European Management Review最新文献

Organizational unlearning plays a vital role in facilitating new product development (NPD); however, the microprocesses of unlearning (i.e., how to unlearn) remain unclear. We aim to open this black box by investigating how two important dimensions—beliefs and routines—change during the unlearning process, using a longitudinal case study approach. Through a case study of Geely Auto, we identified specific cognitive and behavioral practices in the unlearning process and categorized them into three stages according to their time of occurrence and consequences. By adopting a tension lens, we demonstrate that unlearning involves three sequential steps: tension imposition, integration, and splitting. Our case study demonstrates that unlearning NPD processes involves a complex interweaving of changes in beliefs and routines. We advance the literature on learning by revealing the microprocesses that underlie organizational unlearning, and we open a broad avenue for future research to explore the microfoundations of organizational unlearning.

Access to external information is considered crucial to achieving organizational ambidexterity (OA) while presenting specific challenges for SMEs due to their limited resources. However, little is known about how SMEs can best benefit from their external information-seeking activities for OA purposes, given specific organizational practices. Our paper addresses this research gap by analyzing the effects of external information seeking (i.e., environmental scanning and external managerial networking) on OA while considering the moderating role of empowerment climate in SMEs. Based on a survey administered to CEOs of 1439 French manufacturing SMEs, our main results indicate that empowerment climate positively moderates the effect of scanning breadth on OA but negatively moderates the effect of networking depth. This suggests that SMEs should emphasize external information-seeking activities that are appropriate to their level of empowerment climate so that the positive effects on OA can be fully realized.

Middle managers are critical in talent management practice. Yet, their commitment to enacting organisational strategies and policies is often limited given their multiplicity of responsibilities and tasks beyond talent management. Taking a paradox lens and a multi-stakeholder perspective, we draw from 147 interviews with middle managers, HR leaders and talents to unpack two key paradoxes when managing talent: a short-term–long-term paradox and a function–organisation paradox. Our research reveals a range of defensive and proactive responses to these paradoxes, which leads us to develop a typology of middle manager approaches navigating paradoxes in talent management. This typology depicts features, tensions and examples of middle managers' approach to managing talent. We introduce the extent of intradepartmental involvement and interdepartmental collaboration as key features and illustrate spatial and temporal tensions underlying paradoxes. We conclude with implications of the (in)effective management of paradoxes in a talent context.

Supervisor perceptions of support are key, as they can influence their subordinates' perceptions of support and well-being. Using a weekly diary data set of subordinates and their supervisors in Chile, we tested a trickle-down effect of perceived supervisor support across three hierarchical levels: upper managers, supervisors, and non-managerial employees. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) and social exchange theories as well as crossover research, we find that our model is largely supported. The findings revealed that supervisors' perceived support from managers (PMS) relates to subordinates' perceptions of support from their own supervisors (PSS). In turn, subordinates' PSS is positively associated with their emotional resource possession and sleep quality. Beyond these relationships, subordinates' psychological empowerment mediates the positive relationships between subordinates' PSS and their emotional resources as well as sleep quality. These findings suggest that supervisors who feel supported reciprocate with the more supportive treatment of subordinates, which likely enhances psychological empowerment, in turn driving the accumulation of emotional and physical resources.

We investigated whether the market places a higher value on banks with employee share ownership plans (ESOPs) than on those without them. Using a variety of empirical models, we found that ESOPs increased the market value of banks. However, this positive effect occurred only when banks were transparent or located in countries with strong shareholder protection. Our findings demonstrated that if banks were opaque or shareholder protection was weak, outside investors' concerns about managerial entrenchment in widely held banks and behind-the-scenes relationships between majority shareholders and managers in closely held banks outweighed the perceived benefits of ESOPs. Our study contributes to the literature by proposing a novel approach to study the effects of ESOPs through the prism of conflict of interest theory. Our findings also shed light on stakeholders' rationales for opposing or adopting ESOPs.

Commitment is essential for employees to establish and maintain a long-lasting employer–employee relationship, hence the call for more research to investigate its antecedents. The purpose of our study was to empirically investigate the relationship between performance appraisal and employee commitment. Analysis of survey data drawn from academics across the UK Higher Education Institutions found a positive relationship between performance appraisal and employee commitment, explained through the mediation of job satisfaction. The study is novel as it extends performance appraisal and employee commitment theorization by highlighting how job satisfaction mediates both constructs differently at intrinsic and extrinsic levels. Practically, our study provides insights that will support the development of performance appraisal systems that influence job satisfaction and commitment of academics.

This study explores the nomological network of family-supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSBs) at the weekly level. Drawing on the tenets of the work–home resources (W-HR) model and the conservation of resources theory, we integrate relational resources in the model and investigate their role as triggers of FSSBs. Furthermore, we explore how FSSBs relate to both within domain (production deviance and employee creativity) and between domain (sleep quality and dyadic adjustment) employee outcomes, with a focus on exhaustion as a mediator. Our findings show that (1) spousal support experienced by the supervisor is positively related to the employee's perception of FSSBs as enacted by the supervisor, (2) employees' perceptions of FSSBs are negatively related to employees' production deviance and (3) exhaustion is a mediator between FSSBs and employee outcomes of creativity, sleep quality and dyadic adjustment. Our findings across two multisource and diary studies underline the importance of designing and implementing FSSBs in a dynamic fashion.

With reference to recent debate about the increasing “an A is an A” mentality at business schools, I provide evidence on the prevalence of this mentality in North America versus other regions of the world (RoW). The evidence presented is derived from the data selection procedures employed in conducting systematic reviews of management research because a focus on specific journals in this selection can be seen as an artifact of the “an A is an A” mentality. My findings suggest that this mindset is more widespread in North American business schools and less so elsewhere. This implies that in order to find remedies against the detrimental effects of the “an A is an A” mentality, North American business school leaders and academics might find inspiration in other countries. In addition, I suggest that a part of the solution could also be directing PhD students toward a more inclusive selection of journals and articles in reviews of management research.

Organizations are increasingly implementing algorithmic decision aids to advise managerial decision-making. We study managers' motives behind using advice (human and nonhuman), particularly sharing responsibility versus increasing decision accuracy motives. We conduct an online experiment with experienced managers in a sales forecasting setting and find that managers focus on increasing decision accuracy (sharing responsibility) when they are unable (able) to share responsibility with advisors. Moreover, managers prefer to share responsibility with blamable human advisors over nonhuman advisors unless they perceive algorithms as socially competent. Consequently, the results show that managers are not solely motivated to minimize forecast errors but also to reduce personal responsibility when taking advice. We contribute to the literature by highlighting the opportunistic motives of managers when taking (non)human advice. Our findings also bear important implications for practice. Specifically, firms should be aware of managers' opportunistic advice-taking motives when implementing algorithmic decision aids.

Over the recent decades, organizations have had to face a number of major external shocks and crises. Acquiring a better understanding of how human resources are managed under such critical conditions constitutes the main purpose of this study. We conducted a study triangulating different sources (employees, HR managers, and secondary data) and types of data (quantitative and qualitative) to explore how employees in Portuguese organizations perceived the HR practices' implementation during the years of the financial crisis (2011–2014) and how HR managers explained it. Longitudinal evidence from 53 organizations attests to perceived decreasing trends, particularly in training and development and performance management. HR managers legitimize these trends, embracing conventions and revealing the impact of coercive and normative pressures. Our findings highlight the need for renewed attention to be paid to the contextual pressures on HR managers' decision-making and actions that could severely endanger their role as strategic partners and their embrace of sustainable HRM.