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

To examine the robustness of their results against omitted variable bias, management researchers often compare the Impact Threshold of a Confounding Variable (ITCV) with control variable correlations. This paper describes three issues with this approach. First, the ITCV and control variable correlations are measured on mathematically different scales. As a result, their direct comparison is inappropriate

We conduct two literature reviews to explore what risk is in entrepreneurship and across business fields. The objective of these reviews is to shed light on the heterogeneity of the risk construct. In doing this, we are able to contribute to entrepreneurship research by informing scholars of a wider spectrum of risks in the literature, as well as the implications that adopting different views offers

While workload has been traditionally studied as a type of challenge stressor with motivational benefits for employees, recent research suggests that the nature of workload is more complex and nuanced than merely eliciting positive reactions. Although this perspective has emerged in the study of workload at the individual level, research on collective workload in teams and the associated team-based

Managerial human capital is a valuable organizational resource comprising individual-level capacities that draw upon and leverage the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) gained by employees both before and after promotion to managerial positions. While all organizations need strategically valuable managerial human capital, asymmetrical information in external labor markets

As theoretical models become more complex, there is more pressure to use less time-consuming methods generally, and shorter scales specifically. Although reliability is related to scale length, reliability cutoffs are easily met, even in very short scales, by writing or selecting items that are worded in nearly identical ways, that is, grammatical redundancy. However, grammatical redundancy increases

We draw upon organizational learning theory to argue that industry offshoring intensity provides knowledge reservoirs for firms to learn about foreign markets. However, learning about foreign markets from other firms’ cross-border input activities is challenging, and a knowledge reservoir embedded in an industry may not be immediately utilizable by all firms. We posit that realizing such external learning

Hedge fund activism has become an integral part of publicly traded firms, and our paper adopts a behavioral lens to examine how the hostility of tactics employed by activist hedge funds may influence the response of target firms. Drawing on cognitive mechanisms and insights from interviews with investment professionals, we propose that activists’ use of hostile tactics may paradoxically trigger greater

Asian Americans (AsAms) carry unique group identifications that likely impact how they navigate workplace racial discrimination. Yet, extant workplace discrimination research has not thoroughly considered the implications associated with such unique group identifications, especially given the context of American society’s increasingly polarized views of AsAms as outsiders versus insiders. To gain insights

Organizational research has long suggested that when working with problems that are complex and ill-defined it is imperative for organizational members to understand and represent these problems in order to effectively address them. However, research on the topic has remained fragmented across different organizational literatures resulting in the development and persistence of ambiguities in our understanding

McNamara and Schleicher have identified four principal paths for contributing to the Journal of Management (JOM): theoretical insights, phenomenon-driven research, research methodologies, and review papers. This editorial focuses on phenomenon-based research, emphasizing its potential for enhancing management knowledge by offering a nuanced understanding of real-world phenomena. Unlike traditional

Since its introduction more than four decades ago, threat-rigidity theory has emerged as a popular managerial theory of threat response used in a wide variety of literature streams. The theory explains that individuals, groups, and organizations revert to familiar responses (i.e., rigidity) in navigating threats, even when doing so may not be ideal. Yet, despite its popularity, fidelity to the theory’s

Scholars have shown increasing interest in the relationship between top executives and firm innovation. However, no systematic effort has been made to integrate or synthesize the theoretical mechanisms in this literature. Without such an integrative framework, this field remains fragmented, offering limited guidance for future research. In this study, we integrate and synthesize findings from over

The detrimental influence of cognitive biases on decision-making and organizational performance is well established in management research. However, less attention has been given to bias mitigation interventions for improving organizational decisions. Drawing from the judgment and decision-making (JDM) literature, this paper offers a clear conceptualization of two approaches that mitigate bias via

This special issue explores the transformative role of discrete events in fostering changes at different organizational levels, challenging traditional feature-oriented approaches that focus on stable attributes of individuals, groups, and organizations. Joining the growing body of event-oriented research in diverse settings, the nine published articles evoke a novel theoretical lens (i.e., Event System

Research on the influence of internal and external stakeholders on diversity outcomes within organizations has grown in the past decade. Across multiple macro and micro theoretical domains, this body of research has examined various diversity outcomes at different organizational levels. Through an integrative review of literature from management, sociology, psychology, and entrepreneurship, we highlight

Organizations launch diversity initiatives to promote diversity within their ranks, improve the work experiences of underrepresented groups, and satisfy growing demands for diversity in workplace settings. While typically welcomed by the target group, diversity initiatives can be compromised when employees who are not the initiative’s targets—for example, men in the case of gender diversity initiatives—withhold

Research has identified the usefulness of multicultural and multilingual employees in overcoming cultural and language barriers in international work contexts, but still needs to clarify why and how these employees engage in bridging behavior. Based on in-depth analyses of 154 interviews, we inductively develop a comprehensive model of bridging behaviors with novel and counterintuitive insights. We

Employees’ career trajectories in project-based organizations are closely associated with their project participation history. Yet, little is known about what features make a project stand out as a career booster for its participants and who obtains more career benefits than others from working on “hotshot” projects. In this study, we focus on a unique feature of projects—project status—and theorize

Despite the personal, financial, and social implications of divorce for employees, research on the intersection of divorce and work has been mainly conducted across disparate literatures, with limited attention paid within the organizational sciences. In this review, we bring together research on employee divorce across multiple disciplines, including sociology, public health, legal studies, economics

Cross-sector partnerships formed to address societal challenges are widely advocated and increasingly common. Joint goal setting is an essential phase in the collaborative process that can determine the course of a partnership. Yet, little is known about how cross-sector goals change and evolve because goal alignment between partners is often taken for granted. In this article, we qualitatively investigate

Research on subnational institutions is largely motivated by the observation that formal and informal institutions within countries are unevenly configured over geographical space. Although diverse, this relatively nascent body of work has yet to explicate firm activity across subnational locales that exhibit institutional dissimilarity and isomorphism with both proximate and distant centers of political-economic

This study examines the influence of firms’ internal control weakness (ICW) reported under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on their subsequent divestiture decisions and the performance of these decisions. We argue that following ICW disclosure, firms are inclined to pursue corporate divestitures because such divestitures can reduce organizational complexity and help remedy firms’ ICW. We also propose

New roles birthed by organizational inclusion initiatives present an interesting puzzle. On the one hand, they hold the promise to foster inclusion objectives more directly through their formalization in the organizational structure. On the other hand, they tend to be ambiguous as to what occupants are expected to do and how to reconcile this with existing organizational goals and processes. Therefore

The effective socialization of newcomers into organizations is critical for employee and organizational success. As such, ensuring successful onboarding has become even more pivotal for newcomer adjustment, performance, and retention. The literature has seen significant growth and incorporated new theoretical perspectives, such as resource-based approaches since the most recent comprehensive meta-analytic

Despite the wealth of theorizing about the relationship between business and government, research on corporate political activity (CPA) has yet to comprehensively consider how political context (e.g., party ideology and the degree of united or divided party government control) may shift the salience of how CPA materializes across industry-, firm-, and executive-level factors, which can shed light on

Counterfactual reflection (CFR)—thinking about “what might have been if”—can enhance learning from experience, but only if the CFR is high-quality. Yet, what shapes differences in CFR quality remains largely unknown. Because managers typically reflect on experiences by concomitantly considering relevant factors and their collective interdependencies, we suggest that CFR quality is causally complex

We review the research on organization design from 2000 to 2023, inclusive. We identify four major approaches to organization design in the contemporary literature: configuration, control, channelization, and coordination. We discuss the key streams of research that characterize each of these approaches, as well as three emerging areas of research: AI and organizational decision-making, flat organizations

When teams in organizations are assembled to perform contingent tasks, team members carry with them experiences of prior interaction with partners in different teams. Focal team members share collaborative experiences to the extent that they worked with common external prior partners. Extending current research on team effectiveness, we investigate how shared collaborative experience (SCE) affects

Signaling theory is about decision-making and communication. It describes scenarios where signalers send observable signals that carry credible information about unobservable qualities. When decision-makers have incomplete or imperfect information, signals can help them make better decisions. The power of a signal, though, lies in its cost, with the best signals being highly costly for low-quality

Structures involve a patterned regularity of interactions and frameworks that guide what individuals work on, with whom, and who influences those decisions. A deeper understanding of structures that exist within organizations has begun to emerge and illuminate new forms of structures (over 100 of them) that drive behavior in organizations. In this scoping review, we organize the fragmented insights

Social comparisons are one of the most ubiquitous behaviors that individuals, groups, and firms undertake. In particular, social comparison theory is based upon the premise that actors are motivated to engage in comparisons and that decisions throughout this process impact employees’ core self-evaluations, team relations, executives’ behaviors, firm prestige, and more. However, despite the prevalence

Employees’ daily routines (e.g., commutes, lunch breaks, conversations with coworkers or family members) are vital rituals that create order and meaning. However, employees frequently experience changes to how their work and nonwork lives operate, which can generate discontinuity and spark nostalgia—a sentimental longing for the past. In this study, we draw from theory on the dual nature of emotional

The Lean Startup movement fundamentally changed entrepreneurial education and the way new ventures evolve. While Steve Blank and other founders of the movement embraced academic ideas, the movement grew among practitioners largely disconnected from academic entrepreneurship research. The purposes of this special issue are (1) to better connect Lean Startup practice to academic entrepreneurship research

Augmentation-based artificial intelligence (AI) artifacts are increasingly being incorporated into the workplace. The coupling of employees and AI tools, given their complementary strengths, expands and expedites employees’ access to information and affords important learning opportunities. However, existing research has yet to fully understand the learning-based benefits and challenges for employees

Although time is an essential component of the relationships between human resource (HR) systems and their antecedents and consequences, strategic human resource management (SHRM) research has been long criticized for not paying enough attention to the role of time in theory development and research design. To evaluate how the time issue has been addressed in this research field, we reviewed 237 empirical

In management research, meta-analysis is often used to aggregate findings from observational studies that lack random assignment to predictors (e.g., surveys), which may pose challenges in making accurate inferences due to the correlational nature of effect sizes. To improve inferential accuracy, we show how instrumental variable (IV) methods can be integrated into meta-analysis to help researchers

Does a firm that successfully absorbs knowledge from an alliance partner learn to protect its own knowledge in subsequent alliances? Our analysis of 529 alliances of East Asian firms during 1999–2015 suggests that as firms more skillfully overcome their partners’ knowledge protection, they learn to better protect their own knowledge in subsequent alliances. However, such vicarious learning increases

Research points to the importance of establishing inclusive workplaces. Yet, the same research also suggests that getting employees to buy in and engage in these sorts of inclusive behaviors can be a challenging endeavor. While the current literature offers some practical suggestions for garnering inclusion among employees, most recommendations center on programs and contexts with direct ties to inclusion

Lean startup, effectuation, creation theory, and the theory-based view represent four different descriptive theories of how new ventures emerge and/or normative theories of how new ventures should be developed. We juxtapose the four approaches and describe their similarities and differences, which provides a foundation for considering complementarities among the approaches and constructing a future

Anecdotal evidence in popular literature abounds about how perceiving that others have wasted one’s time is a common workplace experience with potentially negative consequences. Yet, there is a dearth of rigorous empirical research into the subjective nature of this psychological experience and its effect on employees. A lack of construct clarity and the absence of a validated measure to assess perceptions

While the property right theory has gained prominence in contemporary literature, there is a notable lack of empirical research into its relevance. This study delves into the implications of the property right theory concerning family-owned businesses and their impact on productivity. Specifically, we explore how family firms’ characteristics affect the benefits and hazards derived from the rights

This paper explores when and how entrepreneurs who operate new organizations in environments where corruption is endemic can resist it. Despite the continued scholarly interest in corruption, anticorruption efforts by micro, small, and medium enterprises have been largely overlooked. Instead, studies have focused on the intraorganizational actions of larger established organizations (local and multinational)

Companies increasingly collaborate with competitors to innovate, minimize risks, and address sustainability crises. However, these alliances often falter or fail due to challenges arising from coopetition paradoxes—contradictory yet interdependent tensions between competition and cooperation. Extant research predominantly focuses on addressing these paradoxes through seeking a stable balance between

Our research addresses how organizations manage a shift from a single to a hybrid identity, a question that the identity literature still is grappling with. We address this question by reflecting on how organizations develop hybrid identities in response to institutional decline. Identity hybridization, we predict, takes place in stages via strategies that gradually hybridize the identity. We study

Hedge fund activism frequently has severe consequences for target firms and their management and boards. Yet, we know little about target management and boards’ response to activist attacks. To advance our understanding in this respect, we examine how the style of target management and boards’ written communication with activists influences campaign outcomes. Building on the behavioral mimicry perspective

Increasingly, transactions between firms and customers are typified by the co-creation of value, wherein customers play an active role in the development of new products and services. Over the past two decades, research on co-creation has flourished across multiple disciplines, largely highlighting its benefits for firms and customers. Importantly, though, while customer engagement in the creative

Research typically adopted a social exchange perspective to suggest that employees share their knowledge with coworkers to reciprocate prior positive treatment to return the favor. We challenge this dominant focus on external motivational sources and adopt an identity-based motivational perspective. Our theorizing is grounded in identity theory and recognizes knowledge-sharing identity centrality as

Termination provisions establish vital governance mechanisms in alliances, offering essential safeguards and incentives by providing the flexibility to exit (underperforming) partnerships. However, they can also foster distrust and instability by potentially undermining commitment and continuity. We argue that the motivation behind termination provisions lies in the need to address safeguarding and

Extant research on stars has demonstrated stars’ immense direct and indirect contributions to value creation, yet it lags behind strategy scholarship, which has emphasized the dynamic nature of value creation associated with firms’ core resources. In particular, we lack knowledge regarding how stars’ knowledge creation varies across a star’s career. Drawing on insights from the stars and careers literatures

Drawing on complexity theory, we investigate the structuring processes and underlying mechanisms underpinning the emergence of a new technology. Empirically, we track the emergence of blockchain technology by examining international patents issued between 2009 and 2020. Our results indicate that technology emergence follows an evolutionary trajectory that progresses from disordered to structured interactions

Institutional investors of different types have been shown to exert differential influences on firm strategic decisions individually. Yet, research has largely overlooked how institutional investors of different types can collectively affect firm decision-making. This study investigates the legal type diversity of institutional ownership (hereafter “investor type diversity”) and its influence on corporate

Social movements have long held noteworthy effects on organizations and industries by deliberately seeking to alter firms’ actions to align with the movements’ values. In the present research, we examine the possibility of nondeliberative effects of social movements on entrepreneurial activities. We posit that social movements elevate values that enhance market conditions and encourage entrepreneurship