The present study aims to investigate the mediating role of job crafting, namely the set of proactive behaviors aimed at shaping the job role according to one’s preferences, in the relationship between psychological capital (PsyCap) and career success. This latter was operationalized as both a worker’s subjective perception (i.e., job satisfaction) and an objective attainment (i.e., change of hierarchical level, namely promotion). A two-wave study on 349 employees from a large service organization, working as middle managers, was conducted matching participants’ self-reported data (i.e., PsyCap, job crafting, and job satisfaction) with their hierarchical level, provided by the HR department. The results from the longitudinal structural equation model supported the posited links among variables and thus confirmed the positive influence of PsyCap on crafting behaviors, which in turn positively affected both job satisfaction and promotions over time. Moreover, job crafting reciprocally and positively influenced PsyCap. Finally, job crafting fully mediated the effect of PsyCap on job satisfaction, as well as those on promotions, pointing to the key role of agentic behaviors in translating one’s psychological resources in subjective and objective career success. Future research directions and practical implications for organizations are discussed.
The present study examines whether and why leaders’ transparent behavior influences employee creativity. Field survey data from 51 teams and 199 employees in a large IT company located in China showed that both psychological safety and ability to focus attention mediated the positive relationship between leaders’ transparent behavior and employee creativity. Furthermore, leaders’ transparent behavior was found to be positively related to employee psychological safety, which in turn affected employee ability to focus attention and creativity. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.
This article examines how workplace cynicism moderates the relationship between interactional fairness and perceptions of organizational support (POS). Using a sample of full-time employees, I found a positive, direct effect between interactional fairness and POS. Furthermore, the moderating effect suggests the relation between interactional fairness and POS was stronger for less cynical employees. Incorporating a social exchange framework, this article discusses how the typically positive effect of interactional fairness is lost on cynical employees. This result was confirmed using a controlled scenario-based protocol, which replicated the results of the field study. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Identity and identification remain very popular constructs for organizational scholars, regularly generating a bounty of provocative research. To help maintain the generativity of these root constructs, I suggest four "course corrections" for our explorations, namely, focusing more on (1) the core aspect of identification, that is, the definition of self in terms of a target; (2) other targets of identification aside from the organization; (3) the dark side of identification; and (4) perspectives of identity beyond social identity theory/self-categorization theory.
Based on a resource perspective, the authors investigated how leader–follower power distance value incongruence influences employees’ withdrawal behavior. Data were collected twice in China, and the sample included 66 leaders and 350 followers. Leader–follower power distance value incongruence was found to be associated with the psychological workplace strain experienced by followers, indicating that incongruence was a stressor for this group and further influenced their withdrawal behavior. Moreover, incongruence had asymmetrical effects; that is, followers experienced higher psychological workplace strain when their power distance was lower than that of their leaders, compared with when their power distance was higher. The authors also found that the leader’s role can make a difference, as the leaders’ political skill mitigated the effect of value incongruence on their followers’ psychological workplace strain. The study provides a novel extension of value congruence theory and also contributes to the field of value conflict management.
This study considers how employees’ tenacity might enhance their propensity to engage in knowledge exchange with organizational peers, as well as how the positive tenacity–knowledge exchange relationship is invigorated by two types of role conflict: within-work and between work and family. Using data from a large Mexican organization in the logistics sector, this study shows that tenacity increases knowledge exchange, and this effect is stronger at higher levels of within-work and work–family role conflict. The invigorating role of within-work role conflict is particularly salient when work–family role conflict is high. These findings inform organizations that the application of personal energy to knowledge-enhancing activities is particularly useful when employees encounter severe workplace adversity because of conflicting role demands.
Organizational change has become complex and challenging, and employee attitudes and beliefs toward change are even more important. This article proposes a theoretical framework on how authentic leadership may influence followers’ change-oriented attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors through follower psychological resources including hope, trust, optimism, self-efficacy, and resilience, which influence readiness for change and change implementation. We maintain that an authentic leader’s behavior can influence his or her followers’ change-oriented behaviors in participation in decision-making processes and change initiatives, organization citizenship behavior, organizational learning processes, and forming coalition for change. We developed propositions for further empirical investigation.
A field study of organizational leaders and their immediate followers was conducted to investigate (a) the mediating roles of follower openness to change values and follower self-transcendence values in linking transformational leadership to follower change resistance and follower extra effort, respectively and (b) the moderating role of organization change magnitude in influencing the mediation effects. Transformational leadership theory postulates that a range of follower attitudinal and performance outcomes are at least partially explained by a leader’s ability to influence followers’ values to support organizational change. Using Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes’s moderated mediation framework, this study extends transformational leadership research by testing a model that explicates the roles of leader behavior, follower values, and a key contextual variable in producing effects on follower attitudinal and performance outcomes. Data from 181 organizational leaders and 723 of their respective followers demonstrated strong support for the moderated mediation model. The conditional indirect effects of transformational leadership on follower change resistance and follower extra effort via follower openness to change and self-transcendence values, respectively, were stronger in work contexts characterized by high organization change magnitude. Implications for theory, future research, and practice are discussed.
This study systematically examines collegiate leadership centers and their role in leader development. The findings extend research from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership by focusing on centers as the unit of analysis. Our mixed-method approach involved coding center websites and analyzing center director responses from an online survey. Results indicate a proliferation of leadership centers, especially at public universities, as well as a leader-centric philosophy that directs much leader development programs. The results from 69 leadership centers in the United States highlight a disconnect between research and practice, and an opportunity to advance leader development through greater use of evidence-based methods.
We examined how formal organizational diversity policies affect minorities’ leadership-relevant self-perceptions and goals in two experiments. Organizational mission statements were manipulated to reflect policies acknowledging and valuing subgroup differences (Multiculturalism), de-emphasizing subgroup differences while valuing interindividual differences (Value-in-Individual Differences), or de-emphasizing differences in favor of an overarching group membership (Value-in-Homogeneity). Study 1 (N = 162) showed that, compared with Value-in-Homogeneity policies, Multiculturalism or Value-in-Individual Differences policies increase perceptions of an open diversity climate, which in turn enhance leadership self-efficacy of situational minority employees. Focusing on racial–ethnic minority and majority employees, Study 2 (N = 119) replicated and extended these findings by revealing similar results on anticipated leadership self-efficacy, positive outcome expectations, and the willingness to apply for higher level leadership positions.
Informal leadership has been a topic of growing interest in recent years, with the recognition that much remains to be known about this phenomenon. In the present study, an integrative social–political conceptualization of informal leadership is proposed and tested. The research question was tested through individual self-report survey questions, a network-based consensus informal leadership measure whereby each employee identified informal leaders in their network, and individual performance provided by the organization. Specifically, the mediated moderation test demonstrated that employees high in political will, as operationalized by power motivation, were more likely to be collectively recognized as informal leaders than those low in political will, and the performance of these informal leaders was found to be contingent on their political skill. By capturing informal leadership using a consensus measure, the results of this study provide a first look at informal leadership in an organizational setting, not team or group. Furthermore, the current research offers a social network—political conceptualization of informal leadership in organizations that contributes to theory, research, and practice.
Time banditry recently has been introduced as a distinct construct in the counterproductive work behavior literature. Employees are engaged in time banditry when they pursue non–task-related activities during work time. We posit that they capitalize on the ambiguity in most work environments to manage impressions that their time banditry behavior really is productive and not counterproductive work behavior. In this investigation, two studies were conducted to explore variables that can be used to classify time bandits into four different categories. Discriminant function analysis was used to determine individual-level and job-level factors that classify time bandits. Results revealed that both situational and dispositional variables can be used to predict time bandit type. Suggestions for future research and implications for managing, reducing, and changing time banditry behaviors are discussed.
Drawing from Johns’s theory of self-serving behavior, we identified workplace politics as a contextual factor that affects the relative costs and benefits associated with supervisor rating behaviors. Our investigation tested these ideas by considering how politics influence the way in which raters combine information when evaluating subordinate performance. Specifically, we examined the three-way interaction of in-role behavior, extra-role behavior, and politics perceptions on overall ratings of performance in a two-study, multilevel investigation. Across two studies, results generally were consistent with the hypothesized three-way interaction, such that the joint effects of extra-role and in-role behavior on performance ratings varied across levels of politics. Implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.
Political skill, frequently understood as a social skill at work, is argued to be a valuable resource not only at the individual level but also for the teams. Using hierarchical linear modeling and data from 525 students, organized into 115 teams, we demonstrate that political skill at the individual level shapes individual perceptions of team efficacy and trust in team. Both the level and the composition of political skill within the team are found to be critical for these team emergent states, albeit they play out differently for team members who are high versus low in political skill.
The previously uninvestigated role of work drive as a moderator of perceptions of politics–job outcomes relationships was examined in a series of field studies. Consistent with the underpinnings of sensemaking theory, we hypothesized that those with high levels of work drive would experience fewer adverse consequences when coupled with heightened perceptions of politics relative to those reporting less work drive. Across two independent studies, hypotheses were strongly supported. Specifically, perceptions of politics demonstrated a significant, direct influence on job satisfaction, job tension, and emotional exhaustion for those with less work drive in Sample 1 (municipal employees) and only a minimal impact for those with higher levels of drive. Results were replicated in Sample 2 (members of a management association). Implications of these findings for science and practice, strengths and limitations, and future research directions are discussed.
Leader developmental efficacy, or one’s belief in his/her ability to develop leadership knowledge or skills, is theorized to predict engagement and success in leader development. Conducting the first empirical studies on this construct using cross-sectional and quasi-longitudinal surveys across three samples consisting of 73, 94, and 49 leaders, respectively, we find that leader developmental efficacy predicts intentions to self-develop leadership above and beyond past leader development. Intentions to develop as a leader, in turn, predicts actual implementation of leader development behaviors 1 month later. Examining reverse directionality, we observe that the quantity, and potentially the quality, of past leader development behaviors are positively related to current leader developmental efficacy. Finally, leader developmental efficacy is associated with an increase in leader efficacy through a leader development program. Implications for assessing and developing leader developmental efficacy prior to formal programs are discussed.
This research examines the relationship of leader political skill to subordinate effectiveness through subordinates’ perceptions of leaders’ behavioral integrity, trust in leader, and subsequent work effort. Results among a sample of enlisted military cadets provided support for the majority of study hypotheses. Specifically, subordinates’ perceptions of behavioral integrity mediated the relationship between leader political skill and trust; moreover, while subordinates’ trust in their leader was not significantly related to their work effort, work effort was significantly related to objective performance. Our contributions to the political skill and behavioral integrity literatures are discussed in light of this study’s noteworthy strengths and limitations.
This special issue of the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies addresses the topic of "Social Influence and Politics in Organizational Research," a topic which spans more than a century and represents one of the oldest areas of inquiry in the field. In this article, we first review the literature to extract what we seem to know about this area of the field, and then we shift to an identification of some areas about which we still need to know more. Nine articles were selected to be published in this special issue, and they reflect different aspects of some these "need to know more" areas of social influence and politics in organizations. We believe these articles represent solid contributions to new knowledge in this area, and we hope they stimulate further and renewed scholarly interest.
Research about the impact of the CEO’s personality on firm-level outcomes has been ambiguous, partly because the underlying mechanisms remain largely unexplored. Given that the individuals most strongly influenced by a firm’s CEO are the top management team (TMT) members, this study focuses on the CEO–TMT interface as a salient intervening relationship. We hypothesize that CEO personality traits of extraversion and openness to experience would influence firm performance indirectly through TMT behavioral integration (TMT teamness). Using multisource survey data from 138 small- to medium-sized firms, we test and find general support for a mediation model in which the CEO’s personality traits are positively related to TMT behavioral integration, which, in turn, enhances firm performance. Limitations and implications for future research are also discussed.
Appraisal interviews (AIs) are one of the most commonly used human resource practices in organizations. However, they are often criticized for comprising conflicting purposes. In this study, we focus on contextual factors of the appraisal process. Specifically, we propose that AIs follow a two-phase model of performance evaluation and development planning. These two phases trigger different levels of employee appraisal participation which, in turn, affects employees’ perception of voice. In a sample of 48 audiotaped AIs, we coded employees’ objective appraisal participation throughout the entire interview session and linked it to subsequent ratings of perceived voice. Results showed that interviews were highly leader-centered and mainly concentrated on performance evaluation. Employees’ appraisal participation was significantly lower during performance evaluation than during development planning. Appraisal participation during development planning, but not during performance evaluation, was related to subsequent ratings of perceived voice. In addition, this relationship was moderated by supervisor trust.
The purpose of this investigation is to examine how different dimensions of firm reputation interact to predict firm financial performance. Specifically, we draw on the tenets of stakeholder theory to argue that firm managers can optimize their financial performance by minding their financial and social reputations. If firm managers fail to establish a sound financial reputation, then their financial performance suffers, and especially does so if the firm has dedicated resources to maintaining a strong social reputation. Time separated data from 393 firms supported our hypotheses that financial performance is predicted by financial reputation, and that this relationship is moderated by social reputation. Implications, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed.
Leading meetings represent a typically and frequently performed leadership task. This study investigated the relationship between the leadership style of supervisors and employees’ perception of meeting outcomes. Results showed that participants reported greater meeting satisfaction when their meeting leader was assessed as a considerate supervisor, with the relationship between considerate leadership style and meeting satisfaction being mediated by both relational- and task-oriented meeting procedures. The results, however, provide no support for initiating structure being associated with meeting effectiveness measures. More generally, the findings imply that leadership behavior is a crucial factor in explaining important meeting outcomes.
There has been a growing interest in leader emotion in organizational scholarship. Concomitantly, the body of research on self-leadership continues to expand. Nonetheless, relatively little work has focused on emotional self-leadership. We address this void by exploring intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects of emotional self-leadership and its inherent challenges and opportunities. Specifically, we examine how emotional self-leadership strategies can be used to shape emotional experiences, emotional authenticity, and other work-related outcomes. We offer an emotional self-leadership model, research propositions, and implications for research and practice.
Efforts to identify antecedents of job dedication (i.e., being loyal and cooperative) are likely to offer value to managers. The authors examined the combined effects of organizational politics and emotional stability on the relationship between leader–member exchange and job dedication. Results of analyses conducted on 156 private sector workers revealed that leader–member exchange quality yielded high levels of job dedication among all employees except the emotionally unstable working in highly political climates. These results not only reinforce the need to hire emotionally stable workers and keep organizational politics at low levels but also point to the limitations of leader influences on employee contextual performance.
This study examines whether work engagement enriches employees beyond the contribution of the domain of work, focusing on satisfaction with life and community involvement. Moreover, the ambivalence of scholars about the added value of the work engagement concept compared with similar work-related attitudes prompted us to assess the benefits that work engagement offers with regard to improving one’s satisfaction with life and community involvement compared with the benefits of other, similar work-related attitudes such as job involvement and job satisfaction. Furthermore, given the studies indicating the impact of sector of employment (public vs. business) on understanding the work/nonwork nexus, the current study also investigates the effect of the sector of employment on this enrichment process. Utilizing multilevel modeling analysis techniques on data from 554 employees in public and business sector organizations, we obtained results consistent with our hypotheses. Work engagement and employees’ outcomes beyond work had positive and significant relationships. Moreover, the relationship between work engagement and community involvement was stronger in public sector employees than in business sector employees. The implications for organizational theory, research, and practice are discussed as possible leverage points for creating conditions that promote engagement at work and beyond.
Drawing on justice theory and the side-bet theory of commitment, we explored the nuanced relationship between idiosyncratic deals and outcomes. We developed a model that posits affective commitment as a mediator between idiosyncratic deals and positive work outcomes, whereas continuance commitment mediates the relationship between idiosyncratic deals and negative nonwork domain outcomes. Furthermore, we hypothesized moderated mediation in that the employee’s assessment of organizational justice will moderate the relationship between idiosyncratic deals and continuance commitment, which in turn influences the nonwork domain outcomes. Data collected from 182 employee–manager dyads indicated support for our conceptual model. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of how to manage both the benefits and the costs of idiosyncratic deals.
Communication is a topic frequently linked to leadership; however, the linkage often is limited to a view of communication as a tool to be employed by leaders in efforts to achieve particular purposes. The aim of this article is to provide a more expansive view of the communication process and its current and potential contributions to an understanding of leadership theory and dynamics. The article begins with an exploration of the ways that the study of communication intersects with the study of leadership itself, and then explores a number of communication concepts that are particularly important to the study and practice of leadership, but which have yet to be fully examined. As offered in this article, communication is considerably more than a leadership tool or strategy. Rather, it is an orientation, a world view, a way of understanding leadership that focuses more broadly on the process of social influence itself.
In today’s "gig economy," more and more jobs are offered to independent contractors. Independent contractors have a highly defined, narrow, finite set of obligations to their employing organizations. As such, independent contractors gain the benefit of flexibility, choosing who and when they work, and organizations gain the benefit of nimbleness, expanding, and contracting their workforce at will without taking on the robust obligations they must typically offer to a full-time employee. As this sector of the U.S. economy grows, how our existing theories of employee–employer relationships apply is of interest. The present study sought to explore how one such theory (psychological contract theory) manifests in the independent contractor–organization relationship. Drawing on this theory’s findings with respect to key antecedents of an employment relationship, we explore how particular types of negotiation behavior an organization uses with an independent contractor affect the resources allocated to the independent contractor, vis-à-vis obligations that the independent contractor feels that the focal organization should fulfill (psychological contract). These resources are hypothesized to directly relate to the independent contractor’s sense of distributive justice, as well as the contracting organization’s evaluation of the independent contractor’s performance. Overall, the mixed results suggest that psychological contract theory can be applied to the context of the independent contractor–organization relationship in order to uncover how unique features of the relationship (e.g., highly negotiated terms) affect how obligations are created and reciprocated between the parties. Psychological contract type appears to be a partial linchpin between an organization’s negotiation behaviors on independent contractor performance.
This article reviews goal-setting theory in terms of the causal relationships it specifies, the boundary conditions within which the causal relationships occur, and the mediators that explain the causal relationships. Three types of goals are described: performance, behavioral, and learning. Emphasis in the article is placed on findings regarding the beneficial effect of setting a specific, difficult learning goal.
Organizations are concerned that the newest generation of workers believe they are entitled to positive organizational outcomes, regardless of their level of effort. To better understand employee entitlement and organizational outcomes, we tested whether entitlement was directly related to the proactive work behaviors of voice and taking charge. We also examined whether narcissism and organizational identification moderated these relationships. Results suggest that entitlement is not directly related to either of the proactive work behaviors examined. However, support was found for a model where narcissism moderated the relationship between entitlement and taking charge behaviors. Low narcissism employees are less likely to exhibit taking charge behaviors when they report low levels of entitlement. When employees are high in narcissism, low entitlement employees are actually more likely to take charge than employees high in entitlement. Organizational identification was also found to moderate the relationship between entitlement and voice as well as between entitlement and taking charge. Highly entitled individuals will engage in more voice and taking charge when they demonstrate high levels of organizational identification. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
This study examines the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on employee attitudes (affective commitment and job satisfaction). Based on a sample of 1,249 employees in 40 firms, collected across multiple time points from multisource data, hierarchical linear modeling was employed to examine the mediating role of relational social capital between CSR and employee attitudes and the moderating role of communication in this relationship. The results indicate that CSR has a positive influence on affective commitment and job satisfaction and that this is fully mediated by relational social capital. However, the moderated mediation effects of communication were insignificant. The results suggest that firms may "do well" by eliciting positive employee attitudes through relational social capital stemming from "doing good." Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Despite the importance of middle managers’ entrepreneurial behavior for corporate entrepreneurship, there is still a lack of knowledge about its determinants. Knowledge of the role of individual psychological states and work attitudes remains particularly thin. Through an empirical investigation into 136 middle managers in a large Singapore telecommunications firm, this study finds that psychological ownership is positively related to entrepreneurial behavior and job satisfaction within these middle managers. The study further finds that job satisfaction is positively related to entrepreneurial behavior and mediates the relationship between psychological ownership and entrepreneurial behavior. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the relationship between psychological ownership and pro-organizational behavior, extending psychological ownership research into the field of corporate entrepreneurship via middle managers’ entrepreneurial behavior.
Corporate ethical values have been studied in a number of ways to understand how they influence the behavioral intention or actions of employees to achieve organizational survival and success. Nevertheless, they have not been considered as much within international business organizations, specifically around the issue of turnover which is important for those concerned with retaining knowledgeable staff in the organization. This study develops a model that explains how corporate ethical values influence turnover intention based on social identity theory and ethical principled theory. The empirical results find that career satisfaction directly relates to turnover intention whereas corporate ethical values indirectly relate to turnover intention through the full mediation of organizational identification. Meanwhile, the effects of career satisfaction on turnover intention and on organizational identification are positively moderated by corporate ethical values. Last, managerial implications and research limitations are discussed.
In this study, we test whether leader political skill moderates the relationship between more transactional leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships and follower work performance. A field study was conducted among 753 followers and 153 leaders from several Norwegian business organizations. The results showed that the negative relationship between more transactional LMX relationships and follower work performance was weaker for employees with a highly politically skilled leader. Thus, leader political skill seemed in part to mitigate the negative effects of transactional LMX. This is an important observation, since finding alternative routes to enhanced work performance of followers in less favorable transactional LMX relationships is essential. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
This research integrates social exchange theory and resource theory to develop a measure of the types of resources supervisors provide to their employees, referred to as supervisor-provided resources (SPR). The factor structure, construct validity, and criterion-related validity for the SPR are reported based on six separate samples of working adults. Results indicated three resource dimensions: money, social, and task resources. All three resource types were positively related to quality of the social exchange relationship, but they were differentially related to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Implications of the SPR for future research and practice in the context of exchange relationships are discussed.
This study adds to the existing literature by empirically demonstrating that psychological climate is an important variable in understanding the relationships between abusive supervision and employee outcomes. Using psychological contract theory as a framework, we examined the relationships among abusive supervision, psychological climate, felt violation, and three work outcomes: organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Results from a survey of 448 civilian managers employed by the U.S. government showed that the relationship between abusive supervision and felt violation was moderated by psychological climate, suggesting that an abuse-intolerant climate heighted rather than buffered the effects of abuse on felt violation. Felt violation also partially mediated the relationship between abuse and the outcome variables. Using Muller, Judd, and Yzerbyt’s method for testing moderated mediation, we found partial support for felt violation mediating the effect of the interaction between abuse and psychological climate on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This model was not supported for turnover intentions. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research on abusive supervision are discussed.
This study sought to investigate whether leaders tend to adapt their leadership style, within the full range of leadership model, between normal and extreme event firefighting contexts; as well as assess the extent these leadership styles are related to followers’ performance across both contexts. The correlational research design was coupled with a cross-sectional retrospective survey using hierarchical regression analysis. Results indicated that transactional contingent reward leadership style was the dominant predictor of followers’ performance in extreme events. Results showed that in normal contexts, transformational leadership style was the dominant predictor of followers’ performance. Leader behaviors tended to change (adapt) between normal contexts and extreme events, as the same leaders were less transformational in their behaviors in extreme events as compared with normal contexts. Theoretical and practical implications for adaptive leadership responses are discussed along with recommendations for future research.
Grounded in the strategic leadership literature and upper echelons theory, this study proposes that founder CEOs tend to take more risks than agent CEOs because of the former’s overconfidence. We further suggest that the relationship between founder CEO status and firm risk taking can be moderated by certain internal or external factors that influence just how overconfident a CEO might be. Our theoretical predictions are well supported by a large survey data set on Chinese CEOs. Specifically, the positive relationship between founder CEO status and firm risk taking weakens when the CEO is younger, when the CEO also chairs the board of directors, and when the CEO’s task environment is less uncertain, less complex, and more munificent.
The study investigated if personality can explain why certain managers are prone to overrate or underrate their own effectiveness. Thus, the relationship between self–other agreement of effectiveness and personality was studied. In total, 214 managers completed a multisource feedback and provided personality data on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. Results show that more extraverted leaders overrated their effectiveness in relation to their supervisors but had more accurate perceptions when self–peer and self–subordinate ratings were compared. Leaders with an intuition preference had more accurate perceptions when comparing self and supervisor or subordinate ratings while leaders with judging preferences received lower subordinate than self-ratings. Findings show that personality partly explains why leaders overrate or underrate their effectiveness and thus can be used for understanding leaders’ careers.
Recent developments in servant leadership theory exposed a gap in the research literature regarding traits that are important to servant leaders. Our study partially addresses this gap by examining the trait of core self-evaluations and its relationship to servant leadership and leader effectiveness. The results of our study indicate that leader’s core self-evaluations are positively related to followers’ perceptions of servant leadership and leader effectiveness, and the relationship between leaders’ core self-evaluations and leader effectiveness is fully mediated by servant leadership. The results add support to current servant leadership theory by confirming the role that core self-evaluations play in servant leader emergence, and extend the research on core self-evaluations as it relates to leader performance.
Leadership clearly has an impact on organizational outcomes, and previous research has revealed the antecedents and consequences of leadership styles and the effects of leaders’ personality traits. We focus on an area that has received much less attention: ethical leadership practice and the virtues that guide it. Following the positive turn in leadership research, we examine what constitutes virtuous action of leaders. We draw on observations made in a novel realm, rock climbing, and integrate them with the literature on leadership virtues while drawing parallels to business. We identify six essential virtues at the core of the ethical leadership model we propose: rationality, honesty, independence, integrity, justice, and pride. Three of these—rationality, independence, and pride—are not conventional virtues, but we suggest that they are critical for ethical leadership, as is the standard of human flourishing and the leader’s relationship with followers as a trader of values. Our analysis is summarized in testable propositions.
This study examined organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) from a motivational perspective by investigating two underlying motives of employee OCB: egoism and altruism. Drawing on Batson’s theory of motivation, employee felt obligation and altruistic concern were explored as underlying motives for citizenship behavior directed toward the organization (OCBO) and supervisor (OCBS). A model of the antecedents and outcomes of these motives was tested with a sample of 164 employee–supervisor dyads. Interestingly, in a structural equation model representing meditational effects, altruistic concern but not felt obligation predicted OCBO, while felt obligation but not altruistic concern predicted OCBS. Altruistic concern fully mediated the relation between person–organization fit and OCBO and between perceived organizational support and OCBO. Felt obligation partially mediated the relationship between leader–member exchange and OCBS. Implications of the results for practice and future OCB motive research are discussed.
We use multiple case study methodology to examine firm-level antecedents and consequences of foreign CEO hiring decisions in Japan. We also examine foreign CEO attributes and the strategic initiatives launched by the foreign CEOs to understand differences in consequences. Study findings suggest that foreign CEOs in Japan are not all "complete outsiders" to the organization and the nation—most Japanese firms prefer to hire a CEO with prior work experience in Japan. Overall, foreign-born CEOs are successful in Japan only if they have a vision and the executive clout to transform the organization.
This mixed methods study explored the antecedents of servant leadership. The sequential explanatory research design consisted of two distinct phases: quantitative followed by qualitative. The Phase 1 quantitative survey collected data from 499 leaders from community leadership programs and 630 raters using the Servant Leadership Questionnaire. During Phase 2, 12 selected leaders from Phase 1 were interviewed to explain the Phase 1 results in more depth. Four key findings emerged from the data: (a) the longer a leader is in a leadership role, the more frequent the servant leader behaviors; (b) leaders who volunteer at least 1 hour per week demonstrate higher servant leader behaviors; (c) servant leaders influence others through building trusting relationships; and (d) servant leaders demonstrate an altruistic mindset.
As editors of this special issue, we strive to showcase interesting and timely scholarship that focuses on current topics in management, as well as seek ways to continue to strengthen the connection between JLOS and the Midwest Academy of Management. In this vein, we are proud to feature this conversation with Drs. Ray Aldag and Belle Rose Ragins, the 2013 Midwest Scholars. They discuss their reactions to what we view as critical, timely challenges in the field of management and provide developmental advice for students and junior faculty.
B-Corps are a growing group of social enterprises with a high level of commitment to maintaining a balance between profit motive and corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study has two purposes. First, it reviews the 6-year history of the rapid development of B-Corps (which currently number more than 800). Second, the study investigates the growth rate of total revenue and of employee productivity of B-Corps during a recent period and compares it with that of approximately 1,206 public companies and 3,600 non–B-Corps private firms. These measurements add to the discussion about whether socially and environmentally responsible firms generate revenue and productivity at levels similar to their competitors. The study also examines differences in the financial and productivity performance among B-Corps based on their scores on qualitative CSR performance factors. These measurements add to the discussion as to whether or not stronger CSR performance is associated with stronger financial performance and whether productivity increases in this type of firm. One finding is that B-Corps had a statistically significant revenue growth rate that outpaced the average revenue growth of the public companies that operate in the same 4-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code as B-Corps. In comparison with non–B-Corps small-to-medium size private firms, we found no significant difference in revenue growth. In those comparisons, B-Corps did not outperform both their public and private competitors with regard to employee productivity growth rate. There was no significant correlation within the sample of B-Corps with regard to revenue and productivity increases and B-Corps’ performance on qualitative CSR factors.
Using data from a sample of 606 nonexecutives sitting on boards of a Canadian credit union, this study tests the relationship between chairs’ authentic leadership on boards and nonexecutives’ motivation and commitment. Hypothesis validation indicates that chairs with an authentic leadership style favor motivation and commitment through the emergence of a participative safety climate based on transparency and idea sharing. This relationship is stronger when executives perceive a high-quality relationship between the chair and the CEO. By integrating the literature on leadership with that on corporate boards, our study offers a deeper understanding of how, and under which circumstances, chairs contribute to nonexecutives’ motivation and commitment on the board.
Servant leadership is an approach to leadership that involves a leader’s deeply rooted desire to serve subordinates. As the need for more people-centered leadership evolves, organizations increasingly want leaders who are driven to serve the people they lead, and they are seeking ways to identify predictors of servant leadership to ensure that those they place in management positions possess the attributes of a servant leader. Until now, very little research has been conducted in this area. Thus, we investigated emotional intelligence as an antecedent of the different dimensions of servant leadership. Our findings, based on assessments of 75 civic leaders and 401 of their followers, suggest that emotional intelligence is a good predictor of a leader’s servant-leader ideology (or approach toward leadership) but may not be a good predictor of servant-leader behaviors as rated by the leaders’ followers.
The purpose of this study was to extend generations research by investigating similarities and differences regarding the importance generations place on the presence of various workplace characteristics. We hypothesized (1) that similarities in the importance of workplace factors between generations would be more prevalent than differences and (2) that the importance of the workplace factors would have consistently similar or different moderating effects among generations on the relationships between employee perceptions of the factors at their organizations and employee attitudes. As expected, results showed the generations were similar on 7 of the 10 work values examined. Findings also revealed similarities and differences between the generations for the factors as moderators, although more differences than similarities were present from these analyses. Implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are discussed.
In this study, we investigated the possible moderating effects of environmental dynamism, environmental complexity, and environmental munificence on the relationships between changes in top management teams and board of directors and firm performance in the case of young entrepreneurial firms. The results showed that the three dimensions of environment do not moderate the relationship between the rate of change in top management teams and firm performance. On the other hand, the negative relationship between the rate of change in board of directors and firm performance is exacerbated by environmental complexity and munificence. The implications of these findings are discussed in the article.
In order to clarify the roles of relational ties within the perceived organizational membership theoretical framework, we test the discriminant validity and concurrent predictive validity of perceived insider status, psychological ownership, and organizational identification. Hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical multiple regression for a sample of 347 workers across two industry segments. Results indicate that the constructs of interest each explain unique variance. Perceived insider status and psychological ownership were significant predictors of job satisfaction and turnover intentions, whereas organizational identification was only found to predict job satisfaction. Post hoc analyses indicate that relationship between organizational identification and turnover intentions is fully mediated by perceived insiders status and psychological ownership.
In a qualitative case study, we described and explained shared leadership in dangerous contexts for military teams. We conducted eight semistructured interviews with shared, team, and military leadership subject matter experts in order to gain an improved understanding of the relationship between shared leadership and team performance in the presence of danger. We found the themes of mutual influence, leadership emergence, dangerous dynamism, and distributed knowledge, skills, and abilities provided rich description of the phenomenon. Specifically, our findings suggest military teams in dangerous situations use mutual influence and leadership emergence to share leadership and achieve high performance. Additionally, we found dangerous dynamism and distributed knowledge, skills, and abilities may moderate the relationship between shared leadership and performance for teams in dangerous contexts. Implication, limits, and recommendations are discussed.
The purpose of this longitudinal study of 255 members of the low-skilled workforce was to enhance insight into the nature of the relations between specific supervisor behavior (social support, positive feedback, task-related communication) and employee well-being. Data were analyzed using latent change models focusing on interindividual change and change–change associations over time. Our results indicated that interindividual differences in the intraindividual change in perceived supervisor behavior were related to changes in indicators of well-being across a 6-month period. These results provide further evidence for longitudinal associations between leader behavior and employee outcomes as well as the necessity of designing specific interventions for low-level managers.
We contribute to the undeveloped understanding of ambidexterity at the individual level by studying how leadership is related to individual ambidexterity and how this is related to cognitive strain. Data from 179 managers indicate a positive interrelation between superiors’ transformational leadership and individual ambidexterity. We also find a manager’s level of ambidexterity to be positively related to cognitive strain. This relationship is positively moderated by a manager’s level of conscientiousness and negatively moderated by a manager’s level of openness to experience.
Based on semistructured interviews with 24 mid-level managers, this study examines the process of developing authentic leadership in a training context. The results revealed a process beginning with an exploration phase, in which participants increased their self-awareness and identified their leadership issues, identified new behaviors likely to address those issues, and tested those behaviors to confirm their effect. This was followed by an integration phase in which the participants reflected on the beneficial effects of those new behaviors and were able to adopt them in their organizational setting. The results also indicate that three phenomena activated by the training practices enable the participants to develop their authentic leadership, namely, a clamp effect, a safety-net effect, and an organizational simulation effect.
The present study examines the direct relationship between leadership and creative performance behaviors as well as the mediating role of justice perceptions for this relationship in a R&D context. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire from 482 scientists working in 11 public-owned Indian R&D laboratories. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships between the study variables. The study found evidence for both direct and indirect relationships between leadership and creative performance behaviors. Justice perceptions partially mediate the relationship between leadership and creative performance behaviors. The study presents a process model of creativity linking leadership to creative performance behaviors through employee justice perceptions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Compliance with demands to express certain emotions at certain times is difficult for most employees to achieve without also experiencing adverse effects such as stress. Emotion researchers typically study "demands" in the form of organizational display rules. However, most emotional "demands" come from leaders who are uniquely positioned to help subordinates manage negative emotions and express positive ones. While this is often implied in the literature, research projects on leader-facilitated emotion management are scarce. Using Cóté’s social interaction model as a theoretical foundation, we examine leader-facilitated emotion management in a simulated workplace setting. Interpersonal, as opposed to intrapersonal, emotion management is a multifaceted process, whose success depends on emotion-focused action and socioaffective needs being met. Our hypotheses rested on this premise, and we sought to find the most effective combination of two common emotion-focused emotion management strategies (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) with a person-focused emotion management strategy (i.e., leader empathy) for helping participants to minimize stress from an affective event. We compared these relationships across a simulated crisis situation and under normal circumstances. Our results highlight the fundamental differences between interpersonal and intrapersonal emotion management. Suppression was found to be an effective strategy for lowering employee stress after an emotional event and expression of an active, negative emotion (i.e., anger) as long as the leader also displayed empathy. Under times of crisis, the empathy-suppression combination appeared to be especially effective. Implications are discussed.
The purpose of this study is to examine the cross-cultural validity of self-leadership by confirming a second-order factor structure and testing for measurement invariance in the operationalization of the self-leadership construct across four distinct national cultures: the United States, China, Germany, and Portugal. Results provide evidence in support of the cross-cultural validity of the hierarchical factor structure of self-leadership and in support of partial metric measurement invariance for the Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire (RSLQ). Taken together, these findings suggest that future researchers examining substantive self-leadership hypotheses within and across non-U.S. cultures may proceed with confidence.
This study examines whether subordinates’ perceptions of abusive supervision mediate the relationship between subordinate personality and aggression. Results from a cross-organizational sample of 411 working adults suggest that subordinates’ perceptions of abusive supervision account for some of the variance in the relationships between subordinate Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and subordinate aggression. This study suggests that social-information processing and perceptions of control found within subordinates’ personality influences whether they are more or less likely to perceive supervisory abuse. Perceptions of supervisory abuse were associated with aggression.
This study investigates the relationship between gender diversity and financial performance at the business-unit level and whether employee engagement moderates this relationship. Using more than 800 business units from two companies belonging to two different industries, we found that employee engagement and gender diversity independently predict financial performance at the business-unit level. One implication is that making diversity an organizational priority and creating an engaged culture for the workforce may result in cumulative financial benefits.
This article follows the call for more empirical research on leadership in different organizational contexts. Organizations react to environmental dynamism and uncertainty by using temporary forms or organizing such as projects. This organizational context factor raises questions about the nature of effective leadership in temporary settings. Transactional leadership has been found to be particularly effective in settings without a shared history of leaders and followers. In turn, prior research indicates that transformational leadership succeeds in times of uncertainty, which is essential to temporary organizations. We extend the existing transactional and transformational leadership approaches by examining leadership in the context of the temporary organization. We empirically test for effects of transactional and transformational leadership in projects and find that both leadership behaviors positively influence the followers’ commitment. However, transformational leadership is more effective than transactional leadership. The effects of both leadership behaviors are amplified by increasing complexity of the project.
This article examines the potential for offering sustainable compassion-based service. Organizations with compassion-based service missions face difficult challenges in addressing acute client needs with limited resources. We posit that distributed service delivery (i.e., clients serving themselves and one another) can result in more long-term compassion-based service when supported by shared and self-leadership. A model of sustainable distributed service delivery is presented and propositions are provided to help guide future research.
This study examined relationships between authentic leadership and safety climate among 463 seafarers sailing on 23 merchant vessels in the international shipping industry. A multiple regression analysis was performed, where authentic leadership made a statistically significant contribution to explaining variance in safety climate, controlling for age, rank on board, and social desirable responding. Adding an interaction between authentic leadership and rank on board (officers vs. crew) to the multiple regression analysis did not add to the amount of explained variance (R2 = .38). Implications for leadership training and safety in shipping are discussed.
Recent reviews of corporate social responsibility (CSR) research indicate a need for studies of micro-level influence processes addressing CSR values. Transformational leadership is a values-laden influence process whereby leaders elicit superior follower performance through the alignment of work values. Using data from 129 leaders and 582 of their direct reports, this study’s results demonstrated that leader CSR values were associated with transformational leadership. Transformational leadership was positively associated with follower stakeholder CSR values and negatively related to follower shareholder CSR values. Leader stakeholder CSR values moderated the relationship between transformational leadership and follower stakeholder values, offering evidence of leader–follower value congruence while addressing a limitation of prior studies that adopted perceptual measures of values congruence. Implications for transformational leadership theory, practice, and future research are discussed.
Prior research has shown that female managers are more likely to display transactional–transformational leadership, but they are less likely than their male colleagues to benefit from this in terms of leadership effectiveness. The aim of this study is to address this intriguing finding. Our expectations were that female managers need masculinity so that their leadership can display positive effects on perceived workgroup performance, whereas androgyny would be advantageous in male managers. We collected data from 67 workgroups, and asked managers to report on their gender role self-concept as well as workgroup performance, and 473 workgroup members to report on their manager’s leadership style. Our analyses revealed that, expectedly, androgyny might be advantageous in male managers using contingent reward, intellectual stimulation, and charisma/inspiration. For female managers, however, a lack of gender-typical attributes might be disadvantageous, especially when using charisma/inspiration.
Poor workforce engagement can be detrimental to organizations because of the ensuing decrease in employee well-being and productivity. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the degree to which psychological workplace climate was associated with personal accomplishment, depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and psychological well-being, and whether employee engagement moderated these relations. A sample of 216 health care employees from the United States, Canada, and Japan completed an online survey. Regression results suggested that psychological workplace climate was significantly related to each outcome variable; engagement moderated relations between workplace climate and each of the four dependent variables. ANOVA results revealed that high engagement group employees demonstrated higher psychological well-being and personal accomplishment, whereas low engagement group employees exhibited higher emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.
This study examined the effects of leader–member exchange (LMX) and perceived insider status (PIS) on employees’ performance through a relational value perspective. Results based on a sample of 183 supervisor–subordinate distinct dyads show that organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) mediated the relationship between relational evaluations (i.e., LMX and PIS) and performance. In addition, employees’ allocentric tendencies moderated the relationship between relational evaluations and OBSE and, consequently, the indirect relationship between relational evaluations and performance via OBSE. Specifically, OBSE mediated the indirect relationship between LMX (and PIS) and performance among employees with high rather than low levels of allocentrism. Implications and limitations are discussed.
This research investigated two key questions central to research on leadership and race: (a) How are leadership perceptions influenced by target’s race? (b) What are the consequences of race-based leadership perceptions on the target? These questions were specifically focused on Asian Americans (AAs), who are disproportionately underrepresented in leadership positions. Study 1 clarified previous research to demonstrate that Caucasian Americans (CAs) were perceived as more prototypic leaders compared with AAs. Study 2 supported the prediction that interpersonal leadership perceptions were affected by race via the activation of two leadership prototypes: competent and agentic leadership prototypes of AAs and CAs, respectively. Going beyond the contribution of clarifying previous research, Study 3 revealed that AAs had lower intrapersonal (self-directed) leadership perceptions and leadership aspirations than CAs and that the relationship between race and leadership aspiration was mediated by intrapersonal leadership perceptions. Implications of these findings are discussed with regard to leadership advancement opportunities for AAs and other racial minorities.
The primary objective of this research was to examine both transactional and transformational leadership styles as serving in the role of moderators in the relationship between organizational justice and work engagement. An online survey was administered to 348 respondents. Results supported the hypothesis that the positive relationship that both distributive and procedural justice held to work engagement would be more pronounced among employees experiencing low transactional leadership than among employees experiencing high transactional leadership. This set of results is consistent with the principles of leader fairness theory, which suggests that a low transactional leadership style elicits uncertainty about one’s social self in the context of the workplace, and this state of uncertainty incites an employee’s intensified desire to seek justice-related information.
We investigate whether leader political skill (LPS) increases employees’ perceptions of ethical leadership, even among leaders who acknowledge engaging in deviant behaviors. Study 1 indicated a positive relationship between LPS and ethical leadership perceptions, resulting in improved commitment and reduced stress levels among employees. Study 2 indicated that politically skilled leaders who engaged in deviant behaviors were perceived to be more ethical than deviant leaders with low political skill. Study 2 also suggested that LPS was negatively associated with employee deviance. These results suggest that political skill promotes ethical employee behaviors and other beneficial outcomes but might also help leaders disguise deviant intentions.
As leadership development becomes prevalent around the world, it is critical to understand the expectations and needs of participants attending leadership development programs and whether cross-country differences exist in those needs. This study examines the leadership challenges faced by 763 participants of leadership development programs from seven different countries (China/Hong Kong, Egypt, India, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and evaluates how important they perceive certain leadership competencies are to success in their respective organization. Qualitative data reveal that the challenges leaders face are relatively similar across countries, although small variations exist. Developing Managerial Effectiveness, Inspiring Others, Developing Employees, Leading a Team, Guiding Change, and Managing Internal Stakeholders and Politics were challenges that ranked consistently among the top challenges in each country. Quantitative data from the same sample showed that the leadership competencies of Leading Employees, Resourcefulness, and Change Management were consistently seen as being important to success in managers’ organizations in all countries. Teaching managers to overcome the aforementioned challenges, and enhancing the previously mentioned competencies, is likely to contribute to the effectiveness of leadership development programs and initiatives independently of the country in which the manager resides. Both qualitative and quantitative data suggest cultural convergence when it comes to the needs of participants in leadership development programs around the world. Implications of findings for participant-focused leadership development and practical executive education are discussed.
Authenticity is a relational construct, but research to date has largely overlooked the relationship between authentic leadership and follower authenticity. In our first study, comprising 162 leader–follower dyads, we examined the conditions that enhance followers’ authenticity in regard to the leader. We found that deviations from prototypical leader emotions (e.g., shame) reinforce the relationship between authentic leadership and employees’ unbiased self-presentation. Contrary to predictions, no such effect was found for followers’ ingratiation. Our second study examined the generalization of the effect of authentic leadership to the service context, in which authentic self-expression is inhibited by organizational display rules. This diary study of 380 service employees’ emotional experiences and authenticity in service encounters found that authentic leadership reinforced the relationship of employees’ positive emotions with authentic self-expression.
This study investigates whether work engagement mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and service climate. We also examine whether self–other agreement on transformational leadership act as a contingency to the expected relationships. Data were collected from two separate samples. The first sample consists of 1,226 employees of a financial services company while the second sample consists of 291 followers and 30 leaders from an audit company. The results support the view that work engagement mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and service climate. Polynomial regression and interaction analyses show that the relationship between transformational leadership and service climate is moderated by self–other agreement.
In this article, we introduce the concept of entrepreneurial capability (EC) to capture a firm’s capacity to sense, select, and shape opportunities, and synchronize their strategic moves and resources in pursuit of these opportunities. We define EC and explain its dimensions, highlighting its role in achieving and sustaining a firm’s competitive advantage. We also propose that EC is instrumental for realizing a firm’s game-changing strategies, that is, those strategic moves that fundamentally alter the nature, domain and dynamics of competition. Furthermore, we propose that strategic leadership plays an essential role in honing a company’s EC and aligning it with its game-changing strategy by creating an organizational context where transforming the business ecosystem becomes feasible. Finally, we articulate the implications of EC for managerial practices and for advancing future research at the intersection of entrepreneurship, leadership, and competitive strategy.
To more completely understand the basis for firm performance differences, we need greater clarity on the drivers of differentiation in managerial strategic decision making, as well as on the impact these decisions have on the composition and configuration of the firm’s resource portfolio. In this article, we provide an integrative framework that illustrates how strategic leaders influence firm strategy and performance. Our model clarifies the role that dynamic managerial capabilities play in fashioning a unique bundle of resources for the firm, thus leading to differences in firm strategies and performance outcomes. The process is illustrated by examples drawn from industry.
This study investigates how information asymmetry influences the equity shares acquired in cross-border acquisitions by Chinese firms. Taking an institution-based perspective, we propose that the extent to which Chinese acquirers react to information asymmetry in the way as predicted by economic perspectives will be influenced by the home institutions of these emerging market multinational enterprises. Based on 547 cross-border acquisitions made by Chinese acquirers from 1987 to 2007, the findings show that Chinese state-owned acquirers were less committed to an economic logic than non-state-owned acquirers. The institutional transition taking place in China in recent years has increased the importance of economic drivers for the Chinese acquirers.
Strategic leaders are being challenged by stakeholder demands that organizations meet triple bottom line performance measures. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of empirical research on how strategic leaders’ values and leadership styles are related to such measures. We describe values and established and evolving leadership styles and review the results of empirical studies investigating their relationship with organizational performance. Gaps in our knowledge of such relationships are identified and suggestions for future research are provided. A continuum of leadership styles, from transactional through responsible, is developed using the dimensions of stakeholder salience and economic, social, and environmental performance outcomes.
Business process offshoring (BPO) has emerged as an important strategy and a prevalent landscape in global service operations management. As one of the first attempts to analyze this challenging issue in an emerging market, this study examines how firms develop a set of global expansion strategies, including where (location), when (timing), and what (diversification), that are unique to BPO service operations. Our analysis of 424 BPO service operations centers in India demonstrates that BPO units with greater knowledge specialization tend to operate in more developed cities and that information connectivity, government support, and human resources competitiveness are critical locational determinants. Although BPO investment is less path dependent than traditional foreign direct investment, behavioral variables, such as assertiveness and pre-BPO experience in the host locations, are important factors behind the timing decision. Finally, BPO units involving lower knowledge specialization or higher process measurability are more diversified in terms of the number of business processes outsourced.
Strategic renewal depends on achieving an appropriate balance between using what an organization has learned and continuing to gain new insights and solutions. The process of institutionalizing organizational learning is at the center of this tension since it occurs at the pivot point of exploitation and exploration. We apply a dynamic perspective of Perrow’s typology of work technologies to explore the relation between the number of exceptions and analyzability of the problems likely to be encountered in various work settings and institutionalized learning. We propose that the nature of what is learned and actions leading to institutionalization differ across work contexts because of the varying complexity of problems and solutions. We explore the interactions surrounding institutionalized learning, exploration, and exploitation and argue that strategic renewal is strongly influenced by the way institutionalized learning effects the dynamic tension between exploration and exploitation.