Evaluations play a critical role in the allocation of resources and opportunities. Although evaluation systems are a cornerstone of organizational and market processes, they often reinforce social and economic inequalities. The body of organizational research on inequality and evaluations is extensive, but it is also fragmented, siloed within specific contexts and types of evaluations (e.g., hiring

How do individuals learn and perceive social norms across situations and groups? We propose a three-stage process of social norm perception in which individuals first enter situations with a prior expectation of social norms that may apply, then they encounter and weigh norm information, and finally they integrate this norm information with their prior expectation. In addition, we discuss definitions

A key puzzle in social network research is why people have networks in theory but fail to extract resources from them in practice. We propose the concept of mobilization capacity—one’s efficiency in extracting resources from networks—to help explain this gap. Mobilization capacity involves several critical microprocesses that account for what often appears as error in network models, given that having

As rapid organizational and technological change makes boundaries within workplaces more permeable, employees are gaining unprecedented access to new people and information. This both increases opportunities for collaboration and heightens the risk of attention overload. While scholars have investigated overload with respect to “what” employees attend to, little research has examined the challenges

Scholarship on entrepreneurship in top management journals has disproportionately focused on elites, leading our field to develop a great deal of understanding about a select few in society. Collectively, this bias has led to deeper expertise on elite entrepreneurs relative to entrepreneurs with different backgrounds, such as those from marginalized populations. We note the conceptual and prescriptive

An age-old adage in psychology is that people’s behavior emanates from or is an expression of their motivation and their ability. We posit that work behaviors and attitudes also depend on employees’ perceptions of motivation and ability, pertaining to others and themselves. The processes through which perceptions of motivation and ability influence employees are conceptually distinct from effects attributable

The portability of performance for individuals during a career transition is not straightforward. Differences between jobs can create a drag on performance; alternatively, the differences can be an input to creativity and innovation. In this paper, we develop a model of career transitions that centers around the concept of career frictions, which we define as the disrupting differences felt by individuals

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Studying corporate misconduct requires understanding how individuals coordinate in illegal activities while maintaining secrecy. Drawing on social network theory and analysis, we develop a systematic framework to explain how social relationships and their structures, as well as individuals’ cognitive perceptions of those structures, affect how individuals engage in collective corporate corruption.

Although ambiguity is a pervasive feature of organizations, its influence on organizational decision making is often overlooked. We aim to advance understanding of decision making under ambiguity in organizations by combining insights from organizational research within the Carnegie perspective with psychological research on fundamental human motives. We propose the Carnegie plus Self-Enhancement (CSE)

In order for the assistance we extend to others to be maximally effective—whether interpersonally or institutionally—we need both givers to extend the help and recipients to utilize the assistance made available to them. Although much organizational behavior research has explored ways to increase prosocial behavior and charitable giving, comparatively little organizational scholarship has explored

We consider how entrepreneurship and employment differentially shape opportunities for social mobility across people and contexts. Specifically focusing on changes in an individual’s social status, or vertical mobility, we propose three metaphors for studying entrepreneurship: (1) production (i.e., increased status); (2) preservation (i.e., maintained status); and (3) consumption (i.e., decreased status)

Are experts overconfident? Some research finds experts are plagued by overconfidence whereas others conclude that they are underconfident. We reviewed the literature, taking an interdisciplinary approach, to answer this question. In doing so, we assessed whether there were theoretical differences in how overconfidence and expertise were conceptualized across the literature. For overconfidence, there

There are multiple topic areas relevant to human sustainability in organizational behavior. These have recently been integrated into Restricted Employee Sustainability Theory (REST). However, REST as currently formulated focuses on individual employees, leaving the theory undersocialized and undercontextualized. Moreover, REST leaves responsibility for human sustainability on individual employees.

Diversity has been thought to influence innovation and economic growth in many ways. The mechanisms proposed as underlying these relationships interestingly operate at different spatial scales. Differing estimates across levels of spatial resolution therefore provide empirical insight into the processes underlying regional differences in innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. After discussing

Organizational gatekeepers rely on tacit proxy signals of quality to evaluate creative work: status and status characteristics, elite networks, cultural capital, and a set of signals we refer to as symbolic dexterity. We argue that this reliance is due to the “push” of uncertainty and the “pull” of the culturally dominant person-centered view of creativity. Evaluators are “pushed” toward these proxy

There is an increasingly prevalent expectation in contemporary society that employees be passionate for their work. Here, we suggest that employers and employees can have different understandings of passion that potentially conflict. More specifically, we argue that although employers may often be well-intentioned, their emphasis on employee passion may at times amount to normative control and reflect

Thriving, the psychological experience of both vitality (or energy) and learning, is often elusive. Rather than growing, developing, and feeling energized, workers report stagnation and depletion. While much of the research on thriving at work has focused on what managers can do to promote thriving amongst workers, we highlight the means by which people are empowered to take control of their well-being

Despite the centrality of differences as a driver of conflict, most of the empirical research on group conflict has focused on the group as a whole, paying little attention to the differing experiences of individuals during conflict—that is, the ways individuals perceive, make sense of, and emotionally experience a conflict episode. Although people process information about a conflict using the same

Decades of research has demonstrated that people can arrive at starkly different perceptions in the same social situations. Divergent perceptions are not inherently dysfunctional. However, if divergent perceptions are not managed effectively, they can have deleterious effects that can undermine functioning in the workplace. Drawing on a motivated cognition perspective, we outline why divergent perceptions

Organizations are transforming as they adopt new technologies and use new sources of data, changing the experiences of employees and pushing organizational researchers to respond. As employees perform their daily activities, they generate vast digital data. These data, when combined with established methods and new analytic techniques, create unprecedented opportunities for studying human behavior

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Speaking up is critical for organizational and individual success. Yet, while some employees speak up, others hesitate to voice their concerns and needs. Why? We propose the answer is found in a single word: Hierarchy. In the current article, we review the employee voice literature and the role that the power and status of both the voicer and the voice target play in the decision to speak up, as well

Members of dominant groups can play a critical role as allies to members of marginalized groups in creating more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that aspiring allies often fail to advance equity and may sometimes even amplify inequity. To shed light on the causes of—and cures for—ineffective allyship, we apply a relational lens, integrating

Evolutionary social psychologists have demonstrated that powerholders generally attain and maintain rank in social hierarchies through two distinct types of behaviors: associative (prestige-based) strategies or dissociative (dominance-based) strategies. However, the dual-strategies literature lacks a theoretical account of when and why people adopt one approach over the other. We provide a theoretical

When tasked with responding to an employee’s offensive remarks, managers face the Confronter’s Quandary: They must decide on an appropriate course of action to balance addressing the employee’s problematic behavior and suspected attitudes (Correction goals) while preserving their working relationship and the offender’s sense of belonging to the organization (Connection goals). This paper proposes a

Thriving, the psychological experience of both vitality (or energy) and learning, is often elusive. Rather than growing, developing, and feeling energized, workers report stagnation and depletion. While much of the research on thriving at work has focused on what managers can do to promote thriving amongst workers, we highlight the means by which people are empowered to take control of their well-being

Decades of research has demonstrated that people can arrive at starkly different perceptions in the same social situations. Divergent perceptions are not inherently dysfunctional. However, if divergent perceptions are not managed effectively, they can have deleterious effects that can undermine functioning in the workplace. Drawing on a motivated cognition perspective, we outline why divergent perceptions

Abstract not available

Organizational learning research is based on the idea that individuals can learn more together than alone. Network connections between members of an organization allow them to engage in a mutual learning process whereby they share what they discover and potentially learn and improve their performance at a faster rate. Existing research highlights the importance of network structure in facilitating

There is an increasingly prevalent expectation in contemporary society that employees be passionate for their work. Here, we suggest that employers and employees can have different understandings of passion that potentially conflict. More specifically, we argue that although employers may often be well-intentioned, their emphasis on employee passion may at times amount to normative control and reflect

Despite the centrality of differences as a driver of conflict, most of the empirical research on group conflict has focused on the group as a whole, paying little attention to the differing experiences of individuals during conflict—that is, the ways individuals perceive, make sense of, and emotionally experience a conflict episode. Although people process information about a conflict using the same

Abstract not available

Abstract not available

Negotiations are a careful balancing act between cooperation and competition—a successful negotiation requires extracting maximal value without offending and alienating a counterpart (i.e., the negotiator’s dilemma). It is thus surprising that negotiation scholars have largely overlooked a pervasive feature of negotiations: they entail “polite” speech. In this paper, we introduce politeness as a communicative

Prior research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has documented how specific CSR activities relate to responses of relevant stakeholders, mainly examining employees. However, it is as yet unclear whether these findings generalize to other types of CSR activities or to responses of other stakeholder groups. In fact, results from studies to date also show inconsistent effects in need of further

As the organizational landscape becomes increasingly turbulent and the gig economy grows, the conventional anchors for a work-based sense of identity – a relatively stable organization, workgroup, and occupation – are losing relevance. We argue that a “network identity,” defined as the core, distinctive, and more or less enduring character of a set of social ties (e.g., “we are high-achievers”), helps

Scholars have highlighted the use of punishment as a tool to defend laws and norms, deter deviance, and restore justice in the aftermath of organizational misconduct. However, current theory and research primarily draw on a micro-oriented lens to understand how punishment occurs in response to deviant actors within organizations, neglecting macro-oriented questions of whether and how organizations

Research shows that perceived authenticity conveys value in many disparate domains. The analytical attention of this research focuses on producers of products and services, identifying which actions and structures the typical individual associates with authenticity. Far less is known about how individuals and audiences differ in their interest, receptiveness and response to potentially authentic entities

To effectively manage planned change and understand differences in leaders’ and recipients’ responses to it, it is essential to understand how change is cognitively represented by organization members. In this theory-development article, we draw upon construal-level theory (CLT) and conceptually explore the role of change construal level in explaining responses to organizational change. We discuss

A rich body of research throughout the social sciences demonstrates that bias—people’s tendency to display group-based preferences—is a major obstacle in the way of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. The current article moves beyond the single-level focus of prior theories of workplace bias to propose a novel theoretical model that conceptualizes workplace bias as a multilevel

Consent is central to many organizational interactions and obligations. Employees consent to various terms of employment, both formal (contractual obligations) and informal (extra-role responsibilities, interpersonal requests). Yet consent has traditionally been considered a legal matter, unrelated to organizational behavior. In this article, we make a case for why, and how, organizational behavior

Organizational culture profoundly influences how employees think and behave. Established research suggests that the content, intensity, consensus, and fit of cultural norms act as a social control system for attitudes and behavior. We adopt the norms model of organizational culture to elucidate whether organizational culture can influence how employees experience emotions. We focus on a pervasive emotion

Decades of research have shown that people’s mindsets beliefs—their beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of talent, ability, and intelligence—can powerfully influence their motivation, engagement, and performance. This article explores the role of mindsets in organizational contexts. We start by describing the evolution of mindset theory and research and review why mindsets matter for people’s

In this article we introduce and propose a research agenda on tryouts, a hiring arrangement in which individuals spend time in organizations performing job-related work prior to the chance to become regular, full-time employees. We define tryouts as a construct and discuss how tryouts differ from traditional, direct hiring. We provide a typology of alternative hiring arrangements that serve as tryouts

Research on guilt proneness in the workplace has flourished over the past decade. Here we attempt to refine the construct, outlining its positive psychological mechanisms and clarifying how it relates to desired employee outcomes. We present a theoretical framework that explains how guilt-prone employees react and attempt to resolve, conflicting normative expectations, generating specific predictions

The subjective meanings employees assign to their understandings of themselves, others, and their environments influence an array of important work attitudes and behaviors. We review theory and research on wise interventions that illustrate three fundamental motives that underlie this subjective meaning-making process: the need to understand, the need for self-integrity, and the need to belong. Understanding

Grit—the tendency to pursue especially long-term goals with both passion and perseverance—has been shown to predict high achievement in a range of individual performance domains. We make a case for introducing the concept of grit to the organizational behavior literature. To begin, we elaborate the conceptual foundations of grit, highlighting ways in which grit differs from related traits and situating

The goal of the current manuscript is to embed the theory of mindsets about malleability in workplace contexts. We first define fixed-growth mindsets and the methods that have to date been used to study them. We then briefly review the domains in which mindsets have been documented to shape outcomes meaningfully, linking each to exciting research questions that we hope will soon be studied in workplace

In recent years, research from various disciplines, including social psychology, sociology, economics, gender studies, and organizational behavior, has illuminated the importance of considering the various ways in which multiple social categories intersect to shape outcomes for women in the workplace. However, these findings are scattered across disciplines, making it difficult for organizational scholars

Leveraging the wealth of research insights generated over the past 25 years, we develop a model of emotional contagion in organizational life. We begin by defining emotional contagion, reviewing ways to assess this phenomenon, and discussing individual differences that influence susceptibility to emotional contagion. We then explore the key role of emotional contagion in organizational life across

The literatures on creativity and innovation are each premised on the same important assumption that has gone largely unquestioned: Creativity and innovation are outcomes that are almost inherently positive. Decades of research on creativity in organizations have been motivated by the assumption that creative ideas can be implemented to realize innovations that will inevitably increase profit, strengthen

If behavioral ethics research from the past two decades has taught us nothing else, it has made it abundantly clear that humans are morally fallible. Indeed, there are everyday examples—in the workplace and beyond—of people who unwittingly violate their personal moral values, finding numerous ways to rationalize and justify otherwise morally objectionable behavior. In this article, we argue that acknowledging

Pride is often felt in the work context, but should it be shown to others? Pride displays communicate one’s own success and status, but can show a lack of interpersonal sensitivity. This double-edged nature of pride is not fully understood in organizational contexts; we do not know under what conditions pride displays are beneficial, or detrimental, to career advancement, team dynamics, and leader

Job stressors such as time pressure, organizational constraints, and interpersonal conflicts matter for individual well-being within organizations, both at the day level and over longer periods of time. Recovery-enhancing processes such as psychological detachment from work during nonwork time, physical exercise, and sleep have the potential to protect well-being. Although the experience of job stressors

How work gets done has changed fundamentally in recent decades, with a growing number of people working independently, outside of organizations in a style of work quite different from that assumed by many organizational behavior theories. To remain relevant, our research on individual work behaviors and the capabilities that enable them must also adapt to this new world of work, the so-called “gig

It is not always possible for leaders, teams, and organizations to practice what they preach. Misalignment between words and deeds can invite harsh interpersonal consequences, such as distrust and moral condemnation, which have negative knock-on effects throughout organizations. Yet the interpersonal consequences of such misalignment are not always severe, and are sometimes even positive. This paper

Moral Utility Theory provides an integrative framework for understanding the motivational basis of ethical decision making by modeling it as a process of subjective expected utility (SEU) maximization. The SEUs of ethical and unethical behavioral options are proposed to be assessed intuitively during goal pursuit, with unethical conduct emerging when the expected benefits of moral transgressions outweigh