Strategy research usually assumes that displays of weakness are disadvantageous for firms. In this study, we challenge this assumption. We propose that deliberate displays of weakness can help firms preserve stakeholder approval when taking controversial decisions. To test this proposition, we examine the use and effectiveness of organizational supplication in the context of workforce downsizing. Building

Mounting information processing demands in contemporary organizations spotlight the need to better understand how to maintain and improve performance without increasing cognitive load. Research in organizational behavior suggests that primed goals provide performance benefits similar to assigned goals but with little cost to attention. Yet, some research in social psychology suggests that any form

Leader emergence is a critical organizational phenomenon, influenced by various individual attributes. One such attribute—often overlooked by scholars and practitioners—is physical attractiveness. This study provides a comprehensive meta-analysis of the beauty bias and its relationship to leader emergence. We first review implicit leadership and status generalization theories as the dominant frameworks

Existing research assumes that supervisors invariably feel bad after engaging in abusive behaviors. We challenge this assumption by proposing that supervisors’ motives of abusive supervision shape their post-abuse experiences. Drawing on the social interactionist theory of aggression and theories of self-regulation, we suggest that instrumental (or goal-driven) abusive behaviors provide a temporary

The view that a business unit can better compete against product-market rivals if granted funding from its parent firm’s internal capital market (ICM) has lost traction within strategy, despite conflicting evidence. We develop a theory to explain when funding from a parent firm’s ICM should enable a business unit to more effectively capture value (i.e., profit) from its investment opportunities under

Insufficient effort responding (IER) presents a significant challenge in management research, potentially leading to flawed inferences. This review critically examines IER practices in 17 leading management journals from 2012 to 2023, highlighting inconsistencies in screening methods, cutoffs, and reporting. We find that IER screening is more prevalent in studies using online paid samples, experimental

The internationalization of emerging market firms (EMFs) has attracted substantial research attention. Yet, how EMFs engage in diversification and innovation during internationalization remains underexplored. Drawing insights from a geographic relational perspective, we perform a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of EMFs. Our findings suggest that EMFs can choose from multiple

The ability of employees to move between firms of their own volition is a defining characteristic that distinguishes human capital from other resources. This review bridges previously isolated research communities by synthesizing knowledge on “employee mobility barriers”—mechanisms that restrict employee movement and help firms maintain human capital-based competitive advantages. We introduce a typology

Crowdfunding is a relatively nascent, rapidly growing phenomenon whereby individuals or ventures pursue funding from a potentially large number of backers via the Internet. This rapidly emerging literature invites a variety of conceptual lenses and offers significant potential to advance theoretical understanding of important organizational activities, such as how entrepreneurs and organizations are

Organizations rely on employees to report problems that hinder organizational effectiveness and on supervisors to resolve those problems. Although prohibitive voice is generally thought to help organizations avoid costly and tragic outcomes, the voice literature has also demonstrated that supervisors respond more negatively to prohibitive voice than promotive voice. This tension motivates our inquiry

Why do so many responsible business initiatives fail? While earlier studies have stressed the lack of commitment, we know little about the ways in which prosocial firms seek to secure the requisite resources to accomplish such practices. This study investigates how the management of multiple resource dependencies impacts the (non)accomplishment of a firm’s aspired responsible practices. A granular

While many boards adopt technology committees to support firm innovation, the impact of such committees is largely unexplored. We draw on agency and resource dependence theories to suggest that technology committees can improve firm innovation (patenting and new product introductions). We further hypothesize that relevant committee expertise (technology and executive expertise) enhances the effectiveness

Human resource (HR) practices hold great promise in fostering employee trust, and insights into how HR practices relate to employee trust are critical to evidence-informed management. However, extant research findings are fragmented and dispersed across disciplines and use a confusing plethora of concepts, limiting insights. To address these problems, we conducted a systematic review to offer a more

Waiting to evaluate one section of a paper (e.g., the Methods) until you have decided whether another section (e.g., the front end) passes muster is analogous to “multiple hurdle” systems in personnel selection. This usually creates a suboptimal weighting scheme in which the part of the system that represents the first hurdle is overvalued. I explain why “multiple hurdle” reviewing is counterproductive

This study examines the performance consequences of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) successions, focusing on the types of board chairs and firm ownership structures. While CEO successions can bring adaptation benefits and performance gains through strategic realignment, they can also cause disruption costs and performance losses by disturbing stakeholder relationships. We examine how the presence of

We extend the business group (BG) literature by combining the knowledge-based perspective and the dynamic capabilities view to explain the benefits of group affiliation. In the BG context, group affiliates can use not only their own firm-level knowledge-based assets (KBAs), but also group-level KBAs. While prior research examines the efficiencies of BG affiliation by comparing BG affiliates to non-affiliated

This paper reviews the transformative role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in Human Resource (HR) management, from a practice perspective, highlighting both opportunities and challenges and laying out a use-inspired future research agenda. This scoping review is grounded in insights from a unique Summit held in Spring 2024, which brought together HR academic scholars with dozens of Fortune

This review examines the integration of institutional theory with social and environmental efforts in management (i.e., regarding sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and environmental, social, and governance objectives). By analyzing 720 studies published between 1997 and 2023, we develop a multi-level model that maps the antecedents of different actors (e.g., industries, organizations

Attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory proposes that “the people make the place” and has served as a foundation for many areas of organizational research. In this review, we take stock of the ASA literature to identify what we know and what we need to know about ASA processes and their effects on organizations. Based on a review of over 6,000 articles that cited ASA, we identified 321 studies

While extensive research has examined the relationship between human resource management systems and organizational performance, the impact of organizational-level training—defined as the quantity and quality of training that an organization provides to its employees—remains less understood. In this article, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between organizational-level training and

Managerial mental representations (MMRs) are mental constructs that structure cognitive content to guide perception and interpretation. MMRs have been examined across a broad spectrum of management research contexts, leading to the use of numerous related terms such as “mental representation,” “schema,” “mental model,” “cognitive frame,” “cognitive map,” and “mindset.” This proliferation of terms has

Management scholarship has long explored how life outside of work impacts work, and it has accumulated rich theoretical insights on how being a mother or father impacts one’s job and the organization. Importantly, however, this literature has adopted a limited scope of who and what caregiving embodies, overlooking the millions of workers globally who find themselves caring for a parent, a person with

The well-established disruptive effects of employee turnover on firms have typically been attributed to post-exit dynamics, such as losses of human and social capital. Little is known, however, about leavers’ pre-exit job performance, which, if declining in sufficient magnitude as separation nears, may drive some of this disruption. Drawing on career concerns research, we argue that impending exit

In this editorial, we discuss and define the “future of work” as a phenomenon and research area, and outline avenues for further research at the conceptual and empirical level. We first offer a brief review of the different streams of research that study the future of work, both in management and organization studies and in adjacent fields. We then elaborate on what we see as the most promising avenues

Research questions and subsequent methodology in the field of management continue to evolve, bringing about more complex models and heightened data requirements and considerations. Thus, the difficulties associated with meeting the requirements of growing methodological rigor (e.g., increasing sample size) have influenced scholars to develop procedures aimed at mitigating these challenges. One such

The opaqueness of author naming and ordering, when coupled with power dynamics, can lead to a number of disadvantages in academic careers. In this commentary, we investigate gender differences in authorship experiences in a large prospective meta-analytic study (k = 46; n = 3,565; 12 countries). We find that women’s and men’s authorship experiences differ significantly with women reporting greater

This review examines the effect of physical work environments—the dedicated, tangible spaces where employees carry out their professional tasks—on organizational processes and outcomes. We synthesize decades of research across various disciplines using a conceptual framework that defines physical work environments along three key dimensions: ambience, spatial configuration, and aesthetics. These dimensions

Insufficient recovery from work stress is a pernicious issue for many workers. This study aims to understand the important role that supervisors play in employees’ recovery experiences. Specifically, we (1) proposed an expanded conceptualization of supervisor support for recovery (SSR), and (2) developed and validated a measure consistent with this expanded conceptualization. We refined the conceptualization

While most of the socialization literature has focused on factors that allow newcomers to adjust to their new job tasks successfully, less attention has been given to examining whether temporary newcomers’ task adjustment influences the likelihood of receiving a permanent position. Drawing on the identity perspective and the socialization literature, this study proposes and tests a new framework that

Theorists have suggested that firms seek to maintain or increase their social approval—defined as constituents’ general affinity for a firm—due to the belief that such approval significantly influences support for the firm and other important firm outcomes. However, the mechanisms underlying changes in constituents’ social approval and the translation of such approval into intention to support the

Decades of studies spanning multiple disciplines have provided insight into the critical role of loneliness in work contexts. In spite of this extensive research, a comprehensive review of loneliness and work remains absent. To address this gap, we conducted a multidisciplinary review of relevant theory and research and identified 213 articles reporting on 233 empirical studies from management, organizational

Socioeconomic status (SES)—one’s objective economic and social standing—has the potential to yield critical implications for employee well-being. Despite the vast multidisciplinary literature on the topic, management scholars have historically treated SES as a control variable and have only recently begun to critically examine the role of SES at work. Because of this, relatively little is known about

In this study, we advance organizational impression management research by focusing on agent-oriented impression management—which reflects attempts to create value for the firm by publicizing individuals or groups who are agents of the firm. Although prevalent in practice, agent-oriented impression management remains unexplored in scholarly research. Specifically, we introduce the concept of new CEO

The concept of organizational authenticity—the consistency between an organization’s espoused values and its lived practices—has garnered considerable interest in academic discourse. While the authenticity literature has paid much attention to external stakeholders (e.g., clients), the notion of organizational authenticity perceptions of an important stakeholder—employees—has been understudied. Despite

Interpersonal trusting relationships frequently experience relational threats that require both parties to engage actively in trust maintenance efforts. Yet, trust research has tended to focus on trust formation, or trust repair in the case of a violation, and offers us little insight regarding how these more ambiguous threats to trusting relationships are experienced and overcome relationally. To

We leverage research on socioemotional wealth (SEW) and implicit theories to develop a novel blended SEW-implicit theory framework that explains why some family firms are more risk seeking or more risk averse. According to implicit theory, individuals perceive reality through their interpretative cognitive filters. Those with an entity theory orientation see reality as relatively fixed or uncontrollable

Producers’ resource allocation, performance, and survival depend on how market audiences identify, evaluate, and value them. While research has focused on producers’ heterogeneity, it has not consistently addressed audiences’ heterogeneity despite its critical consequences on producers’ decisions and market dynamics. This review integrates three research perspectives—ecological, socio-cognitive, and

With the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, intelligent machines are affecting the daily lives of multiple organizational stakeholders. However, despite the continued expansion of intelligent machines in society, management scholarship has generally lagged, and current frameworks are under-equipped to offer meaningful guidance regarding the intersection of intelligent machines and organizations

Given the inevitability of CEO successions and the importance of CEOs to firm performance, a stream of research explores the effects of new CEO appointments on post-succession firm performance. Yet, scholarly findings regarding the performance outcomes provoked by CEO succession are decidedly mixed. We argue that a temporal explanation, particularly one focusing on the dates at which new CEOs are appointed

Green innovation is an organizational strategy aimed to address climate crises and create low-carbon growth, yet, its implementation remains a significant challenge. We focus on green innovation implementation (GII) and argue that GII is a distinctive strategic process. Traditional innovation implementation, centered on short-term economic growth, can be problematic as it often decouples nature from

Previous research has predominantly focused on the overt acts of supervisory abuse or has taken a general approach that fails to differentiate between its distinctive forms. Integrating the literature on hot versus cold identity threats and identity threat appraisal, we examine how different forms of abusive supervision influence employee outcomes. We argue that active-aggressive abusive supervision

Extant empirical research on ecosystem alignment has offered little insight into how mature ecosystems align their members with a new value proposition. Our longitudinal empirical study of a seven-year hub-driven alignment initiative within the SOK led retail ecosystem in Finland explores how a mature ecosystem hub attempted to enroll its members in a value-proposition updating, ecosystem-wide initiative

The growing literature on family-supportive organizations (FSOs) examines work–family supports that organizations provide to employees—informal (e.g., perceptions of supervisor and coworker support, climate) and formal (e.g., policies, including those mandated in national contexts). Yet FSO research remains underintegrated with the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) literature, limiting understanding

Sampling data from organizations and humans associated with those organizations is essential to organizational research. Much of what we know about organizations is based on such work. However, this empirical foundation may be compromised, calling into question the field’s theoretical and empirical findings. Studies often sample data from relatively similar, narrow contexts, so a lack of sample diversity

Corporate short-termism, defined as a managerial preference for the short term that undermines a firm’s long-term interests, has become a topic of global concern for governments, investors, and business leaders. In recent years, heightened capital market pressures to maximize shareholder value have intensified focus on the issue, raising concerns that the pursuit of short-term shareholder value may

Work experiences and political participation outside work are intrinsically linked. Management scholars have acknowledged the role that organizations play in shaping political behavior from a firm-level perspective, but the specific working conditions and how they translate into employee political participation and attitudes outside work remain poorly understood. This paper offers an interdisciplinary

Entrepreneurial affect has emerged as a burgeoning area of study, with a wealth of articles demonstrating that affect, broadly conceptualized, plays an important part in entrepreneurial life. While a few affective phenomena, such as passion and positive and negative affect, are primarily driving the affective revolution in entrepreneurship, a wide range of additional forms of affect, from momentary

Does the use of a certain type of ethical language indicate that managers are failing to behave in a socially responsible manner? Managers are increasingly using language related to ethics, values, and corporate purpose in their communications with stakeholders. However, while economic models argue that “talk is cheap,” we predict that some ethical language (i.e., cheap talk) can reflect agency costs

Although more organizations are seeking autistic applicants, autistic people remain in an unemployment crisis. This may be due in part to job interviews, which often implicitly evaluate relational and social skills—an area with which many autistic people struggle. To determine how to better support autistic applicants, we conduct a mixed methods study to identify, from their own perspective, the accommodations

More than 45% of the S&P 500 have been the target of activist investors. As a major shareholder in the firms they target, activist investors’ campaigns raise concerns over the firm’s poor performance and pose a threat to management’s control over the firm. Prior research has found that activist campaigns have significant consequences, as management curtails long-term investments, divests businesses

Relying on the work on creative prototype and role theory, we demonstrate that having a creative identity can lead to moral objection depending on the implication of the act for one’s identity as a creative individual. In a pilot study using a survey of working adults, we find that employees’ creative identities and their intention to object in moral situations are positively and significantly correlated

We examine the contribution of disadvantaged communities to protest and the creation of social movement organizations (SMOs). While some view disadvantaged groups’ dissatisfaction with the status quo as critical, others expect them to be reluctant to initiate collective action because they tolerate grievances that tend to be stable over time. We suggest that sudden threats that stir up the urgency

While learning is key for pioneers—firms introducing new products without existing competitors—a lack of competitors limits learning opportunities. To compensate, pioneers in safety-critical industries frequently resort to failure repositories—databases that track failure reports in an industry. However, the sheer volume, inconsistency, and unstructured nature of such failure reports make them difficult

How do individual independent directors make sense of their director role? We examine this question in the context of competing expectations among key corporate governance actors during the onboarding process of independent directors. This study explores how independent directors navigate these expectations, which stem from both external change agents, such as government agencies and the media, and

In this editorial we discuss organizations’ role in the process of retirement. We argue that organizations have abdicated their moral obligation to older workers, thereby negatively impacting older workers’ wellbeing and their successful transition to retirement. We also note that organizational studies scholars have not paid adequate attention to that negligence, or its alternatives. We suggest that

The institutional perspective on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has discussed two diametrically opposed hypotheses about how institutional context influences CSR. Whereas the mirror hypothesis suggests that CSR is stronger in institutional contexts with stringent CSR-related regulations, the substitute hypothesis posits that CSR is stronger in weakly regulated contexts. Drawing on the micro-CSR

Companies strive to gain a competitive advantage by recruiting highly qualified employees. One way to achieve this goal is by recruiting foreign workers, frequently through the H-1B visa program. However, immigration has become a contentious political issue in the United States, making it more difficult to recruit foreign workers. We examine how politicians on the board influence recruitment strategies

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are popular assessment approaches that present scenarios describing situations that one may experience in a job. Due to its long history and cross-disciplinary nature, today’s SJT literature is quite fragmented. In this integrative review, we start by systematically taking stock and synthesizing the SJT literature from the different scientific disciplines via bibliometric

When employees face hostility from others, emotion regulation is needed to perform effectively but can be personally costly. On the basis of current evidence, employees both perform better and avoid well-being costs with engagement-focused regulation (i.e., modifying feelings through deep acting) rather than with disengagement (i.e., modifying or faking expressions through surface acting). Yet, emotion

We draw on upper-echelons literature recognizing the important role of CEOs in firm strategy, including innovation, and research on CEO political ideology and executive discretion to explore the relationship between CEO political ideology and firm breakthrough inventions. We suggest that CEO liberalism is a double-edged sword and is positively associated with firm breakthrough inventions but also less-useful