie networks in order for their ethical reputations to diffuse quickly and widely. We find that the strength of stakeholder responses to ethical behaviour is moderated by firm level and contextual factors: high status affiliations, industry characteristics, the nature of corruption resisted, the presence of a plural press, the potential for collective action, and the presence of an independent judiciary. These antecedents also influence the pattern of stakeholder resource commitments that firms are able to enjoy as a result of having built ethical reputations.

  January 16, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12248   open full text
• Boundary Spanning in Global Organizations.
  Andreas P. J. Schotter, Ram Mudambi, Yves L. Doz, Ajai Gaur.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 16, 2017
  Global organizations are inherently complex. The spatial dispersion of activities results in organizational subunits becoming embedded in local host‐country contexts that differ from their parents’ home country contexts. These subunits are also embedded in their parents’ corporate networks, causing them to differ from their locally embedded peers. The dual embeddedness and associated complexities create complex and often implicit boundaries. In addition, the contextual and operational diversity that affects the boundaries in global organizations are continually changing. Hence managing and coordinating across different inter‐ and intra‐organizational boundaries has emerged as an important capability for the success of global organizations. So far, we have a limited understanding of the factors that affect the complexity and effectiveness of the boundary spanning function. In this article, we focus on clarifying these key issues and propose a model for effective boundary spanning in global organizations.

  January 16, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12256   open full text
• Flow Signals: Evidence from Patent and Alliance Portfolios in the US Biopharmaceutical Industry.
  Turanay Caner, Olga Bruyaka, John E. Prescott.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 05, 2017
  Integrating signalling theory and the portfolio diversity literature, we theorize that diversity in a firm's patent and alliance portfolios sends contrasting flow signals impacting its market value in a nuanced way. Diversity in an alliance portfolio mediates the patent portfolio diversity – market value relationship by suppressing the negative effect of patent portfolio diversity creating an overall positive effect. We test our mediation model on a longitudinal set of 225 US biopharmaceutical firms that were awarded 17,078 patents and participated in 37,744 alliances between 1990 and 2006. Our theory and findings contribute three novel insights. First, we demonstrate the value of a temporal lens in explaining why diversity in a firm's patent and alliance portfolios send flow signals that establish expectations among market observers and have performance implications. Second, establishing that patent and alliance portfolio diversity are temporally sequenced provides compelling evidence for the value of studying multiple types of portfolios, their temporal relationships and effects on firm outcomes. Third, since diversity in a firm's portfolios can send contrasting flow signals conditioned on the cognitive demands and proximity involved in interpreting the signals, firms that do not maintain a ‘signalling fit’ with market observers increase the probability of unintentional negative signalling effects.

  January 05, 2017   doi: 10.1111/joms.12217   open full text
• An Institutional Configurational Approach to Cross‐National Diversity in Corporate Governance.
  Ilir Haxhi, Ruth V. Aguilera.
  Journal of Management Studies. December 22, 2016
  Corporate governance (CG) research has typically been studied from rather disparate disciplinary approaches, thereby offering myopic and often conflicting rationales. We develop an institutional configurational approach to integrate this ‘siloed’ field and explain CG patterns around the world. To do so, we draw on an inductive, theory‐building methodology based on fuzzy‐set logic to uncover the configurations across institutional actor‐centred domains and their impact on CG patterns. Empirically, we explore the necessary and sufficient causal conditions leading to different features of codes of good governance across 32 OECD countries. We generate propositions linking configurational institutional domains to code features. Our results show that a single institutional domain by itself is not sufficient to explain CG outcomes, and that these domains need to be considered in conjunction, leading, in turn, to the identification of four distinct configurational governance prototypes. Our study offers a comprehensive account of drivers of cross‐national differences in CG and yields useful insights for managing and regulating governance.

  December 22, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12247   open full text
• Attention to Fairness versus Profits: The Determinants of Satisficing Pricing.
  Brian T. McCann, George A. Shinkle.
  Journal of Management Studies. December 22, 2016
  We investigate determinants of the competitive behaviour of satisficing, non‐profit‐maximizing pricing. Taking a behavioural approach, we argue that pricing decisions are motivated by fairness objectives as well as the desire to achieve economic objectives. We draw from the attention‐based view to build our theoretical model explaining the contextual conditions that are most likely to be associated with attention to fairness relative to attention to achieving maximum profits when setting prices. Our hypothesized predictors of satisficing pricing decisions encompass the institutional context in which the firm is embedded, the exchange context with customers and suppliers, and the context internal to the firm. Hypotheses are tested with survey data of over 3000 firms from 15 countries. We find that the decision to set prices at a satisficing level is remarkably common, and its prevalence is associated with contextual factors that are consistent with greater attention to fairness concerns.

  December 22, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12246   open full text
• Sociometric Status and Peer Control Attempts: A Multiple Status Hierarchies Approach.
  Maurits C. de Klepper, Giuseppe (Joe) Labianca, Ed Sleebos, Filip Agneessens.
  Journal of Management Studies. December 02, 2016
  We study a population of first year midshipmen within an elite military academy to explore the relationship between individuals’ sociometric status (e.g., status conferrals based on positive interpersonal affect and perceived competence, and status degradations based on negative interpersonal affect) and their attempts to directly control their peers’ behaviour over a year's time. Results show that multiple informal sociometric status hierarchies develop early in the organization's life and remain remarkably stable. Control attempts are driven by these status hierarchies: Lower competence status individuals and those who attract negative status degradations are targeted for control by more people early in the group's life, those relatively free of negative status degradations attempt to control greater numbers of others throughout the group's existence, while higher positive status is generally unrelated to control attempts. However, control attempts do not lead to higher future sociometric status, suggesting they are not status signals. Findings also show that individuals targeted for control by many others leave the organization entirely.

  December 02, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12242   open full text
• Reconsidering the ‘Symmetry’ Between Institutionalization and Professionalization: The Case of Corporate Social Responsibility Managers.
  David Risi, Christopher Wickert.
  Journal of Management Studies. November 30, 2016
  The assumption of a mutually supportive, ‘symmetric’ relationship between institutionalization and professionalization is central to the institutionalist perspective on professional work. Our inductive qualitative study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) managers in multinational corporations (MNCs) prompts to rethink the validity of this assumption. We show that as the institutionalization of CSR advances and consolidates, CSR managers are pushed to the organizational periphery. This indicates that the relationship between professionalization and institutionalization can be ‘asymmetric’ under certain conditions. To advance the study of this asymmetry, we develop a conceptual framework and a set of corresponding propositions that explain why some groups are able to advance their professionalization projects, while others cannot. Our study makes three main contributions to the literature: First, we explicate under which conditions the relationship between institutionalization and professionalization is more likely asymmetric than symmetric. Second, our explanation of the shifting organizational positions of different professional groups allows for further delineating occupational from organizational professionals. Third, we contribute to the CSR literature by examining the dynamic yet ambiguous role of CSR managers as driving forces behind the implementation of CSR.

  November 30, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12244   open full text
• Navigating Institutional Complexity: The Production of Risk Culture in the Financial Sector.
  Tommaso Palermo, Michael Power, Simon Ashby.
  Journal of Management Studies. November 23, 2016
  Following the financial crisis, financial sector organizations faced increased pressures to reform their ‘risk cultures’. In this paper, we argue that the emergence of regulatory and managerial attention to risk culture is symptomatic of pressures to redefine the fundamental ends of financial institutions and to rebalance the pre‐crisis emphasis on a logic of opportunity and risk‐taking with a logic of precaution and risk control. Based on the analysis of normative practitioner texts and on extended contact with regulators, advisers and corporate actors in the UK financial sector over four years, we show how this initial complexity of ends is translated into uncertainty and conflict about the means through which risk culture might become an object amenable to intervention. On this basis, we contribute to the growing literature on ‘institutional complexity’ by showing how organizational actors address conflicting pressures about both ends and means, and by discussing some key implications of their simplification strategies. Our analysis also contributes to recent studies of ‘means‐ends decoupling’, showing how means, ends and the object of intervention itself – risk culture – co‐evolve as they are reconstructed by organizational actors via their everyday practices.

  November 23, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12241   open full text
• Counter Point Making Great Theories.
  Patrick M. Wright.
  Journal of Management Studies. September 27, 2016
  There is no abstract available for this paper.

  September 27, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12240   open full text
• “I Am My Body”. Physical Selves of Police Officers in a Changing Institution.
  David Courpasson, Vanessa Monties.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 22, 2016
  Most studies on identity work have overlooked the corporeal quality of occupational life. Despite calls to attempt such engagement, little is known about the role of the body in occupations for which corporeal elements are central in the affirmation of identity. This study aims to answer such calls by providing a detailed ethnography of police work. Focusing on four bodily practices, we demonstrate how fitness, intimidation, cleanliness, and toughness are central elements to the officers’ construction of self. We thereby highlight the notion of physical selfhood as a way to understand the body/identity nexus among police officers and their capacity to resist new work requirements. We view bodies through a lens of resistance, rather than docility and compliance as much previous research has done. We aim to contribute to scholarship on identity work by portraying the politicization of bodies as a powerful component, thereby helping professionals to deflect some important institutional pressures affecting their work.

  August 22, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12221   open full text
• Which Resources Matter How and Where? A Meta‐Analysis on Firms’ Foreign Establishment Mode Choice.
  Hendrik Klier, Christian Schwens, Florian B. Zapkau, Desislava Dikova.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 02, 2016
  Firm resources play an important role in explaining the foreign establishment mode choice. However, a theoretical framework that simultaneously a) differentiates between heterogeneous types of resources, b) provides a rationale that consistently explains how firms adapt their establishment mode choice to their resource base, and c) reflects on contextual factors that intervene in the consistency of the direct relationships is largely missing. The present paper draws on the resource‐based view (RBV) to develop such a framework. More specifically, we study the effect of knowledge‐based and experience‐based resources on a firm's establishment mode choice and the moderating impact of cultural distance on these relationships. We validate our theoretical framework by a meta‐analysis (integrating 31 studies with 13,559 establishment mode choices) and find that knowledge‐based resources enhance a firm's propensity for greenfield investments, while experience‐based resources more likely lead to acquisitions. Further, cultural distance increases knowledge‐intensive firms’ preference for greenfield investments.

  August 02, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12220   open full text
• Entry and Technological Performance in New Technology Domains: Technological Opportunities, Technology Competition and Technological Relatedness.
  Bart Leten, Rene Belderbos, Bart Van Looy.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 11, 2016
  Entry and success in new technology domains (NTDs) is essential for firms' long‐term performance. We argue that firms' choices to enter NTDs and their subsequent performance in these domains are not only governed by firm‐level factors but also by environmental characteristics. Entry is encouraged by the richness of opportunities for technology development, while technology competition by incumbent firms discourages entry and render entries that do take place less successful. Firms are expected to be positioned heterogeneously to recognize and capitalize on technological opportunities, depending on the presence of a related technology base. We find qualified support for these conjectures in a longitudinal analysis of entry and technological performance in NTDs by 176 R&D intensive firms. While opportunity rich technology environments attract entries by firms even if these NTDs are distal from firms' existing technologies, firms require related technological expertise in order to exploit technological opportunities post‐entry.

  July 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12215   open full text
• Pay for Talk: How the Use of Shareholder‐Value Language Affects CEO Compensation.
  Taekjin Shin, Jihae You.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 11, 2016
  The language that signals conformity to a prevailing norm can contribute to the appearance of managerial competency and organizational legitimacy. We argue that top corporate managers’ use of language that is congruent with a prevailing norm leads the boards of directors to evaluate the managers more favourably and to grant a higher level of compensation. We test this argument by analysing the letters to shareholders from 334 US firms and examine the CEOs’ expression of the shareholder value principle, which is a prevailing model of corporate governance in the USA. We found that the use of shareholder‐value language is significantly related to a higher level of CEO compensation and that the effect of shareholder‐value language is greater when shareholder activism is stronger.

  July 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12218   open full text
• Don't Simplify, Complexify: From Disjunctive to Conjunctive Theorizing in Organization and Management Studies.
  Haridimos Tsoukas.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 11, 2016
  In this paper I argue that, rather than theory development aim at simplifying complex organizational phenomena, it should aim at complexifying theories – theoretical complexity is needed to account for organizational complexity. Defining the latter as the capacity for ‘nontrivial’ action, I explore a complex ‘system of picturing’ organizations as objects of study that provides an alternative to the hitherto dominant disjunctive style of thinking. A complex ‘system of picturing’ consists of an open‐world ontology, a performative epistemology, and a poetic praxeology. Complex theorizing is conjunctive: it seeks to make connections between diverse elements of human experience through making those analytical distinctions that will enable the joining up of concepts normally used in a compartmentalized manner. Insofar as conjunctive theorizing is driven by the need to preserve the ‘living‐forward – understanding backward’ dialectic, it is better suited to grasping the logic of practice and, thus, to doing justice to organizational complexity. We come close to grasping complexity when we restore the past to its own present and make distinctions that overcome dualisms, preserving as much as possible relationality, temporality, situatedness and, interpretive open‐endedness. I illustrate the argument with several examples from organizational and management research.

  July 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12219   open full text
• Consistency Matters! How and When Does Corporate Social Responsibility Affect Employees’ Organizational Identification?
  Kenneth De Roeck, Assâad El Akremi, Valérie Swaen.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 15, 2016
  Despite the increasing attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the management literature, little is known about the mechanisms and boundary conditions explaining employees’ responses to CSR. Drawing on social identity and cue consistency theory, we develop a mediated moderation model that explains how and under which conditions perceived CSR affects employees’ organizational identification. We test the model by carrying out a three‐wave longitudinal study on employees of an international utility company. The findings indicate that perceived CSR interacts with overall justice to predict organizational identification through the successive mediation of perceived external prestige and organizational pride. The study clarifies and advances some of the theoretical foundations surrounding the micro‐level approach of CSR and has key implications for management research and practice.

  June 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12216   open full text
• ‘Who Knows What?’ in New Venture Teams: Transactive Memory Systems as a Micro‐Foundation of Entrepreneurial Orientation.
  Ye Dai, Philip T. Roundy, Jay I. Chok, Fangsheng Ding, Gukdo Byun.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 20, 2016
  The increasing importance of entrepreneurial behaviour has led scholars to embrace the idea that an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is an important predictor of firm performance. While EO occupies a central position in strategic entrepreneurship research, scholars have yet to explore its origins in new ventures. Drawing on the knowledge‐based and cognitive views, we theorize that a new venture team's transactive memory system is a cognitive mechanism that spurs the development of an EO. In a field study of high‐tech new ventures in China, we examined the relationship between venture teams’ transactive memory systems (representing the distribution, integration, and utilization of the teams’ knowledge) and EO and the moderating influence of team‐, firm‐, and environment‐level factors. We found that the transactive memory system of a new venture team enhanced their EO and that this relationship was positively influenced by intra‐team trust, the structural organicity of a venture, and environmental dynamism. Our findings provide novel insights into the micro‐foundations of TMS in developing an EO in new ventures.

  May 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12211   open full text
• Dynamic Capabilities and Organizational Performance: A Meta‐Analytic Evaluation and Extension.
  Stav Fainshmidt, Amir Pezeshkan, M. Lance Frazier, Anil Nair, Edward Markowski.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 19, 2016
  We move the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) forward in two important ways by meta‐analysing prior empirical studies. First, we evaluate the two core theoretical tenets of the DCV: (1) Dynamic capabilities are positively related to performance, and (2) this relationship is stronger in industries with higher levels of technological dynamism. We find support for the former (rc = 0.296) but not for the latter, though results suggest the existence of moderators. Second, we theorize and demonstrate empirically that higher‐order dynamic capabilities are more strongly related to performance than lower‐order dynamic capabilities, lower‐order dynamic capabilities partially mediate the relationship between higher‐order dynamic capabilities and performance, and dynamic capabilities contribute more to performance in developing economies than in developed economies. These findings illustrate how the nature of the dynamic capability and the economic context in which it is utilized shape its value, thus offering a more nuanced conceptualization of the dynamic capabilities‐performance relationship.

  May 19, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12213   open full text
• Taking a Second Look in a Warped Crystal Ball: Explaining the Accuracy of Revised Forecasts.
  Violetta Bacon‐Gerasymenko, Russell Coff, Rodolphe Durand.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 06, 2016
  The fundamental questions we address are whether firms with a higher initial forecasting ability are able to accurately revise the exit forecasts of their investments; and how co‐investment partners and value‐adding commitment with their investment influence the main effect. We explore these questions with novel and unique data collected via mixed research methods on venture capital firms’ forecasts of 114 portfolio companies. We find that venture capital firms that are better at making initial forecasts are less effective in revising their forecasts. In addition, while the number of co‐investment partners positively moderate this relationship, venture capital firms’ value‐adding commitment moderates it negatively. Our findings contribute to the literature on organizational forecasting as well as inter‐organizational knowledge transfer and knowledge creation. They also provide novel insights into venture capital literature and practice.

  May 06, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12207   open full text
• Social Enterprise Emergence from Social Movement Activism: The Fairphone Case.
  Ona Akemu, Gail Whiteman, Steve Kennedy.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 26, 2016
  Effectuation theory invests agency – intention and purposeful enactment – for new venture creation in the entrepreneurial actor(s). Based on the results of a 15‐month in‐depth longitudinal case study of Amsterdam‐based social enterprise Fairphone, we argue that effectual entrepreneurial agency is co‐constituted by distributed agency, the proactive conferral of material resources and legitimacy to an eventual entrepreneur by heterogeneous actors external to the new venture. We show how in the context of social movement activism, an effectual network pre‐committed resources to an inchoate social enterprise to produce a material artefact because it embodied the moral values of network members. We develop a model of social enterprise emergence based on these findings. We theorize the role of material artefacts in effectuation theory and suggest that, in the case, the artefact served as a boundary object, present in multiple social words and triggering commitment from actors not governed by hierarchical arrangements.

  April 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12208   open full text
• The Foundations of International Business: Cross‐Border Investment Activity and the Balance between Market‐Power and Efficiency Effects.
  Joseph A. Clougherty, Jin Uk Kim, Bradley R. Skousen, Florian Szücs.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 26, 2016
  The foundational international business (IB) scholarship grappled with whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) are largely efficiency‐enhancing or market‐power inducing institutions. Contemporary scholarship, however, often associates foreign direct investment (FDI) with efficiency‐enhancing properties and thus neglects the market‐power interpretation of the MNE. Such an imbalance is problematic given that the theoretical and empirical justifications behind the field's embrace of the efficiency interpretation are not fully evident. Instead, both efficiency and market‐power effects are seemingly present in cross‐border investment activity. Based on a comprehensive sample of up to 4,361 cross‐border investments materializing between 1986 and 2010, we present theoretically‐grounded hypotheses with regard to when market‐power effects will tend to dominate efficiency effects. We find that cross‐border investments undertaken by emerging‐market MNEs in both developed and emerging markets tend to involve substantial efficiency effects and minimal market‐power effects when compared with the cross‐border investments undertaken by developed‐country MNEs in both developed and emerging markets.

  April 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12205   open full text
• Reducing Complexity by Creating Complexity: A Systems Theory Perspective on How Organizations Respond to Their Environments.
  Anselm Schneider, Christopher Wickert, Emilio Marti.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 26, 2016
  Organizations have to cope with the complexity of their environment in order to survive. A considerable body of research has shown that organizations may respond to environmental complexity by creating internal complexity – for example, by expanding internal structures and processes. However, researchers know less about how organizations create collaborative complexity collectively – for example, by establishing alliances or developing common standards. This paper uses social systems theory to explore how organizations collaborate in response to complexity and to analyse the conditions under which they create either internal or collaborative complexity (or both) to address environmental complexity. It also examines how these types of complexity feed back into environmental complexity. To illustrate our conceptual model, we use corporate social responsibility (CSR).

  April 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12206   open full text
• Walking and Talking Corporate Social Responsibility: Implications of Firm Size and Organizational Cost.
  Christopher Wickert, Andreas Georg Scherer, Laura J. Spence.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 26, 2016
  In this paper we address two interrelated research gaps in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature. The first results from a lack of understanding of different patterns of CSR engagement with respect to CSR talk (impression management and the creation of symbolic images and documentation) and CSR walk (substantive implementation of CSR policies, structures and procedures). Related to this, the second gap concerns limited knowledge about the influence of firm size on CSR engagement. We develop a conceptual model that explains differences in CSR talk versus walk based on organizational cost and firm size. This allows us to theorize the antecedents of what we call the large firm implementation gap (large firms tend to focus on communicating CSR symbolically but do less to implement it into their core structures and procedures) and vice versa the small firm communication gap (less active communication and more emphasis on implementation). Our model expands a new theoretical understanding of CSR engagement based on as yet underemphasized firm‐level antecedents of CSR, and opens up several new avenues for future, and in particular comparative, research.

  April 26, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12209   open full text
• When Stakeholder Representation Leads to Faultlines. A Study of Board Service Performance in Social Enterprises.
  Saskia Crucke, Mirjam Knockaert.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 07, 2016
  Following the growing interest in sustainability and ethics, organizations are increasingly attentive to accountability toward stakeholders. Stakeholder representation, obtained by appointing board members representing different stakeholder groups, is suggested to be a good ethical practice. However, such representation may also have nefarious implications for board functioning. Particularly, it may result in strong faultline emergence, subsequently mitigating board performance. Our study aims at understanding the process through which faultlines affect board performance, and particularly the board service role through which the board is involved in providing counsel and strategic decision‐making. We study the relationship between faultlines and board service performance in the particularly relevant context of social enterprises. We find that faultline strength is negatively related to board service performance and that this relationship is mediated by board task conflict. Furthermore, our study reveals the importance of clear and shared organizational goals in attenuating the negative effects of faultlines.

  April 07, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12197   open full text
• Kicking Off Social Entrepreneurship: How A Sustainability Orientation Influences Crowdfunding Success.
  Goran Calic, Elaine Mosakowski.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 04, 2016
  Research generally suggests that, relative to commercial entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs stand at a disadvantage at acquiring resources through traditional financial institutions. Yet interest in social entrepreneurship appears to be at an all‐time high. The current paper advances the argument that an innovative institutional form – crowdfunding – has emerged to address the needs of social entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs with limited access to traditional sources of capital. To examine this, we study whether and how a sustainability orientation affects entrepreneurs’ ability to acquire financial resources through crowdfunding and hypothesize that a venture's sustainability orientation will enhance its fundraising capability. We also suggest that project legitimacy and creativity mediate the relationship between a sustainability orientation and funding success. Our analysis produces two key findings: 1) a sustainability orientation positively affects funding success of crowdfunding projects, and 2) this relationship is partially mediated by project creativity and third party endorsements.

  April 04, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12201   open full text
• Why Firms Delay Reaching True Sustainability.
  Anton Shevchenko, Moren Lévesque, Mark Pagell.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 30, 2016
  This paper explores a discrepancy between what the literature says about sustainability and how sustainability is actually practiced. Our analysis reveals that we are in a transition era in which firms incrementally offset – rather than eliminate – their negative impacts on the environment and society. We also argue that external stakeholders have yet to create the conditions that would compel firms to become truly sustainable. We further find that a firm's response to external pressure to become truly sustainable greatly depends on its capabilities. For large firms, the decision to become truly sustainable is driven by their ability to manage external stakeholders’ expectations, with the most innovative of large firms remaining unsustainable even in the long term. In contrast, small innovative firms guide their decision‐making based on their internal readiness to change and therefore will be the first to reach true sustainability. Finally, and regardless of size, firms that lack an innovation capability are unlikely to become truly sustainable; they will struggle to survive the transition era.

  March 30, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12199   open full text
• Intergenerational Fairness and the Crowding Out Effects of Well‐Intended Environmental Policies.
  Richard A. Hunt, Bret R. Fund.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 30, 2016
  Sustainability involves the drive to ensure intergenerational fairness. However, the results of actions taken to achieve sustainability often lie far into the future and efforts to promote the welfare of distant generations may or may not ultimately be successful. While both governmental policies and entrepreneurial innovation have been cited as being indispensable to the achievement of sustainability, the manner in which they co‐exist and interact over very long periods of time remains unclear. Using a computational model spanning more than two centuries, this study asks: Do well‐intended environmental policies facilitate or inhibit environmental entrepreneurship? By simultaneously considering both the ethical and economic consequences of efforts to arrest environmental degradation, our study answers the call to develop multi‐disciplinary perspectives and integrative frameworks when addressing the challenges of sustainable existence. Contrary to widely held perceptions, our findings suggest that policy actions may, in the long run, result in less intergenerational fairness by crowding out environmentally desirable innovations and organizations. Our examination of the long‐term interactions between policies and markets offers insights and opportunities for scholars, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, ethicists and policymakers to develop solutions that preserve and extend the essential contributions of both policy actions and entrepreneurial innovations.

  March 30, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12202   open full text
• Selling Issues with Solutions: Igniting Social Intrapreneurship in for‐Profit Organizations.
  Elisa Alt, Justin B. Craig.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 29, 2016
  We offer an explanation of the issue selling process when issues deviate from the dominant logic of organizations. Our main objective is to articulate the multiple ways in which socially oriented innovations can be legitimated in for‐profit organizations through the work of bottom‐up change agents, also known as social intrapreneurs. To unpack this multiplicity, we draw on both institutional theory and the framing perspective in social movements. Specifically, we propose how sellers may advance social issues with solutions by drawing on the logic composite of both organizations and selling targets. By providing an account of the social issue selling process in for‐profit organizations, we consider how the nature of an issue shapes selling efforts when it diverges from the dominant logic, and we shed light on how the content choices of sellers relate to the meaning systems of organizations and targets.

  March 29, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12200   open full text
• Exploring Environmental Entrepreneurship: Identity Coupling, Venture Goals, and Stakeholder Incentives.
  Jeffrey G. York, Isobel O'Neil, Saras D. Sarasvathy.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 17, 2016
  On the basis of a qualitative study of 25 renewable energy firms, we theorize why and how individuals engage in environmental entrepreneurship, inductively defined as: the use of both commercial and ecological logics to address environmental degradation through the creation of financially profitable organizations, products, services, and markets. Our findings suggest that environmental entrepreneurs: (1) are motivated by identities based in both commercial and ecological logics, (2) prioritize commercial and/or ecological venture goals dependent on the strength and priority of coupling between these two identity types, and (3) approach stakeholders in a broadly inclusive, exclusive, or co‐created manner based on identity coupling and goals. These findings contribute to literature streams on hybrid organizing, entrepreneurial identity, and entrepreneurship's potential for resolving environmental degradation.

  March 17, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12198   open full text
• How Social Entrepreneurs Facilitate the Adoption of New Industry Practices.
  Theodore L. Waldron, Greg Fisher, Michael Pfarrer.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 24, 2016
  This paper explores how social entrepreneurs use rhetoric to facilitate the pervasive adoption of new, socially focused, industry practices. Our conceptualization proposes that the nature of social entrepreneurs’ rhetoric hinges on perceptions of their relationships to the industry members they seek to influence. We develop a framework that explains the effects of two cognitive structures – identity and power – on social entrepreneurs’ perceptions of industry members and, in turn, the social entrepreneurs’ rhetorical strategies for persuading the industry members to adopt new practices. Our framework specifies mechanisms through which social entrepreneurs facilitate systemic social change and, in doing so, informs theory at the intersection of social entrepreneurship, sustainable social change, and rhetoric.

  February 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12187   open full text
• CEO Succession Origin and Firm Performance: A Multilevel Study.
  Dimitrios Georgakakis, Winfried Ruigrok.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 22, 2016
  There has been much controversy concerning the relationship between outside CEO succession origin and firm performance. Some scholars take the organizational‐adaptation view to highlight the benefits of outside succession; yet others adopt the organizational‐disruption view to pose the selection of an outsider CEO as a disruptive and disadvantageous event for organizations. In this study, we develop an integrated multilevel framework that reconciles these opposing perspectives and examines the conditions under which the benefits of outside CEO succession outweigh the costs. Data from 109 CEO succession events in large international firms show that the performance advantages of outside succession materialize when the new CEO: (a) socio‐demographically resembles incumbent executives, (b) possesses a variety of experience, and (c) is hired by a well‐performing firm operating in a munificent industry. Overall, our research demonstrates that the performance implications of new CEO origin should not be considered in isolation, but in interaction with multilevel characteristics.

  February 22, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12194   open full text
• The Social‐Cognitive Underpinnings of Employees’ Ambidextrous Behaviour and the Supportive Role of Group Managers’ Leadership.
  Olli‐Pekka Kauppila, Michiel P. Tempelaar.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 15, 2016
  Although research on organizational ambidexterity has exploded in the past several years, the determinants of individual‐level ambidexterity have received little scholarly attention. This is surprising given that management scholars increasingly highlight the benefits of combining explorative and exploitative activities in individual employees’ work roles. Using data collected by a two‐wave survey of 638 employees nested in 173 groups across 34 organizations, our research demonstrates that both psychological factors and leadership predict employees’ ambidextrous behaviour. Our results demonstrate that general self‐efficacy positively predicts ambidextrous behaviour through learning orientation. In addition, we show that employees exhibit higher ambidexterity when their group managers demonstrate paradoxical leadership; that is, a leadership style that couples strong managerial support with high performance expectations. Paradoxical leadership also moderates the relationship between learning orientation and individual ambidexterity such that employees’ ambidextrous behaviour is highest when paradoxical leadership and employee learning orientation are simultaneously at high levels.

  February 15, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12192   open full text
• When Passion Fades: Disentangling the Temporal Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Passion for Founding.
  Veroniek Collewaert, Frederik Anseel, Michiel Crommelinck, Alain De Beuckelaer, Jacob Vermeire.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 11, 2016
  This study examines how and why entrepreneurial passion for founding changes over time. In particular, we propose that in the founding phase of a venture's lifecycle entrepreneurs’ founding identity centrality will remain stable over time. We also propose, however, that in our sample and time period studied, entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings for founding will decrease over time. On the basis of theories of positive illusion, self‐regulation and role theory, we further hypothesize that venture idea change, change in role ambiguity and entrepreneurs’ feedback‐seeking behaviour are factors that help explain the rate of change in entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings for founding. Using a three‐wave longitudinal research design, we find that among a sample of 112 entrepreneurs’ identity centrality does not change over time, whereas intense positive feelings for founding decrease over time. Moreover, the more entrepreneurs change their venture ideas, the weaker their decrease in intense positive feelings. Further, we show that entrepreneurs who frequently seek feedback suffer less from reduced positive feelings in response to higher increases in role ambiguity as compared to entrepreneurs who seek less feedback.

  February 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12193   open full text
• How CEOs and TMTs Build Adaptive Capacity in Small Entrepreneurial Firms.
  Yair Friedman, Abraham Carmeli, Asher Tishler.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 11, 2016
  Research suggests that a CEO may have more influence in the context of small entrepreneurial firms, but it is still unclear how a company's chief executive facilitates strategic decision‐making. Little is known about the ways in which these individuals build strategic capabilities, such as the capacity to adapt to changing environments. This study addresses these issues and develops a model indicating that transformational leadership facilitates behavioural integration and comprehensiveness in the decision process among members of the top management team (TMT), which in turn enhances organizational capacity to adapt to environmental changes. Survey results shed light on the complex way in which CEOs facilitate processes within the TMT and enhance small entrepreneurial firms’ capacity to adapt, thereby increasing their viability. This study contributes to the literatures on Upper Echelon Theory, strategic decision‐making, and dynamic capabilities by shedding light on the ways in which transformational leaders influence behavioural and decision‐making processes.

  February 11, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12184   open full text
• Stakeholder Relationship Bonds.
  Douglas A. Bosse, Richard Coughlan.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 05, 2016
  Scholars and managers continue to seek a better explanation for the behaviours displayed by various stakeholders. An enhanced understanding of the drivers of these behaviours ought to improve an organization's ability to appropriately manage relationships with stakeholders, thereby improving firm performance. This paper provides a detailed look at the concept of a relationship, from the perspective of the stakeholder, by focusing on the perceived psychological bonds that drive a stakeholder to decide whether to continue a relationship with the firm and, if the relationship does continue, how much pro‐relationship behaviour to exert. Our analysis works out how the strength of the perceived psychological bond is measured and establishes the conditions under which bonds will be broken. We also develop conditions that either promote or quash stakeholders’ pro‐relationship behaviour.

  February 05, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12182   open full text
• A Socio‐Psychological Perspective on Team Ambidexterity: The Contingency Role of Supportive Leadership Behaviours.
  Justin J. P. Jansen, Konstantinos C. Kostopoulos, Oli R. Mihalache, Alexandros Papalexandris.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 05, 2016
  In addressing the notion of team ambidexterity, we propose that socio‐psychological factors (i.e., team cohesion and team efficacy) may help team members to resolve paradoxical challenges and to combine exploratory and exploitative learning efforts. In addition, we theorize that senior executives may play an important role in facilitating the emergence of ambidexterity at lower hierarchical levels. In doing so, we develop a multilevel contingency framework and propose that the effectiveness of teams to achieve ambidexterity is contingent upon supportive leadership behaviours at the organizational‐level. Using multilevel, multisource, and temporally separated data on 87 teams within 37 high‐tech and pharmaceutical firms, we not only reveal how team cohesion and efficacy may matter for the emergence of team ambidexterity but also show that the effectiveness of supportive leadership behaviours from senior executives varies across cohesive and efficacious teams.

  February 05, 2016   doi: 10.1111/joms.12183   open full text
• Strategic Choices at Entry and Relative Survival Advantage of Cooperatives versus Corporations in the US Bio‐Ethanol Industry, 1978‐2015.
  Christophe Boone, Serden Özcan.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 21, 2015
  The sustainability of cooperatives versus corporations is hotly contested. We propose that strategic choices at entry can help to explain the endurance of these two governance modes. We hypothesize that cooperatives have a survival advantage if their major drawback – high coordination costs – is curbed by high levels of member engagement at founding. Our analysis of survival rates in the US bio‐ethanol industry shows that cooperatives outlive corporations (1) if investment size at founding is large (strong financial engagement), (2) if they enter de novo instead of de alio (strong product‐market engagement) and (3) if the cooperative venture has been carefully planned from the start (greenfield entry) instead of built upon the acquisition of an existing plant (strong venture‐building engagement). These findings caution against the view that a particular mode of governance is superior or inferior to another in all circumstances.

  October 21, 2015   doi: 10.1111/joms.12168   open full text
• Looking Attractive until You Sell: Earnings Management, Lockup Expiration, and Venture Capitalists.
  Dae‐il Nam, Haemin Dennis Park, Jonathan D. Arthurs.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 27, 2014
  Earnings management occurs when managerial discretion allows managers to influence reported earnings and thus mislead some investors about the underlying economic performance and quality of the firm. This study considers how potential investors may guard against earnings management by observing negative stock price reaction at the lockup expiration period of IPO firms as a negative signal. Findings from a sample of 160 newly public firms show that earnings management behavior is stronger in IPO firms backed by venture capitalists (VCs). Moreover, VC reputation negatively moderates this relationship such that IPO firms backed by reputable VCs are less likely to manage earnings, suggesting that reputable VCs serve an auditing function following an IPO. Overall, we provide insights into signaling theory by examining negative signals arising from the behavior of multiple agents in an IPO firm.

  May 27, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12093   open full text
• Celebrating Organization Theory.
  Michael Lounsbury, Christine M. Beckman.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 26, 2014
  In this article, we respond to recent critiques about the state of organization theory that have characterized it as being anachronistic, overly theoretical, or lacking the right kind of theory. We argue that organization theory is extremely vibrant and highlight several areas where there are flourishing and generative developments—institutional logics, categorization, networks, performance feedback, and strategy‐as‐practice. We also note the growing internationalization of organization theory as exemplified in the shifting demography of the OMT division at the Academy of Management as well as at EGOS. As engaged organization theory supporters and scholars, we additionally argue for a more balanced appreciation of not only the weaknesses in the field, but also its strengths, and urge a re‐engagement in more productive conversations about the important role of theory and theorizing.

  May 26, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12091   open full text
• Celebrating organization theory: The after‐party.
  Gerald F. Davis.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 26, 2014
  Organization and management theory as a field faces criticisms from several scholars that it has an unhealthy obsession with ‘theory,’ while at the same time seeing very little cumulative theoretical progress. Some have even accused the field of being mired in the 1970s. Lounsbury and Beckman (2014) counter with an expansive review of several thriving domains of contemporary organizational research that demonstrate the theoretical vibrancy of the field. This article responds by seeking to define ‘theoretical progress’ in ways that extend beyond just the volume of articles produced. It finds that 1970s‐era classics have seen a surge of citations since the turn of the 21st century, consistent with a view of limited progress. It concludes by outlining three areas of problem‐driven research eminently worthy of attention from organizational researchers.

  May 26, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12094   open full text
• Antecedents and Employee Outcomes of Line Managers' Perceptions of Enabling HR Practices.
  Bård Kuvaas, Anders Dysvik, Robert Buch.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 01, 2014
  To learn more about the role of line managers in the implementation of HR practices, we propose and test a model of line managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices on the one hand and employee outcomes on the other. In a field study of 89 line managers and 631 employees, we observed that the relationship between line managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices and employees' intrinsic motivation, affective organizational commitment, and turnover intention was mediated by employees' perceived supervisor support. Line managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices, in turn, were predicted by line managers' perceived quality of the HR training they received. Theoretical and practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

  May 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12085   open full text
• The Contingent Effects of Social Network Sparseness and Centrality on Managerial Innovativeness.
  Sze‐Sze Wong, Wai Fong Boh.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 01, 2014
  Prior research has highlighted that network sparseness and network centrality enhance innovativeness through access to information and influence, respectively. We advance this perspective by exploring the extent to which individual actions are needed to mobilize information and influence accessed through social networks, and whether such information and influence would mutually reinforce to enhance managerial innovativeness. Our findings found partial support for the idea that actions are needed to actualize potential resources embedded in social networks, as centrally positioned managers enjoy higher innovativeness when they engage in ambassador activities. We also found that advice network sparseness and advice network centrality had independent, not interactive relationships with managerial innovativeness, suggesting that they offer distinct routes to achieving managerial innovativeness. Overall, our research clarifies the relationships of two important social network attributes on managerial innovativeness, and also sheds new light on how managerial action matters in realizing social network advantages for innovative ends.

  May 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12086   open full text
• Service on a Stigmatized Board, Social Capital, and Change in Number of Directorships.
  Kurt A. Wurthmann.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 01, 2014
  This article seeks to develop a nuanced understanding about the relationship between service on a stigmatized board and reduced opportunities for future directorships on other boards by examining the moderating effects of different dimensions of director social capital on this relationship. Evidence based on a unique sample of firms with boards that were viewed as being stigmatized by a group of corporate governance experts suggests that while serving on a stigmatized board is related to a reduction in future number of directorships held, this relationship is significantly mitigated for directors of upper‐class origins. However, social capital related to affiliations with other elite institutions does not appear to mitigate reduction in future number of directorships held by outside directors who serve on a stigmatized board. Implications and future directions in research on class‐based influence in the corporate community and stigmatization and devaluation of elites associated with corporate failures are discussed.

  May 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12087   open full text
• Knowledge Spillovers and Alliance Formation.
  Anupama Phene, Stephen Tallman.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 01, 2014
  Our study examines the conditions under which firms enter into strategic alliances subsequent to knowledge spillovers. We propose that spillovers serve as signals of knowledge dependence and potential complementarity, encouraging alliance formation to enable better learning and limit appropriation. We posit that the likelihood of a knowledge alliance subsequent to a spillover is contingent on the specialization of each of the firms in the knowledge involved in the spillover. We also hypothesize that the effects of such specialization on knowledge alliance formation are moderated by technological ties and geographic distance between the dyad involved in the spillover. Our results demonstrate significance for the effects of specialization, supporting learning and appropriation motivations. Technological ties strengthen while geographic distance weakens the relationship between specialization and alliance formation.

  May 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12088   open full text
• Activism for corporate responsibility: Conceptualizing Private regulation opportunity structures.
  Sébastien Mena, Daniel Waeger.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 29, 2014
  In this paper, we examine how private regulatory initiatives (PRIs) – which define standards for corporate responsibility (CR) issues and sometimes monitor their application by firms – create opportunities and constraints for activist groups aiming to push firms toward more stringent CR activities. Drawing on social movement theory, we conceptualize how private regulation opportunity structures affect such CR‐based activist groups’ targets and tactics at both the firm and field levels. At the field level, we argue that both radical and reformative activist groups direct most of their time and resources towards PRIs with comparatively more stringent standards. At the firm level, while radical activist groups are likely to target firms participating in more stringent PRIs, reformative activist groups target firms participating in less stringent PRIs, or those that do not participate in PRIs at all. When facing unfavorable opportunity structures, CR‐based activist groups tend either to advocate the creation of new PRIs or to shift their activities to pressure other focal points. This paper contributes to moving beyond extant literature's emphasis of PRIs as settlements of contentious firm‐activist interactions towards also viewing them as starting points for activist groups aiming to push firms toward more substantive CR engagement.

  April 29, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12092   open full text
• Donating Money to Get Money: the Role of Corporate Philanthropy in Stakeholder Reactions to IPOs.
  Ming Jia, Zhe Zhang.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 17, 2014
  This study examines how stakeholders′ investment time horizons interact with information about corporate giving in IPO firms. Specifically, we build a model that explains how corporate philanthropy affects IPO performance. We find that at the IPO‐preparation stage, corporate giving is negatively related to underwriter prestige, venture capital investment, and IPO financing costs. We also find that at the IPO‐issuance stage, negative media coverage of IPOs moderates the U‐shaped relationship between corporate giving and market premiums. At the IPO‐trading stage, we find that corporate giving only positively influences the market premiums for IPO firms that are the subject of negative media reports. Our findings contribute to the signaling theory by showing how various stakeholders interpret the same signals differently, and they have implications for understanding how the relationship between corporate philanthropy and corporate financial performance materializes in the IPO markets.

  April 17, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12090   open full text
• Moving Forward: Developing Theoretical Contributions in Management Studies.
  Joep P. Cornelissen, Rodolphe Durand.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 01, 2014
  How do we, as management researchers, develop novel theoretical contributions and, thereby, potentially break new ground in management studies? To address this question, we review previous methodological work on theorizing and advance a typology of the reasoning processes that underlie theoretical contributions and significant advances in management studies. This typology consists of various types of analogical and counterfactual reasoning, ranging from focused thought experiments aimed at prodding existing theory in the direction of alternative assumptions, constructs, and hypotheses to more expansive efforts for inducing new theoretical models and alternative explanations. Applying this typology, we detail the mechanisms behind the formation of novel theoretical contributions and illustrate the currency of our typology through a review of 24 major theoretical breakthroughs in management studies. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications of this typology for our collective efforts in building, elaborating, and expanding theory in management studies.

  April 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12078   open full text
• Dreaming of Flying When Grounded: Occupational Identity and Occupational Fantasies of Furloughed Airline Pilots.
  Amy L. Fraher, Yiannis Gabriel.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 01, 2014
  This article analyses the effects of job loss on the occupational identities of a group of United States pilots, laid off (or ‘furloughed’) twice by their employer in the decade following 9/11. Using a narrative methodology, the paper examines how the childhood dream of flying, referred to as the Phaëthon dream, serves as an identity anchor that sustained their occupational identities. When the circumstances of the aviation industry (restructuring, outsourcing, and downsizing) led to extensive lay‐offs, this identity anchor functioned in two contrasting ways. Some pilots moved on to retrain and start new careers, without abandoning their occupational identities or relinquishing the dream of flying. Another group of pilots, however, were stuck in occupational limbo waiting to be recalled by their employer, unwilling to forsake this dream and refusing to contemplate a move that would decisively take them out of their pilot seats. The paper's contribution lies in theorizing how a dream originating in childhood, linked to a long‐standing archetype of flying and subsequently hardened into a shared occupational fantasy, acts as an identity anchor and how this shapes responses to the trauma of job loss. The paper concludes by linking the Phaëthon dream to its mythological counterpart in order to highlight its enduring, shared, and unconscious character.

  April 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12081   open full text
• Centres and Peripheries: Research Styles and Publication Patterns in ‘Top’ US Journals and their European Alternatives, 1960–2010.
  Behlül Üsdiken.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 01, 2014
  In view of recent literature, suggesting a growing international ascendancy of US‐style scholarship but also a decreasing US dominance in journal publications, I ask two questions with regard to management and organization studies: (1) whether there has been an increasing convergence towards US‐style research; and (2) whether the purported decline in the relative amount of US publications has been uniform across leading journals based in the USA and Europe. In addressing these questions, I take a historical perspective and draw upon the centre–periphery model of international scholarship, arguing that convergence or fragmentation in styles of research and variations in publication patterns have evolved through the interplay between processes of influence by the centre (i.e., the USA) and imitative or competitive responses by the periphery. Empirically, the study spans the period 1960–2010 and is confined to ‘top’ US‐based journals and their main European alternatives. The findings answer the first question with a ‘no, other than a greater tendency towards the US‐style when educational or collaborative ties to the USA are involved and by the recently emerging parts of the periphery’. The second question again is answered with a ‘no, the decline has been much less in “top” US journals relative to the ones based in Europe’.

  April 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12082   open full text
• Local Venturing as Compassion Organizing in the Aftermath of a Natural Disaster: The Role of Localness and Community in Reducing Suffering.
  Dean A. Shepherd, Trenton A. Williams.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 01, 2014
  In contrast to models of compassion within existing organizations, this grounded theory study examines how ventures emerge relying on localness and community in direct response to ‘opportunities’ to alleviate suffering in the aftermath of a natural disaster. While a natural disaster is a surprising disruptive event devastating a local community, that local community is nested within a broader community, which can be a source of abundant resources. Ventures created in the aftermath of a natural disaster, given local knowledge and unencumbered by pre‐existing systems, procedures, and capabilities, are highly effective at connecting the broader community with the local community through customizing resources to meet victims' needs and to quickly delivering these resources to alleviate suffering.

  April 01, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12084   open full text
• Legitimation of New Ventures: A Review and Research Programme.
  Florian Überbacher.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 31, 2014
  Research on how new ventures (NVs) achieve legitimacy is fragmented and rests on taken‐for‐granted assumptions that require problematization. Following a systematic literature review, I identify five distinct perspectives on NV legitimation: an institutional perspective, a cultural entrepreneurship perspective, an ecological perspective, an impression management perspective, and a social movement perspective. After comparing and contrasting these perspectives, I synthesize them into a generative and integrative typology. Based on this typology, I develop a new research programme. The programme widens the extant scholarship agenda by challenging its shared assumptions and contributes to further integration of the literature by building bridges between perspectives.

  March 31, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12077   open full text
• Rethinking Institutions and Organizations.
  Royston Greenwood, C.R. Hinings, Dave Whetten.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 26, 2014
  In this essay we argue that institutional scholarship has become overly concerned with explaining institutions and institutional processes, notably at the level of the organization field, rather than with using them to explain and understand organizations. Especially missing is an attempt to gain a coherent, holistic account of how organizations are structured and managed. We also argue that when institutional theory does give attention to organizations it inappropriately treats them as though they are the same, or at least as though any differences are irrelevant for purposes of theory. We propose a return to the study of organizations with an emphasis upon comparative analysis, and suggest the institutional logics perspective as an appropriate means for doing so.

  March 26, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12070   open full text
• Does Institutional Theory Need Redirecting?
  Renate E. Meyer, Markus A. Höllerer.
  Journal of Management Studies. March 26, 2014
  Greenwood, Hinings and Whetten (2014) present two major criticisms of current institutional scholarship, and see need for a broad redirection: Institutional organization theory, they argue, has lost sight of the claim to study organizations and, with its overwhelming focus on isomorphism and similarity, has fallen short on adequately theorizing differences across organizations. In our essay, we offer support as well as a riposte. First, while we agree that the organizing of collective efforts needs to be at the core of organization research, we warn that focusing on formal organization – a rationalized cultural product itself – may direct attention away from studying alternative modes of organizing, and underestimates the dynamic developments that have transformed contemporary organizations into increasingly complex objects of inquiry. Second, we are concerned that, by abandoning the analysis of similarities in favor of differences, institutional theory may eventually lose sight of its pivotal quest: to study institutions.

  March 26, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12089   open full text
• ‘Thinking Before Acting’ or ‘Acting Before Thinking’: Antecedents of Individual Action Propensity in Work Situations.
  Dusya Vera, Mary Crossan, Claus Rerup, Steve Werner.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 15, 2014
  We introduce the concept of ‘individual action propensity’ to examine the approach of individuals towards solving situations for which they lack knowledge and/or experience about what to do. We focus on a naturally contrasting pair of responses: ‘thinking before acting’ or ‘acting before thinking’, and associate low action propensity with thinking one's way into understanding how to act, and high action propensity with acting one's way into understanding such situations. We build on regulatory mode theory – with its dimensions of locomotion and assessment and the trade‐off between speed and accuracy – to examine individual characteristics as predictors of individual action propensity. We find that individual action propensity is associated with being a woman, having fewer years of formal education, not relying on help‐seeking behaviours, and having a positive attitude towards spontaneity. Our findings shed light on why individuals take action, or not, and provide implications for research on organizational action propensity.

  January 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12075   open full text
• When do Non‐Family CEOs Outperform in Family Firms? Agency and Behavioural Agency Perspectives.
  Danny Miller, Isabelle Le Breton‐Miller, Alessandro Minichilli, Guido Corbetta, Daniel Pittino.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 15, 2014
  Family firms represent a globally dominant form of organization, yet they confront a steep challenge of finding and managing competent leaders. Sometimes, these leaders cannot be found within the owning family. To date we know little about the governance contexts under which non‐family leaders thrive or founder. Guided by concepts from agency theory and behavioural agency theory, we examine the conditions of ownership and leadership that promote superior performance among non‐family CEOs of family firms. Our analysis of 893 Italian family firms demonstrates that these leaders outperform when they are monitored by multiple major family owners as opposed to a single owner; they also outperform when they are not required to share power with co‐CEOs who are family members, and who may be motivated by parochial family socioemotional priorities.

  January 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12076   open full text
• The Contraction of Meaning: The Combined Effect of Communication, Emotions, and Materiality on Sensemaking in the Stockwell Shooting.
  Joep P. Cornelissen, Saku Mantere, Eero Vaara.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 15, 2014
  In this paper, we seek to understand how individuals, as part of a collective, commit themselves to a single, and possibly erroneous, frame, as a basis for sensemaking and coordinated actions. Using real‐time data from an anti‐terrorist police operation that led to the accidental shooting of an innocent civilian, we analyse how individual actors framed their circumstances in communication with one another and how this affected their subsequent interpretations and actions as events unfolded. Our analysis reveals, first, how the collective commitment to a framing of a civilian as a terrorist suicide bomber was built up and reinforced across episodes of collective sensemaking. Second, we elaborate on how the interaction between verbal communication, expressed and felt emotions, and material cues led to a contraction of meaning. This contraction stabilized and reinforced the overall framing at the exclusion of alternative interpretations. With our study we extend prior sensemaking research on environmental enactment and the escalation of commitment and elaborate on the role of emotions and materiality as part of sensemaking.

  January 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12073   open full text
• Workforce Downsizing and Firm Performance: An Organizational Routine Perspective.
  Matthias Brauer, Tomi Laamanen.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 15, 2014
  While there is an extensive body of work on how organizational routines emerge and evolve over time, there is a scarcity of research on what happens when routines are disrupted or disbanded through the elimination of key individuals involved in them. This study is the first to theorize and empirically examine the relationship between the magnitude of workforce downsizing and firm performance applying an organizational routine perspective. Consistent with prior research on organizational routines, we posit that small‐scale downsizing leads to efficiency improvements without disrupting the existing routines. While larger routine disruptions occur in both medium‐ and large‐scale downsizing, we further argue and find that large‐scale downsizing tends to be more beneficial than medium‐scale downsizing. Building on prior research on routines, we reason that in medium‐scale downsizing employees try to salvage the impaired, partially functioning routines, while large‐scale downsizing requires a more fundamental rethinking and re‐creation of routines leading to more positive outcomes. Our study contributes to downsizing research through the application of the organizational routine perspective to explain the financial outcomes of downsizing. In doing so, we depart from the widely held assumption in the downsizing literature that the relationship between the magnitude of downsizing and firm performance is linear. Our study also extends prior research on organizational routines by highlighting the usefulness of conceiving routines as mindful accomplishments where the pressure to engage in path‐breaking cognitive effort may lead to better results than path‐dependent repairing of routines.

  January 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/joms.12074   open full text
• Legitimacy‐as‐Feeling: How Affect Leads to Vertical Legitimacy Spillovers in Transnational Governance.
  Patrick Haack, Michael D. Pfarrer, Andreas Georg Scherer.
  Journal of Management Studies. December 23, 2013
  Transnational governance schemes (TGSs) are interorganizational networks of public and/or private actors that jointly regulate global public policy issues, such as the prevention of human rights violations and the protection of ecosystems. Considering that TGSs mainly address issues of public concern, the general public represents a major source of legitimacy in transnational governance. We theorize how members of the general public, whom we conceptualize as intuiters, apply heuristics to bestow legitimacy on TGSs. Given the difficulty of assessing TGSs, we argue that intuiters draw on affect‐based responses towards a TGS's better‐known network affiliates, such as participating business firms, to judge the legitimacy of the TGS as a whole. This substitution produces a ‘vertical’ legitimacy spillover. More specifically, we examine the heuristic process of judgment underlying vertical spillovers in TGSs and derive implications for the legitimacy construct and the analysis of spillover phenomena.

  December 23, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12071   open full text
• How Does Project Termination Impact Project Team Members? Rapid Termination, ‘Creeping Death’, and Learning from Failure.
  Dean A. Shepherd, Holger Patzelt, Trenton A. Williams, Dennis Warnecke.
  Journal of Management Studies. December 23, 2013
  Although extant studies have increased our understanding of the decision of when to terminate a project and its organizational implications, they do not explore the contextual mechanisms underlying the link between the speed at which a project is terminated and the learning of those directly working on the project. This is surprising because perceptions of project failure likely differ between those who own the option (i.e., the decision maker) and those who are the option (i.e., project team members). In this multiple case study, we explored research and development (R&D) subsidiaries within a large multinational parent organization and generated several new insights: (1) rather than alleviate negative emotions, delayed termination was perceived as creeping death, thwarting new career opportunities and generating negative emotions; (2) rather than obstructing learning from project experience, negative emotions motivated sensemaking efforts; and (3) rather than emphasizing learning after project termination, in the context of rapid redeployment of team members after project termination, delayed termination provided employees the time to reflect on, articulate, and codify lessons learned. We discuss the implications of these findings.

  December 23, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12068   open full text
• Playing on Two Chessboards: Reputation Effects between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Political Activity (CPA).
  Frank Hond, Kathleen A. Rehbein, Frank G. A. Bakker, Hilde Kooijmans‐van Lankveld.
  Journal of Management Studies. November 11, 2013
  It has recently been argued that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is ‘political’. It has been neglected however, that firms also operate politically in a traditional sense, in seeking to secure favourable political conditions for their businesses. We argue that there are potential synergies between CSR and corporate political activity (CPA) that are often overlooked by firms and that recognition of these synergies will stimulate firms to align their CSR and CPA. We develop a conceptual model that specifies how various configurations of a firm's CSR and CPA – alignment, misalignment, and non‐alignment – affect the firm's reputation beyond the separate reputation effects of CSR and CPA. This model has important implications for understanding how and why firms should pay attention to their CPA and CSR configurations, and thereby contributes to the broader issue of why firms should make sure that they are consistent in terms of responding to stakeholder concerns.

  November 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12063   open full text
• The Financial Effects of Uniform and Mixed Corporate Social Performance.
  Ioannis Oikonomou, Chris Brooks, Stephen Pavelin.
  Journal of Management Studies. November 11, 2013
  Firms typically present a mixed picture of corporate social performance (CSP), with positive and negative indicators exhibited by the same firm. Thus, stakeholders' judgments of corporate social responsibility (CSR) typically evaluate positives in the context of negatives, and vice versa. Building on social judgment theory, we present two alternative accounts of how stakeholders respond to such complexity, which provide differing implications for the financial effects of CSP: reciprocal dampening and rewarding uniformity. Echoing notable findings on strategic consistency, our US panel study finds that firms that exhibit uniformly positive or uniformly negative indicators in particular dimensions of CSP outperform firms that exhibit a mixed picture of positives and negatives, which supports the notion that stakeholders' judgments of CSR reward uniformity.

  November 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12064   open full text
• Accounting for the Influence of Overall Justice on Job Performance: Integrating Self‐Determination and Social Exchange Theories.
  Samuel Aryee, Fred O. Walumbwa, Reuben Mondejar, Chris W. L. Chu.
  Journal of Management Studies. November 11, 2013
  Grounded in self‐determination and social exchange theories, this study examined two pathways through which overall justice influences job performance. Specifically, we hypothesized need satisfaction as a mediator of the influence of overall justice on intrinsic motivation and trust in organization which, in turn, relate to job performance. Results of structural equation modelling using Mplus revealed that need satisfaction mediated the overall justice–intrinsic motivation relationship as well as the overall justice–trust in organization relationship. We also found that intrinsic motivation mediated the respective influence of need satisfaction and trust in organization on job performance. We interpret our findings as suggesting an integration of need‐based theories of motivation into explanations of the performance implications of justice.

  November 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12067   open full text
• Adaptation to Temporal Shocks: Influences of Strategic Interpretation and Spatial Distance.
  Liliana Pérez‐Nordtvedt, Susanna Khavul, David A. Harrison, Jeffrey E. McGee.
  Journal of Management Studies. October 10, 2013
  Even when shocks in a firm's environment are predictable, their consequences are not. Using the relocation of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium as a rich case of such a disruption, we investigate how combinations of strategic interpretation and spatial distance influence incumbent business owners' decisions to pursue temporal adaptation as a response. Temporal adaptation (TA) comprises timing rather than content changes by the firm seeking to adjust to the reconfigured environment. Survey data from 168 business owners show that strategic interpretation directly influences TA decisions. However, the effect of strategic interpretation on the TA decision is moderated by the spatial (geographic) distance of the incumbent firm from the locus of the disruption. Furthermore, results suggest that through strategic interpretation, spatial distance also indirectly affects the business owners' decisions to make temporal changes. Data collected 1.5 and 4 years later suggest that TA responses are related to performance and may be indicative of a particular type of TA, organizational entrainment (OE), which concerns the synchronization of organizational activity cycles with cycles in the environment.

  October 10, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12050   open full text
• So, What Am I Supposed to Do? A Multilevel Examination of Role Clarity.
  Olli‐Pekka Kauppila.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 30, 2013
  Although prior research generally holds that role clarity is affected by both individual characteristics and organizational contexts, current conceptual or empirical models do not reflect the multilevel nature of these antecedents. A more complete understanding of how role clarity emanates from different organizational levels is necessary to help prevent poor job performance and other harmful consequences of ambiguous role expectations. To address this, I begin this research by investigating the effects of internal work locus of control, general self‐efficacy, and leader–member exchange on role clarity. With respect to the cross‐level effects, I focus on the roles of a manager's control style and the organization's strategy‐making pattern. Analyses of a multi‐industry, multilevel dataset collected from 724 employees and 124 managers in 25 organizations in Finland suggest that all of the individual‐level independent variables and a deliberate strategy‐making pattern improve role clarity. However, a deliberate strategy‐making pattern negatively moderates the relationship between general self‐efficacy and role clarity. Finally, even though an outcome‐based control system causes role ambiguity among employees in most functional areas, it may be an effective driver of role clarity among employees in sales jobs.

  August 30, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12042   open full text
• Where do we go from here? new perspectives on the black boxes in strategic Humam RESOURCE MANAGEMENT research.
  Kaifeng Jiang, Riki Takeuchi, David P. Lepak.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 12, 2013
  The main objective of the present research is to briefly review the strategic human resource management (HRM) literature from multilevel theoretical perspectives to review what we know about mediating mechanisms in the HR‐performance relationship. By doing so, we highlight future research needs to advance theoretical understanding of the “black box” in strategic HRM research. Furthermore, by offering additional theoretical perspectives that can be used to understand the mediating mechanisms at different levels, we suggest future research directions that capture the complexities associated with strategic HRM through a multilevel theoretical lens. Implications of the model are discussed.

  August 12, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12057   open full text
• Methodological Wishes for the Next DECADE and How to Make Wishes Come True.
  Herman Aguinis, Jeffrey R. Edwards.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 12, 2013
  We discuss seven methodological improvements that would stimulate important advancements in management research. We refer to these improvements as “wishes” that we hope will materialize within the next decade. To promote the implementation of these improvements, we offer concrete and actionable recommendations that researchers can apply when designing and conducting empirical research and that journal editors and reviewers can consider when evaluating manuscripts for publication. These improvements address (1) accelerating theoretical progress; (2) improving the construct validity of measures; (3) strengthening causal inferences; (4) incorporating multilevel design, measurement, and analysis; (5) balancing trade‐offs between internal and external validity, (6) understanding the nature and impact of outliers; and (7) offering a realistic and useful description of a study's limitations.

  August 12, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12058   open full text
• Categorizing Categorization Research: Review, Integration, and Future Directions.
  J.‐P. Vergne, Tyler Wry.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 11, 2013
  This paper offers a systematic review of the literature on organizational categories and categorization published in the last 14 years (1999–2012). After identifying a core of roughly 100 papers on categories that appeared in management, organization, and sociology journals, we classified them based on several key dimensions, and analysed a few trends within the categorization literature. Our most surprising finding may be the fact that until recently, there was no mutual recognition of the existence of a distinct ‘literature on categories’ despite the wealth of published material on the topic. After summarizing some core theoretical features of that emergent literature, we propose integrative definitions of its core constructs and suggest several areas of research that could further enrich it in the future.

  August 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12044   open full text
• Micro‐Level Discursive Strategies for Constructing Shared Views around Strategic Issues in Team Meetings.
  Winston Kwon, Ian Clarke, Ruth Wodak.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 11, 2013
  Management scholars have explored how certain actors in meetings – especially leaders – shape social processes of interaction and use different linguistic devices, as methods, to affect how sense is made of strategic issues. Less attention has been paid to interactions between members of the team as a whole and the repertoire of discursive strategies, or goal‐directed behaviours, that they deploy to create shared views around issues. We analyse rare empirical episodes of team discussions of strategic issues in board meetings to inductively conceptualize how this is achieved. To do this we use the Discourse‐Historical Approach (DHA) to critical discourse analysis (CDA). We reveal five discursive strategies teams use to develop shared views around strategic issues (Re/defining, Equalizing, Simplifying, Legitimating, and Reconciling) and demonstrate how they are skilfully operationalized through a range of linguistic devices or means.

  August 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12036   open full text
• Recasting Enterprise Strategy: Towards Stakeholder Research That Matters to General Managers.
  Donal Crilly.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 08, 2013
  As well as specifying functional, business unit, and corporate levels of strategy, early strategy scholars delineated enterprise level strategy as the uppermost level of strategy. Enterprise strategy articulates how the firm engages with actors in its economic, social, and political environment to ensure long‐term corporate performance. As a growing body of evidence shows, heterogeneity in how firms identify, and engage with, their stakeholders can explain why some firms outperform their peers. However, my literature survey of more than three decades of published research reveals that enterprise strategy has stayed firmly in the shadows behind business and corporate strategy. Furthermore, many theories of firm‐stakeholder relationships are normative (i.e. explain how firms should act) and do not inform strategy effectively. In this paper, I argue why enterprise strategy research is required as a cohesive body of work that connects with research in business and corporate strategy. I finish by proposing three research domains ‐ strategic goals, organization design, and organization boundaries – that hold the potential to link stakeholder issues with mainstream concerns in strategy research and, thus, to revive a coherent research program in enterprise level strategy.

  August 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12053   open full text
• Performance Implications of IJV Boards: A Contingency Perspective.
  Elko Klijn, Jeffrey J. Reuer, Frans A.J. Van den Bosch, Henk W. Volberda.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 08, 2013
  This study draws from the corporate governance literature to investigate the implications of board involvement for international joint ventures (IJVs). We extend recent corporate governance research on the value of board involvement by investigating unique sources of complexity related to the nature of the IJV. We argue and find that board involvement can enhance the performance of IJVs, particularly for collaborations that are complex in nature due to their broad functional scope as well the level of market overlap between IJV parents. We complement recent research on joint venture control that has focused on the antecedents and types of control, as well as studies on formal (e.g., contractual safeguards and monitoring) and informal governance mechanisms (e.g., trust) by providing empirical evidence that IJV board involvement is valuable when directors undertake their control and coordination responsibilities. We advance corporate governance research by providing evidence that joint ventures possess several unique characteristics that shape the value of board involvement, thereby showing that applications of corporate governance theory to joint ventures are useful, but should be made with care.

  August 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12054   open full text
• Framing and Interorganizational Knowledge Transfer: A Process Study of Collaborative Innovation in the Aircraft Industry.
  Elco Burg, Hans Berends, Erik M. Raaij.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 08, 2013
  This article explains how and why organizational actors’ decisions about interorganizational knowledge transfer might change over time. We find that organizational actors’ framing of future innovation developments, as either an opportunity or a threat, motivates them to engage or disengage in interorganizational knowledge transfer activities. Shifts in framing lead organizational actors to leverage their relational context and knowledge base in new ways, thereby emphasizing the role of agency in drawing upon these structures. These findings are incorporated into a process model that explains discontinuous change in interorganizational knowledge transfer.

  August 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12055   open full text
• “Ethics in the Production and Dissemination of Management Research: Institutional Failure or Individual Fallibility?”.
  Benson Honig, Joseph Lampel, Donald Siegel, Paul Drnevich.
  Journal of Management Studies. August 08, 2013
  Over the past 50 years, we have witnessed considerable growth in business education, increased competition among business schools, and higher expectations for faculty scholarship. Increasing competition among scholars for limited publication opportunities in top‐tier journals and the proliferation of bottom‐tier journals has given rise to a variety of systemic ethical issues and dilemmas, for scholars and their institutions. In this article, we critically examine the current state of normative publishing activities and expectations, including doctoral education, promotion and tenure processes and research expectations, editorial and peer review processes, academic freedom, acceptable breadth, depth, and accuracy or legitimacy of research designs and methodologies, academic integrity, replication, and data availability concerning the trends and implications of contemporary and future management scholarship. We also provide recommendations for additional research and discussion on these issues.

  August 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12056   open full text
• From Hot Cakes to Cold Feet: A Contingent Perspective on the Relationship between Market Uncertainty and Status Homophily in the Formation of Alliances.
  Francois Collet, Déborah Philippe.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 19, 2013
  In this study, we reconsider the classical positive association between the level of market uncertainty and an organization's propensity to form ties with organizations of similar status. Although prior research argues that the greater the uncertainty, the higher the level of status homophily, we suggest that this relationship is contingent upon framing that affects positive or negative valence toward uncertainty. In an up market, organizations tend to frame uncertainty as upside risk and, thus, will subsequently favour explorative uncertainty‐mitigation devices; whereas, in a down market, organizations primarily frame uncertainty as downward risk and, thus, will rely on more conservative uncertainty‐mitigation mechanisms. We therefore predict that a greater number of status‐heterophilous ties will be formed in an up market than in a down market. We discuss the implications of our results for status theory and more broadly for research on strategic decision making under uncertainty.

  July 19, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12051   open full text
• Promising Futures: CMS, Post‐Disciplinarity and the New Public Social Science Essay for Journal of Management Studies 50th Anniversary Issue.
  Rick Delbridge.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 19, 2013
  This essay considers the future prospects for Critical Management Studies and by extension management studies more generally. To explore these, two frameworks from the wider social sciences are deployed. The anchorpoint for the discussion is Michael Burawoy's work distinguishing types of scholarship on the bases of a) conceptions of knowledge produced by social scientists, and b) different audiences for that knowledge. Critical Management Studies is founded on critique but its future will be determined by how it makes its way across Burawoy's other domains of professional, policy and public scholarship. To examine this, I draw on John Brewer's recent articulation of the ‘new public social science’. Brewer's problem‐driven, post‐disciplinary approach conceives the public value of social science as its conservation of moral sentiments and sympathetic imagination towards each other as social beings, and its ethical concern about the humanitarian future of humankind. The new public social science is normative and partisan, transgressive, scientific and impactful. I argue that this provides a potentially fruitful template to guide future management studies. This is a future in which Critical Management Studies – as management studies’ critical and emancipatory conscience – has a central role to play.

  July 19, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12052   open full text
• Mining the Discourse: Strategizing During BHP Billiton's Attempted Acquisition of Rio Tinto.
  Maurizio Floris, David Grant, Leanne Cutcher.
  Journal of Management Studies. July 15, 2013
  Using a discourse‐analytic approach, we examine the strategizing that occurred during an attempted acquisition in 2007/08 of Rio Tinto by BHP Billiton. In doing so, we contribute to discursive studies of mergers and acquisitions in two significant respects. First, we show the importance of studying how actors external to, as well as those internal to BHP, exerted influence over the acquisition process and outcome. Their influence can be attributed, in part, to their use of rhetorical strategies during the negotiation of the meanings of three constructs that were central to the acquisition discourse. Second, our study shows how these rhetorical strategies were put into effect using not only linguistic, but also non‐linguistic modes of discourse such as imagery, indicators, and location. We conclude that obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the role of discourse in relation to a strategic activity – in this case an attempted acquisition – requires consideration of the multi‐modal rhetorical strategies brought to bear by both external and internal actors.

  July 15, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12035   open full text
• An Ontological Turn in Categories Research: From Standards of Legitimacy to Evidence of Actuality.
  Mark Thomas Kennedy, Peer C. Fiss.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 28, 2013
  In this Counterpoint to Durand and Paolella, we argue that prior work on categories has neglected processes of category emergence and dissolution. In response, we call for studies of categories that focus on how they emerge and fall out of use and on what they come to mean. We call this an ontological turn in categories research because systems of categorization and their associated meanings capture and reflect what societies view as social realities, or ontologies. As a guide to this broad topic, we develop a framework that relates the effects of categories to the familiarity of (1) occasions and motivations for their usage and (2) meanings and ontologies they carry, and we use this framework to elaborate two paths by which previously unfamiliar categories become accepted as elements of common knowledge. These paths jointly inform the recognition front of the emergence question, an understudied problem in organization studies. Finally, we outline two methodologies – set theoretic analysis and network‐based analysis – that offer particular promise for analysing processes of category emergence and dissolution.

  June 28, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12031   open full text
• Time and The Entrepreneurial Journey: The Problems and Promise of Studying Entrepreneurship as a Process.
  Jeffery S. McMullen, Dimo Dimov.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 20, 2013
  We examine the growing disconnect between the process‐oriented conception of entrepreneurship taught in the classroom and theorized about in premier journals and the variance‐oriented conception of entrepreneurship that characterizes empirical studies of the phenomenon. We propose that a shift in inquiry from entrepreneurship as an act to entrepreneurship as a journey could facilitate process‐oriented research by initiating a dialogue about the nature of the entrepreneurial journey, when it has begun and ended, whether it might be productively subdivided into variables or events, and what if anything remains constant throughout the process. Finally, we propose that a clearer understanding of the entrepreneurial journey is necessary to distinguish the field horizontally from research on creativity and strategy, and vertically from research on more practical business functions or more abstract systems‐level concepts.

  June 20, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12049   open full text
• Managing Partners and Management Professionals: Institutional Work Dyads in Professional Partnerships.
  Laura Empson, Imogen Cleaver, Jeremy Allen.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 13, 2013
  This study presents an empirical analysis of the micro‐dynamics of institutional work. Examining the ‘corporatization’ of large international law firm partnerships, the study identifies the dyadic relationship that develops between two different types of professionals, the managing partner and management professional, and demonstrates how their relationship becomes a key mechanism for institutional work. The study shows how, by working together, these individuals take advantage of differences in their relative social positions: specifically their formal authority, specialist expertise, and social capital. The study identifies seven forms of institutional work in which they engage and demonstrates how these multiple forms simultaneously encompass the creation, maintenance, and disruption of the institution of partnership. The study argues that this simultaneous occurrence helps to account for the phenomenon of sedimentation, whereby the gradually emerging institutional logic of the corporatized partnership is being integrated into the traditional partnership form.

  June 13, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12025   open full text
• Professions and Institutional Change: Towards an Institutionalist Sociology of the Professions.
  Daniel Muzio, David M. Brock, Roy Suddaby.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 13, 2013
  Beginning with this article, our special issue advances the understanding of the role of professions in processes of institutional change and through this it proposes a retheorization of contemporary professionalism. Using institutionalist lenses in professional settings, we highlight the relationship between professionalization and broader institutionalization projects. We start by critically reviewing existing approaches in the sociology of the professions, identifying a functionalist and a conflict‐based approach. Then, we build on and further elaborate an institutionalist perspective on professional work. Such a perspective affirms the importance of studying professions as institutions and connecting professionalization to broader patterns of institutionalization; it highlights the role of professions and professionals as agents in the creation, maintenance, and disruption of institutions, and recognizes the importance of accommodating contemporary patterns of professionalization within the organizational context. We also illustrate how, empirically, the eight papers in this issue advance our understanding of professional agency in contemporary change and, theoretically, contribute to the reconceptualization of the study of professionalism. Finally, we briefly summarize our contribution and identify a series of directions for further research.

  June 13, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12030   open full text
• The Demography Of Resources: Divestments Of Aircraft Among U.K. Airlines, 1919‐1975.
  Tai‐Young Kim, Jeroen G. Kuilman.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 13, 2013
  A longitudinal event‐history analysis using complete data on the aircraft fleets of all British airlines over the period 1919 to 1975 was applied to elucidating how a firm's internal resource demography can explain its resource divestiture decisions. The likelihood of divestiture for any particular aircraft was found to depend strongly on its age and size, but also on the age and size heterogeneity of an airline's entire fleet. The results constitute a demonstration of the utility of taking a demographic approach to studying the management of resource portfolios. This approach may also prove fruitful in the study of other types of strategic resources and their management.

  June 13, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12047   open full text
• What is Organizational Strategy? A Language‐Based View.
  Saku Mantere.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 13, 2013
  Under which conditions does a collective strategy exist among organizational members? Where should a scholar look for one? To offer one way to start solving these puzzles I propose a view of organizational strategy as a language game that governs the use of strategy labels at the level of the organization. Organizational strategy exhibits a division of linguistic labor, where responsibility for key concepts is assigned to particular individuals or organizational functions. Such linguistic experts oversee the proper use and maintenance of strategy language. The language‐based view helps to understand linkages between institutional, network, organizational and micro level views on strategy. It also problematizes widely held intuitions regarding the relationship between strategy and organizational outcomes.

  June 13, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12048   open full text
• Ingratiation in the Workplace: The Role of Subordinate and Supervisor Political Skill.
  Long‐Zeng Wu, Ho Kwong Kwan, Li‐Qun Wei, Jun Liu.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 11, 2013
  Over two decades, social influence researchers have called for a study that would examine how, why, and when influence tactics are effective. Informed by balance theory, the present study proposes that subordinate and supervisor political skill impacts the effectiveness of ingratiation attempts. The results from a survey of 228 supervisor–subordinate dyads in Chinese firms indicated that subordinates with high political skill are less likely to have their exhibited ingratiation behaviour perceived by their supervisors; however, supervisors with high political skill are likely to perceive ingratiation behaviour demonstrated by their subordinates. Moreover, the most successful condition for enabling subordinates to hide ingratiation from their supervisors is when the subordinates are politically astute and the supervisors are not. Furthermore, when supervisors perceive ingratiation behaviour, they rate low on the job performance and promotability of their subordinates; these low ratings are explained by the undermined personal reputation of the subordinates due to their ingratiation detected.

  June 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12033   open full text
• In Pursuit of Greatness: CEO Narcissism, Entrepreneurial Orientation, and Firm Performance Variance.
  William J. Wales, Pankaj C. Patel, G. T. Lumpkin.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 11, 2013
  Building upon the perspective that narcissism is a leadership trait with both ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ sides, the present study examines the question of whether companies led by narcissistic CEOs exhibit higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Moreover, this research examines whether EO partially explains why narcissistic CEO‐led firms experience greater variability in firm performance. Using survey data collected from 173 CEOs, and an archival measure of firm performance variance, we find support for our model. These findings offer an improved understanding of how CEO narcissism influences performance variance, and why the firms they lead may even, at times, be viewed as on a path to success. Study implications are discussed.

  June 11, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12034   open full text
• Corporate Turnarounds: The Duality of Retrenchment and recovery.
  Achim Schmitt, Sebastian Raisch.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 07, 2013
  Corporate turnaround research has described retrenchment and recovery as contradictory forces that should be addressed separately. While a few scholars have argued that retrenchment and recovery are interrelated and may have to be integrated, others have contended that such arguments are flawed since they downplay the contradictions between the two activities. In this paper, we clarify the nature of the retrenchment‐recovery interrelations, as well as their importance for turnaround performance. Drawing on the paradox literature, we argue that retrenchment and recovery form a duality: they are both contradictory and complementary. Integrating the two activities allows turnaround firms to create benefits that exceed the costs of their integration, which affects turnaround performance positively. We test our arguments through an empirical study of 107 Central European turnaround initiatives and find evidence for the assumed duality between retrenchment and recovery. Our main contribution is integrating the hitherto disparate theory perspectives of corporate turnaround into an overarching framework.

  June 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12045   open full text
• When do Outsider Ceos Generate Strategic Change? the Enabling Role of Corporate Stability.
  Ayse Karaevli, Edward J. Zajac.
  Journal of Management Studies. June 07, 2013
  When academic researchers, business commentators, and boards of directors have debated the merits of hiring new CEOs from outside the firm, the implicit or explicit assumption typically made is that outsider CEOs will provide an advantage in achieving strategic change. In this study, we challenge this assumption by employing a duality perspective on stability/change, and we provide an original conceptual framework to posit that it is the presence of corporate stability (ordinary succession, a long‐tenured predecessor CEO, and good firm performance) that allows outsider CEOs to generate a greater degree of post‐succession strategic change. We use extensive longitudinal data from U.S. airline and chemical industries between 1972 and 2010 to test our hypotheses, and we discuss how our supportive findings challenge long‐standing assumptions regarding the outsider succession‐strategic change relationship, and we advocate embracing the non‐intiutive notion that stable (unstable) conditions can be enablers (barriers) of strategic change for outsider CEOs.

  June 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12046   open full text
• When Institutional Work Backfires: Organizational Control of Professional Work in the Pharmaceutical Industry.
  Jagdip Singh, Rama K. Jayanti.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 16, 2013
  Integrating institutional and role theories, this paper develops a Logics–Roles–Action (LRA) framework for understanding how for‐profit organizations structure institutional work to managerially control the work of professionals they employ. Structurally, this institutional work involves three elements: (1) internalizing pluralistic logics (logics); (2) institutionalizing distinct roles embedded in these logics (roles); and (3) scripting goal‐oriented role enactment plans (action). An empirical examination of the LRA framework in the pharmaceutical industry evidences four distinct organizational strategies that script role enactments of sales professionals in their interactions with physicians. Each strategy is intended to reaffirm prevailing institutional logics, but eventually backfires by disrupting the very institutional structures that it seeks to maintain and replicate. We show that this disruptive effect is mediated by changes in the social knowledge of institutional work. We close with theoretical and managerial implications for organizational structuring of institutional work and dynamics of institutional change.

  May 16, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12022   open full text
• Opportunity Evaluation as Rule‐Based Decision Making.
  Matthew S. Wood, David W. Williams.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 16, 2013
  We draw from cognitive science literature on rule‐based thinking to develop and empirically test a theoretical framework of entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation. We argue that entrepreneurs make use of socially constructed rules to discern the attractiveness of an opportunity, for them, specifically. Using conjoint analysis data of 498 decisions made by 62 entrepreneurs, we find that entrepreneurs' use of rules regarding opportunity novelty, resource efficiency, and worst‐case scenario significantly influences entrepreneurs' evaluations of opportunities and that individual differences in opportunity market and technology knowledge augment the effect of the rules on opportunity attractiveness. Additionally, we document that the worst‐case scenario diminishes the positive effect of other rule criteria (e.g. novelty, resource efficiency) on opportunity evaluation and that market and technology knowledge further influence the negative effects of the worst‐case scenario.

  May 16, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12018   open full text
• In Their Profession's Service: How Staff Professionals Exert Influence in Their Organization.
  Thibault Daudigeos.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 15, 2013
  This paper seeks to better understand the way staff professionals bring professional practices inside their organization by examining how they enact a practical agency to promote or disrupt practices. From an inductive study of occupational safety and health managers in a multinational construction company, we develop a framework of how staff professionals build perceived legitimacy and exert unobtrusive influence tactics to manoeuvre around social constraints. We contend that our principal contribution to the literature on institutional work is to provide a situated account of the practical agency of staff professionals inside one organization. In doing so, we extend current knowledge of the embedded agency paradox. Finally, our analysis offers new insights into the literature on professions and institutions by highlighting the work of staff professionals in a real‐life context, which has received scant attention in the last three decades.

  May 15, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12021   open full text
• Categories, Identities, and Cultural Classification: Moving Beyond a Model of Categorical Constraint.
  Mary Ann Glynn, Chad Navis.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 15, 2013
  Categorization processes have gained currency in organizational theory. Categories are endemic to organizations and markets, serving as touchstones for organizational identity claims and for audience attention, legitimation, and valuation. Durand and Paolella argue for an expansion of current perspectives on categories, particularly that of prototype theory. Although we agree in spirit, we advocate an expansion of their perspective, which seems to focus primarily on the cognitive aspects of categorization and the force of their constraint, particularly at the individual level of analysis. We suggest three revisions to Durand and Paolella's arguments in order to extend the conversation. First, we advocate that categorization processes might usefully be understood by socio‐cultural perspectives that explicitly consider the role of audiences and the embeddedness of categories in wider classification systems. Second, we connect categorization processes to identity formation and maintenance at the levels of both the organization and the market. Third, we move beyond the constraining power of categories to consider their generative capabilities in processes of emergence and change. Overall, we discuss these in the context of organizational identities and cultural classification systems.

  May 15, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12023   open full text
• The Relationship between Slack Resources and the Performance of Entrepreneurial Firms: The Role of Venture Capital and Angel Investors.
  Tom Vanacker, Veroniek Collewaert, Ine Paeleman.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 15, 2013
  In this study, we seek to further delineate factors that condition the relationship between slack resources and firm performance. To do so, we develop and test a model that establishes the role of venture capital (VC) and angel investors as powerful external stakeholders who positively moderate the slack–performance relationship. In addition, we provide more insight into this relationship by examining differences between these two types of private investors and by examining the role of their ownership stakes. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 1215 private firms, including VC‐backed firms, angel‐backed firms, and similar firms without such investors. We find that the presence of VC investors positively moderates the relationship between both financial and human slack resources and firm performance, while angel investors only positively moderate the effect of human resource slack. Further, VC investors are only marginally better at helping entrepreneurs to extract value from human resource slack than angel investors and they are no better when it comes to financial slack. Finally, we find that the impact of financial and human resource slack on firm performance is more positive in VC‐backed firms when investors hold high ownership stakes, an effect which is significantly stronger than when angel investors hold high ownership stakes.

  May 15, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12026   open full text
• JMS at 50: Trends over Time.
  Timothy Clark, Mike Wright, Zilia Iskoujina, Philip Garnett.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 08, 2013
  We present an analysis of the articles published in the Journal of Management Studies (JMS) since its inception to assess to what extent JMS has: maintained its leading international ranking; maintained its founding mission as a broad based management journal; remained a broad based management journal compared to other general management journals. In terms of its impact factor and citations despite reaching a low point in 2001, we find that JMS today ranks higher than it has ever done throughout its 50‐year history. From our content analysis covering the life‐cycle of JMS we find four areas have been the most frequently represented, although their relative importance varies between decades: Organizational Management/Behaviour, Strategy, Human Resource Management and General Management, accounting for 67% of articles published over the period. JMS has strengthened its international author distribution through the increase in authors from the EU especially and the period 2000‐2004 which saw the predominance of UK authors was an anomaly. There are marked differences between type of article and author country of origin. Our comparative analysis of the word networks between the journals JMS, AMJ, ASQ and HRM shows that over each decade the papers in the first three normally form a single cluster indicating that the words used in the papers in the different journals are similar, while papers from HRM often form an outlining group. Notably, in the early 2000s papers in JMS form a distinct cluster with papers from HRM paralleling the anomaly identified in the content analysis. Overall, JMS has regained its distinctiveness as a broad–based international management journal, not favouring any particular theoretical or empirical approach.

  May 08, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12040   open full text
• Transforming New Ideas into Practice: An Activity Based Perspective on the Institutionalization of Practices.
  Trish Reay, Samia Chreim, Karen Golden‐Biddle, Elizabeth Goodrick, B.E. (Bernie) Williams, Ann Casebeer, Amy Pablo, C.R. (Bob) Hinings.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 03, 2013
  We develop an activity‐focused process model of how new ideas can be transformed into front line practice by reviving attention to the importance of habitualization as a key component of institutionalization. In contrast to established models that explain how ideas diffuse or spread from one organization to another, we employ a micro‐level perspective to study the subsequent intra‐organizational processes through which these ideas are transformed into new workplace practices. We followed efforts to transform the organizationally accepted idea of “interdisciplinary teamwork” into new everyday practices in four cases over a six year time period. We contribute to the literature by focusing on de‐habitualizing and re‐habitualizing behaviours that connect micro‐level actions with organizational level theorizing. Our model illuminates three phases that we propose are essential to creating and sustaining this connection: micro‐level theorizing, encouraging trying the new practices, and facilitating collective meaning‐making.

  May 03, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12039   open full text
• Why Do I Feel Valued and Why Do I Contribute? A Relational Approach to Employee's Organization‐based Self‐esteem and Job Performance.
  Jun Liu, Chun Hui, Cynthia Lee, Zhen Xiong Chen.
  Journal of Management Studies. April 25, 2013
  Drawing on the relational perspective and self‐consistency theory, we theorize how relationships involving work‐centric, off‐work‐centric and/or personal components can affect an employee's organization‐based self‐esteem and job performance in Chinese organizational contexts. Matched data were collected from a multi‐source sample that included 219 employee‐supervisor dyads from a Chinese bank. Results based on hierarchical regression analyses reveal that a high‐quality relationship with a supervisor through work and off‐work domains (leader‐member exchange and guanxi) is positively related to organization‐based self‐esteem. Organization‐based self‐esteem plays a mediating role in the relationship between guanxi and job performance. Additionally, career mentoring from a supervisor (a work‐centric relationship involving personal components) moderates the relationship between organization‐based self‐esteem and job performance.

  April 25, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12037   open full text
• ‘We are being Pilloried for Something, We Did Not Even Know We Had Done Wrong!’ Quality Control and Orders of Worth in the British Audit Profession.
  Carlos Ramirez.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 27, 2013
  This paper contributes to the analysis of institutional work by looking at situations of perceived injustice that institutional change can create. To this end, the paper mobilizes the work of Boltanski and Thévenot on orders of worth to analyse the consequences for a professional body of a shift in institutional logics towards more accountability. The feeling of injustice experienced – and voiced – by some members of the largest British institute of auditors, the ICAEW, after it set up and operated a quality monitoring unit, serves to illustrate how change can turn awry when equity in a community of peers is threatened, and how institutional work can remedy such a situation by restoring a sense of worth in the community.

  February 27, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12011   open full text
• Still Blue‐Collar after all these Years? An Ethnography of the Professionalization of Emergency Ambulance Work.
  Leo McCann, Edward Granter, Paula Hyde, John Hassard.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 27, 2013
  This paper explores the professionalization project of paramedics, based on an ethnographic study of UK National Health Service (NHS) ambulance personnel. Drawing on concepts derived from institutional theory and the sociology of professions, we argue that the project is enacted at two levels, namely a formal, structural and senior level reflecting changing legitimation demands made on NHS practitioners and pursued through institutional entrepreneurship, and an informal, agentic, ‘street level’ enacted by the practitioners themselves via ‘institutional work’. Focusing on this latter, front‐line level, our ethnographic data demonstrate that the overall impact of the senior level professionalization project on the working lives of paramedics has been somewhat muted, mostly because it has had limited power over the organizations that employ paramedics. Given the slow progress of the senior level professionalization project, paramedics at street level continue to enact subtle forms of institutional work which serve to maintain ‘blue‐collar professionalism’ – a form originally identified in Donald Metz's ethnography of ambulance work. Our analysis draws attention to the complex and contested nature of professionalization projects, in that their enactment at senior and street levels can be somewhat misaligned and possibly contradictory.

  February 27, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12009   open full text
• Journal Impact as a Diffusion Process: A Conceptualization and the Case of the Journal of Management Studies.
  Zeki Simsek, Ciaran Heavey, Justin J. P. Jansen.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 27, 2013
  While the question of what makes a journal impactful continues to draw scholarly attention and debate, the lack of conceptual foundation as to what journal impact represents, and how it manifests itself, has impeded efforts to establish a richer understanding. Drawing from the theory of innovation diffusion, we propose journal impact as a multidimensional concept manifested most prominently in the magnitude, prestige, breadth, dispersion, and duration dynamics of citations accruing to a journal. In doing so, we complement extant representations of journal impact as a unidimensional concept with insights into the pattern and profile of a journal impact across space and time. We illustrate the multidimensionality of journal impact as a diffusion process in a longitudinal analysis of citation patterns at the Journal of Management Studies over a 40‐year period.

  February 27, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12007   open full text
• Emotional Dynamics and Strategizing Processes: A Study of Strategic Conversations in Top Team Meetings.
  Feng Liu, Sally Maitlis.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 16, 2013
  An important but largely unexplored issue in the study of strategy‐as‐discourse is how emotion affects the discursive processes through which strategy is constructed. To address this question, this paper investigates displayed emotions in strategic conversations and explores how the emotional dynamics generated through these displays shape a top management team's strategizing. Using microethnography, we analyse conversations about ten strategic issues raised across seven top management team meetings and identify five different kinds of emotional dynamic, each associated with a different type of strategizing process. The emotional dynamics vary in the sorts of emotions displayed, their sequencing and overall form. The strategizing processes vary in how issues are proposed, discussed, and evaluated, and whether decisions are taken or postponed. We identify team relationship dynamics as a key mechanism linking emotional dynamics and strategizing processes, and issue urgency as another important influence.

  January 16, 2013   doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01087.x   open full text
• The Mutation of Professionalism as a Contested Diffusion Process: Clinical Guidelines as Carriers of Institutional Change in Medicine.
  Paul S. Adler, Seok‐Woo Kwon.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 07, 2013
  The Anglo‐American institution of the profession is mutating: we propose to analyse this mutation as a contested diffusion process that spreads new organizing practices among professionals. We offer an integrated account of the roles played in this diffusion/mutation process by facilitating and impeding factors at three levels: individual professionals (their autonomy, expertise, values, identities, and ties), professional organizations (their strategies, structures, cultures, skills, and systems), and the broader institutional field (professional associations, accountability demands, and competition). At the occupational and organizational level, we show how the distinctive and evolving features of professionalism moderate the mechanisms found in prior research on diffusion in other, non‐professional settings; and at the field level, we show how field‐level forces moderate the impact of professionalism on these diffusion dynamics. Changes at each of these levels interact with changes at the others, with influences flowing both downward and upward. We ground and illustrate this theoretical synthesis with evidence from the case of clinical guidelines as carriers of institutional change in the medical profession.

  January 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12003   open full text
• Re‐Theorizing Change: Institutional Experimentation and the Struggle for Domination in the Field of Public Accounting.
  Bertrand Malsch, Yves Gendron.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 07, 2013
  Using change theory integrated with Bourdieusian sociology, we re‐theorize a major institutional shift in the field of public accounting. The case we examine involves the consolidation of commercial values in the auditing profession. In reinterpreting this shift, we highlight an institutional process structured around a conflict between commercial innovators and guardians of the professional tradition. Our analysis indicates a peculiar kind of institutional work, wherein economic capital is reinforced at the field level while the logic of commercialism is strengthened in accounting firms' structures and practitioners' mindset. From our studying of the field of accountancy, we develop the concept of institutional experimentation in order to offer a view of institutional work as a fragile and unpredictable process. Specifically, the latter is subject to trials and tests by actors involved in a series of more or less connected experiments in trying to extend their professional jurisdiction through institutional innovation, while seeking to consolidate the traditional foundations of their jurisdictional legitimacy through institutional reproduction. Our paper also challenges the notion of organizational archetypes. While a focus on the firms' formal organizational parameters may suggest archetypical stability, the picture is more complex when one takes into account processes of institutional experimentation and the duality of institutional change and stability.

  January 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12006   open full text
• Alternative Pathways of Change in Professional Services Firms: The Case of Management Consulting.
  Matthias Kipping, Ian Kirkpatrick.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 07, 2013
  This paper contributes to the debate about new organizational forms in professional service firms (PSFs) by suggesting an alternative to extant accounts of how change takes place. To explain the displacement of community forms of organizing by more corporate forms, much of the literature has so far focused on intra‐archetype adaptation and evolutionary processes, looking mainly at established PSFs in law and accounting. Drawing on ideas from the sociology of professions and institutional theory, we suggest that, in more weakly regulated and open professional fields, change might also come from firms entering from the margins or the outside and bringing with them different models of organizing. We explore this possibility through a historical case study of the management consulting field in the UK over a 50 year period, based on a wide range of data sources. Our study shows that despite good intentions at the outset the main professional association was unable and – increasingly – unwilling to restrict entry. This resulted in growing fragmentation of the field through new entrants and, consequently, in greater diversity of organizational forms. Such findings draw attention not only to alternative pathways of change in PSFs, but also to the importance of distinguishing between professional organizational fields more generally.

  January 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12004   open full text
• The Double Edge of Ambiguity in Strategic Planning.
  Chahrazad Abdallah, Ann Langley.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 07, 2013
  While the communications and strategy literatures have suggested that ambiguity embedded in texts such as strategic plans many enable the accommodation of divergent perspectives and contribute to building consensus and commitment, little is known about the consequences of such ambiguity for the consumption of strategy discourse or for the enactment of planned strategy. In a case study of strategic planning in a cultural organization, we identify three forms of ambiguity embedded in the strategy text, and show how these features generate different forms of consumption among organization members. We find that strategic ambiguity initially plays an enabling role as participants engage in enacting their respective interpretations of strategy. However, over time, the mobilizing effects of strategic ambiguity lead to internal contradiction and overextension. The study contributes by exploring empirically the double‐edged nature of strategic ambiguity, and by identifying the underlying mechanisms by which its paradoxical consequences emerge. We show that while ambiguous strategy discourse enables strategic development and change, it may contain the seeds of its own dissolution contributing to cyclical patterns of strategy development and reorientation.

  January 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12002   open full text
• Strategy, Discourse and Practice: The Intensification of Power.
  Cynthia Hardy, Robyn Thomas.
  Journal of Management Studies. January 07, 2013
  We adopt a Foucauldian approach to discourse to show how power relations shape the constitution of strategy. By exploring two particular discourses associated with the strategy of a global telecommunications company, our study shows how the power effects of discourses are intensified through particular discursive and material practices, leading to the production of objects and subjects that are clearly aligned with the strategy. In this way, our study contributes to understanding: the mechanisms whereby discourse bears down on strategy through intensification practices; different forms of resistance; and the way in which strategy objects and subjects reproduce (or undermine) discourse.

  January 07, 2013   doi: 10.1111/joms.12005   open full text
• How Offshore Professionals' Job Dissatisfaction Can Promote Further Offshoring: Organizational Outcomes of Job Crafting.
  Elisa Mattarelli, Maria Rita Tagliaventi.
  Journal of Management Studies. November 23, 2012
  This paper investigates the process that leads from job dissatisfaction to new business opportunities in organizations that offshore R&D activities to emerging countries. Specifically, we investigate a major source of job dissatisfaction for offshore professionals: the misalignment between the work that they perform and their professional identity. Our findings indicate that offshore professionals react against the perception of a threat to work‐identity integrity through individual and collective job crafting. A significant outcome of job crafting is the introduction of new markets, industries, and services, which in turn may change a professional's job design. The perceptions of the compatibility of organizational identity with professional identity and with new idea recognition on the one hand, and of distant and local social support on the other, act as intervening conditions in the process. We discuss theoretical contributions to the evolution of offshoring, job crafting, and the interplay between organizational and professional identity, together with managerial implications.

  November 23, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01088.x   open full text
• Linking Theory and Context: ‘Strategy Research in Emerging Economies’ after Wright et al. (2005).
  Dean Xu, Klaus E. Meyer.
  Journal of Management Studies. May 21, 2012
  Emerging economies provide a laboratory for investigating the interaction between firm strategies and local contexts. Mike Wright and colleagues have shaped this research agenda by creating legitimacy for this line of research, and by outlining how research in four types of strategy contexts can advance theories. We assess how this agenda has progressed in eight leading journals in the past decade, particularly during the five years following their review, with the aims to identify broad trends of theorizing, and to outline future research challenges. Emerging economy contexts challenge some of the assumptions of theories originally developed for markets that are relatively stable and efficient. Researchers have advanced several theoretical perspectives by addressing these challenges. Wright and colleagues focused on institutional theory as a major foundation for such work, and we find it continuing to be the most popular theoretical perspective. In addition, new perspectives have emerged, focusing on learning, relationships, real options, and spillovers as focal concepts for theorizing.

  May 21, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01051.x   open full text
• Category Stretching: Reorienting Research on Categories in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Organization Theory.
  Rodolphe Durand, Lionel Paolella.
  Journal of Management Studies. February 07, 2012
  We advocate for more tolerance in the manner we collectively address categories and categorization in our research. Drawing on the prototype view, organizational scholars have provided a ‘disciplining’ framework to explain how category membership shapes, impacts, and limits organizational success. By stretching the existing straightjacket of scholarship on categories, we point to other useful conceptualizations of categories – i.e. the causal‐model and the goal‐based approaches of categorization – and propose that depending on situational circumstances, and beyond a disciplining exercise, categories involve a cognitive test of congruence and a goal satisfying calculus. Unsettling the current consensus about categorical imperatives and market discipline, we suggest also that audiences may tolerate more often than previously thought organizations that blend, span, and stretch categories. We derive implications for research about multi‐category membership and mediation in markets, and suggest ways in which work on the theme of categories in the strategy, entrepreneurship, and managerial cognition literatures can be enriched.

  February 07, 2012   doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2011.01039.x   open full text