Journal of Management Studies最新文献

Descriptive and prescriptive theorizing are two sides of the same coin and fundamentally complementary, if not reciprocal in their relationship. Both have a place in management theorizing, yet this Point-Counterpoint debate takes issue with how they are currently performed in research. The Point makes the case for prescriptive theorizing to help tackle societal grand challenges and meaningfully impact practice, and it offers a recipe for doing this on a solid normative foundation. The Counterpoint cautions against the impact that such prescriptions may have and calls for more contextualized approaches. In this introduction to the debate, I intend to take the conversation that both the Point and Counterpoint have provoked even further by highlighting some under-emphasized but important theoretical avenues to examine the (un)intended consequences of both prescriptive and descriptive theorizing; namely by mobilizing research on performativity and counter-performativity.

Prior research highlights the disruptive and detrimental effects of chief executive officer (CEO) successions that involve a change of gender, i.e., from a male CEO to a female CEO and vice versa. In contrast, we contend that the effects of CEO successions with gender change depend on the context in which they take place. Drawing on expectation states theory, we identify contexts in which each type of CEO succession with gender change can have positive effects on strategic change and subsequent firm performance, depending on whether the degree of gender parity in the context is sufficient for the new CEO to enact strategic changes. Consistent with our arguments, we report findings from Chinese and US samples showing that in the presence of high environmental dynamism female-to-male CEO succession yields greater strategic change. Conversely, when environmental dynamism is low, it is male-to-female CEO succession that brings about greater strategic change. Furthermore, in the Chinese context, we found that female-to-male CEO succession in state-owned companies results in greater strategic change, whereas male-to-female CEO succession has the same effect in privately-owned settings. Moderated mediation analysis showed that the significant interaction effects on strategic change affect long-term downstream performance (i.e., Tobin's Q). We discuss implications for theory and practice related to CEO successions.

Creating a long-lasting impact is one of the defining goals of social entrepreneurship. Yet, social entrepreneurs often face a dilemma between sustaining their organization and offering a permanent fix to a social problem. We question the assumption that organizational permanence and growth are intrinsically desirable for social entrepreneurs and propose an alternative, an inductively grounded model of ecosystem leadership, which we term ecosystem catalysis. Through a single case study of social entrepreneurs addressing the lack of access to diarrhoea treatment in Zambia, we conceptualize ecosystem catalysis as a process through which an organization forms an ecosystem around a new value proposition while gradually making itself redundant, ultimately withdrawing from the ecosystem without compromising its functioning. Our work contributes to ecosystem literature by contrasting the key aims and mechanisms of an ecosystem catalyst to those of an orchestrator and identifying the conditions under which catalysing may be a better choice than orchestrating an ecosystem. We contribute to social entrepreneurship literature by decoupling social impact from organizational growth and permanence and presenting a more dynamic model of social impact resulting from distributed contributions in ecosystems.

This paper explores when and how middle managers (MMs) convey voice to the top during strategic change, when they do not have the time for lengthy persuasive upward influence tactics such as issue-selling. I investigate this phenomenon through a 33-month study of a risk management team in a large bank as it tried to overhaul its risk management systems and culture, after catastrophic money laundering scandals. I make three contributions. First, I complement the issue-selling literature by theorizing voice work as the purposeful efforts made by middle and lower managers to pass challenges from the bottom to the top during change. These efforts are grouped into three sets of moves: relational, reflexive and skip level. Second, I contribute to the voice literature by explaining when MMs decide to speak up through relational moves (balancing and integrating) and how they shape their voice message through reflexive moves (preparing and refining). Lastly, I refine our understanding of skip level voice by defining skip level moves (overriding and reinforcing), introducing nuance into how lower managers’ voice can strengthen or destabilize MMs. Voice work ultimately enriches our processual understanding of voice as a dynamic phenomenon worked on by multiple layers of management. Theory is built by amalgamating literatures on voice and on MMs’ upward influence, and by analysing them through the sociological lens of work.

Despite a growing interest in understanding how board diversity shapes firms’ innovation, findings about the impact of board diversity have remained mixed. In this paper, we conceptualize board diversity as two forms – deep-level and surface-level – and find that these two forms of board diversity have opposing effects on a firm's innovation. We also theorize how formal and informal social structures can strengthen the positive effect of deep-level diversity yet simultaneously weaken the negative impact of surface-level diversity. We test our hypotheses with a panel of 42,432 firm-year observations from 2000 to 2019. Our paper contributes to the literature on boards and innovation by highlighting and differentiating the mechanisms through which board diversity affects innovation, as well as showing how formal and informal structures can moderate the effects of board diversity.

Middle managers often find themselves in a challenging position: They have to impress different audiences in somewhat incompatible ways and represent and enact managerial ideals and expectations that may be detrimental to their work identities. This study explores role distancing as an alluring coping strategy. Role distancing – acts that express separateness between the individual and the enacted role – may enable the professional to do management and give an impressive managerial performance, without becoming a manager. This may seem like the perfect strategy to impress others while escaping identity struggles. Or maybe not. In this study we take a closer look at role distancing among a group of middle managers in higher education and focus on one manager, Manny, in particular over a period of time. We find that what first seemed to be a promising strategy applauded by a backstage audience, turns into a problem in need of its own solution, as backstage also becomes a frontstage. The paper contributes to theory about middle managers, role distancing in professional work and front−/backstage acting.