Journal of Management Studies最新文献

Despite significant knowledge on the demographic composition of workgroups, the literature lacks group-level theory that addresses the tendency of work groups with token levels of diversity to maintain their demographic imbalance over time. We explain this phenomenon by extending moral licensing theory to the group level, arguing that a token level of racial or gender diversity leads to the development of a collective moral credential. This credential provides psychological permission for groups to relax their moral strivings, such that they are less likely to question the influence of bias in group member selection decisions, and thus more likely to make subsequent homogenous group member additions. Additionally, we argue that the diversity climates within which groups are embedded can either magnify (i.e., in fairness-focused diversity climates) or mitigate (i.e., in synergy-focused diversity climates) the development of a collective moral credential. Further, we suggest that the effect of token levels of diversity on the development of a collective moral credential can be affected by the prevailing social norms for diversity. Finally, we theorize that the effects of this process can be accentuated by group use of a majority decision rule and attenuated by group use of a unanimous decision rule.

This article systematically reviews the literature on online task crowdwork to investigate the complex relationship between technology and work design on crowdwork platforms. We highlight the diverse interpretations and uses of technology, specifically platform features and algorithms, in relation to work design. Our review reveals that platform features serve as antecedents to work design characteristics, while algorithms are so intertwined with job execution that a new work characteristic is needed to model this interplay. We introduce this new work characteristic as algorithmic embeddedness and show that it varies in degree. When high, algorithmic embeddedness can be perceived as either an affordance or a constraint; when low, it has a limited impact on crowdworkers’ jobs. Our ‘gig characteristics model’ expands previous work design theories and offers a framework for understanding the design of contemporary jobs that rely highly on algorithms. To refine our model and better understand crowdwork dynamics, we provide an agenda for future research directions.

Drawing on social identity theory, we investigate whether politicians exhibit hometown favouritism when allocating scarce capital resources, and we explore how the intensity of politicians’ birthplace identity influences their tendency towards favouring hometown firms. Using the turnover of politicians responsible for the nationwide IPO approval process in China and the resulting ‘birthplace shock’ during the lengthy approval process for IPO applicant firms, we document the causal effect of politicians’ hometown favouritism on capital resource allocation. Hometown firms are on average 15 percentage points more likely to receive IPO approval. This effect is stronger when politicians have a stronger sense of birthplace identity. Moreover, we show that hometown favouritism distorts capital resource allocation. Thus, our findings extend the existing non-market strategy literature by incorporating a unique social identity perspective to elucidate the influence of powerful politicians on firm outcomes and the efficiency of societal capital resource allocation.

Despite the important role of top management team (TMT) voice, the innate risks and vulnerabilities involved often dissuade TMT members from openly expressing their views to the chief executive officer (CEO). This is especially the case in family firms, where the CEO is often a family member and familial ties regularly take priority over ties with individuals from outside the family (i.e., non-family members). In this article, we focus on the role of trust as a potential enabler of TMT voice in family firms. Primary matched triadic data from CEOs (n = 79) and family and non-family TMT members (n = 158) in 79 family firms demonstrate that trust perceptions (feeling trusted by the CEO and perceptions of CEO trustworthiness) have a positive effect on TMT voice behaviour and perceived job performance. Interestingly, this positive effect is significant only for non-family members, suggesting trust perceptions are more imperative for non-family TMT members when it comes to speaking up to the boss. A main implication for scholarship at the interface of trust and family business is that our nuanced, and in some instances counterintuitive, findings suggest traditional theories and approaches to studying trust may not apply to family firms. We also discuss practical implications of our findings.

Collectives of hybrid organizations have emerged with the aim of promoting the plural goals and values embodied by their member organizations. Doing so, however, often requires simultaneous conformity and opposition to dominant institutional norms, such as those underlying mainstream market activity. We examine how hybrid collectives navigate this ‘conform-and-oppose’ tension as they seek to promote their members’ hybrid form through quantification – i.e., the use of numbers to label, count, and describe members. Analyzing the case of the International Cooperative Alliance, we identify four interrelated dimensions (valorization, validity, reactivity, and retroaction) through which a hybrid collective can harness quantification to manage differing commitments to market and social goals and values within and beyond the collective – a process we name formative quantification. Core to this process are two filtering mechanisms – validity searching and values queuing – through which a hybrid collective integrates stakeholder perceptions of truth (validity) and value (valorization) to navigate hybrid tensions. Our work extends theory on hybrid tension management to the inter-organizational level, while shifting the view of organizational quantification from a tool of conformity-enhancing evaluation towards a collective search for numbers that both conform to and oppose taken-for-granted norms.

How do customers discover new products? Recent research has found that a firm can facilitate the discovery and subsequent purchase of its product by giving it an advantageous name. However, no product exists in isolation, rather it competes for customer attention with other products both within and across product niches. We theorize that a product may benefit from the names of competitors’ products within its niche because certain product names can trigger a positive spillover effect. Specifically, product viability should increase with the proliferation of products with informative names in a focal niche because informative names attract attention to the niche, and consequently benefit all its products, regardless of whether they have informative names or not. This beneficial influence should be especially strong when a niche is new. Additionally, a product’s market fate may depend not only on the prevalent naming practices in its niche, but also on naming practices in competing niches. We find support for our theorizing in event-history analyses of all CD-drive products shipped in the worldwide optical disk drive industry, 1983–1999. Ultimately, our findings suggest that in high-velocity markets, to facilitate product discovery by customers, firms should enter niches populated by products with informative names.

Despite the increasing frequency and awareness of large-scale crises, our knowledge of how organizations construct urgency to act in these extreme contexts – especially if they are prolonged disasters rather than single events – remains limited. By undertaking an explorative study of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the central German organization for disease control and prevention during the COVID-19 pandemic, we address the research question of how organizations construct urgency during prolonged crises. In doing so, we develop a process model of the construction and modulation of urgency. Specifically, we draw on a temporal perspective to argue that the RKI translated temporal cues of the crisis to mobilize different forms of urgency via the central mechanism of modulating urgency (i.e., by speeding up or slowing down activities) over an extended period of time. Our findings contribute to an advanced understanding of the role of temporality and urgency during prolonged crises by (1) showing how urgency is enacted through temporal practices, (2) extending the literature on temporality and how organizations materialize temporality to construct and modulate urgency, and (3) demonstrating that various forms of urgency exist, rendering it a much more multifaceted concept than previously suggested.