Scandinavian Journal of Management最新文献

In the field of Organization Studies (OS), there has been strong interest in the use of the metaphor of rhizomes as developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The merit of the rhizome metaphor is that it offers strong explanatory power in capturing the chaotic, unpredictable, and uncontrollable nature of organizations, which problematizes a managerial reading of organizational process that is often preoccupied with the managerial goals of performance, efficiency, and effectiveness. In the past two decades, with the development of the internet and social media, the concept of rhizome has been concretized as an organizational ontology but, ironically, we have witnessed that the features of rhizome may selectively be employed and developed into a military tactic, to serve a totalitarian interest of control. For instance, the idea of rhizome manoeuvre has widely been adopted by (terrorist) organizations that seek to justify the act of violence. This paper seeks to defend the rhizome and its emancipatory potential but suggests that the use of rhizome must have its provisional boundary. To substantiate this argument, the author conducted an ethnographical study in a social movement organization. The idea of a provisional boundary is in line with Deleuze and Guattari's view of provisional dualism. In this regard, the author suggests that rhizomatic organizations and their actions should be grounded in Deleuze and Guattari's philosophical framework of "democracy-to-come", embedded in Bergson's open society. With the help of the empirical data, this paper identifies some tentative principles to inform the actions of rhizomatic organizations.

Branding has become a strategic tool for university management in competition for students, faculty, and funding. In this study, we explore university branding in its extreme form of grandiose branding and ask How can grandiose branding initiate a process that prompts ethically and morally questionable practices in organizations? Grandiose branding is characterized by an excessive use of superlatives that frame higher education institutions as “world-class universities.” Through a self- and autoethnographic single-case study conducted in a business school, our study shows that branding efforts that do not align with an organization’s actual quality and performance can lead to a counterproductive cycle of camouflaging top management’s failures and justifying ethically and morally questionable actions directed towards the institution’s primary stakeholders. The study contributes to the earlier literature on grandiosity in the context of higher education by taking a process perspective and explores the implications of grandiose branding from rhetoric through implementation.

Although there are preliminary indications that resilience is a key factor for women on their way to top leadership positions, research on this topic is scarce. To narrow this research gap, we applied an exploratory interview study focusing on the development of women leaders’ resilience. We conducted 25 biographical interviews with women in top leadership positions in medium and large companies listed in Germany. Through a qualitative content analysis, we identified three critical phases for the development of women leaders’ resilience—early life, early career, and upper leadership—as well as phase-specific resilience factors—i.e., individual, situational, and behavioral factors. We integrated these findings in a process model that provides insights into the interlinkages of the different phases and factors and can serve as a starting point for future research.

Why do some firms successfully grow while others are severely affected by economic shocks? Does innovation play any role in this? By adopting a multi-theoretical approach, this study explores the characteristics of firms that grew during the Great Recession (2008–2009). The data were collected from 12 small firms located in Finland, Ireland and the UK. Furthermore, this study elaborates the entrepreneurship and management literature by characterising the firms that thrived during the recession. The findings reveal the uniform characteristics of four grower types: gazelles, high relative growers, high absolute growers and high growers of both. It can be concluded that there are more homogeneous characteristics within the grower profiles than across the profiles, suggesting that firms growing during the Great Recession comprise an internally heterogeneous group of businesses. We found that innovation is the only common characteristic of firms that grew during these economic shocks.

The different social contexts and historical backgrounds of countries in which companies operate may influence how their managers understand and apply the concept of environmental commitment. Thus, the understanding of environmental commitment in the post-communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe can be expected to be different from the Western markets. This study sheds light on these issues by analyzing managerial stories about environmental commitment in Russia. It explains how managers’ sensemaking is shaped by the Soviet socio-historical context. This study contributes to the limited literature on environmental commitment in post-communist societies and provides a link between environmental commitment and sensemaking research, thus responding to recent calls for a clarification of the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility.

This study investigated the factors affecting turnover tendency of real estate brokers. The impact of individual-level factors (role conflict, role ambiguity, interpersonal conflict, and emotional exhaustion) and organizational-level factors (supervisor support and group trust) on turnover intentions was assessed. A hierarchical linear mediation modeling approach was used. A questionnaire was administered to real estate brokers working at real estate companies in Kaohsiung City. Ten questionnaires were administered to each of the selected 97 branch offices. Of the 970 questionnaires, 393 were recovered from 71 branches, and after omitting 43 invalid responses, there were 350 valid questionnaires from 59 branches, indicating an effective response rate of 36.1 %. The empirical results showed that interpersonal conflict mediated the impact of supervisor support on emotional exhaustion, with a full mediating effect being observed. Group trust did not mediate the impact of supervisor support on turnover tendency, which was direct, negative, and statistically significant. Job satisfaction partially mediated the impact of emotional exhaustion on turnover intentions. Our results suggest that supervisor support and emotional exhaustion, at the organizational and individual level, respectively, had the greatest impacts on turnover intentions. This demonstrates the importance of supervisor support and emotional exhaustion when researching turnover intentions.

This comment reflects on the paper by Rosales et al. (2022) and discusses the role and contribution of paradox theory for our understanding of routine dynamics. Whilst the authors claim that routines serve as rubber bands that enable practitioners to manage the paradoxical relationship between stability and change, in this commentary I want to challenge some of the core assumptions around stability and change in this paper and propose a revised understanding. It is a central tenant of routine dynamics studies that stability and change are mutually enabling – a duality – and hence not contradictory categories. As I outline in this comment this has significant consequences for the way routine dynamics are studied. Furthermore, I propose some areas in which paradox theory and routine dynamics studies may fruitfully be combined to address novel research questions.

In the literature, organizational sustainability identity tends to be treated as something that is ‘engineered’ within business organizations through control, reporting, target setting, strategic communication, and other instruments. Through a case study of a company mainly active within the recycling industry, an alternative understanding is given. A distinct organizational sustainability identity is, rather, a social construct based on perceptions of the core operations as “sustainable in themselves” and collaborative work with customers that is perceived as entailing sustainable solutions. Understood in this way, organizational sustainability identity has relatively little to do with formal controls such as codes, policies, reports used by management to position the company as sustainable. Rather, for organizational members, the process of constructing oneself as sustainable builds on convictions about the core operations and the possession of specific capabilities manifested in customer relations. The article adds to current literature through its constructivistic approach and through identifying underlying beliefs that condition the process of forming an organizational sustainability identity.

Are affinity networks, like women’s, LGBTQ+ and bicultural employee networks, really effective instruments for diversity management? These networks, also called identity networks, diversity networks or employee resource groups, are seen as important means to make organizations more inclusive and to provide spaces for professional development and social networking. However, they also strengthen exclusionary norms and power hierarchies. The identification of three sociological dilemmas shines light on the complexities and the ambiguous effects of identity networks. Through its discourse, activities and organizational structure, a network either supports individual career advancement – while strengthening existing inequalities – or promotes organizational change. Recognizing these dilemmas will help researchers, organizations, diversity practitioners, and affinity networks to make more informed and deliberate choices.

We turn to the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador and its continuous reorganization of governance, its series of shocks, ambitions of reinvention and development to analyze the risks associated with Great Reset-style ambitions. We coin the concept of the local paradox: grand schemes need input from and implementation at a local level and this requires local governance to be autonomous, legitimate and to have the institutional and cognitive capacities, as well as the resources, to fulfill these roles. On the other hand, these requirements can entirely derail top-down ambitions. Currently, existing local governance might not be interested in transformation into more empowered political entities capable of contributing to greater collective goals. We suggest ways out of this conundrum, arguing for a strict avoidance of ideological tropes and false oppositions.