Knowledge that Transforms

The current study tested a model that links perceptions of organizational politics to job performance and “turnover intentions” (intentions to quit). Meta-analytic evidence supported significant, bivariate relationships between perceived politics and strain (.48), turnover intentions (.43), job satisfaction (−.57), affective commitment (−.54), task performance (−.20), and organizational citizenship behaviors toward individuals (−.16) and organizations (−.20). Additionally, results demonstrated that work attitudes mediated the effects of perceived politics on employee turnover intentions and that both attitudes and strain mediated the effects of perceived politics on performance. Finally, exploratory analyses provided evidence that perceived politics represent a unique “hindrance stressor.”

We consider when professional employees reciprocate perceived organizational treatment. In a large sample of physician employees, the association between perceived organizational support (POS) and employee work performance was (1) most positive when organizational identification was high and professional identification was low and (2) least positive when organizational identification was low and professional identification was high. We also found that the association between perceived psychological contract violation (PPCV) and employee work performance was (1) most negative when organizational identification was low and professional identification was high and (2) least negative when organizational identification was high and professional identification was low.

This study advances understanding of network dynamics by applying matching theory to the formation of interorganizational alliances. We introduce market complementary and resource compatibility as two critical matching criteria of alliance formation and argue that good matches increase firm performance. Using data from liner shipping, we found effects of matching on alliance formation. But contrary to our expectations, alliances by networked firms, rather than isolate firms, exhibited better match quality, suggesting that networks facilitate matching rather than sacrifice it. We also found evidence that alliances with matched partners improve firm performance and survival chances.

This article explores why engineering students are committed to counterproductive practices. Student informants' work practices appeared to coincide with lay stereotypes about what “good engineers” do, and they sought to justify those practices as rational. This externalization encouraged them to perform these practices more frequently. We characterize the relationship between the enactment of norms and the externalization of work practices as a dialectical process that helps explain why the students could not conceive of changing their practices. We draw implications for theory on occupational socialization and for the management of engineering work from our findings.

Drawing on an in-depth qualitative study of a consulting project, we examine how conditions of novelty and ambiguity on interorganizational engagements produce inconsistent norms and expectations for guiding project interaction. Clients and consultants attempt to resolve the resulting discursive tensions while also increasing their organization's influence on the project. As diverse institutional contexts offer multiple legitimate ways of practicing, agents draw on such alternatives to renegotiate power relations. We develop a theoretical framework and empirical approach for understanding how discursive resources from diverse institutional contexts can be used to transform power relations within and between organizations.

Little is known about the relationship between industry self-regulation organizations and the diffusion of policy content. Using the organic food industry as a context, this study examines the relationship between local and federated standards-based certification organizations and specific changes in U.S. state laws. The study's findings indicate that local structures correspond to greater legal innovation and elaboration, but less variation. Conversely, federated structures correspond to less legal innovation and elaboration, and greater content variation. These findings both challenge extant theories regarding organizational capacities of local and federated organizations and extend contemporary conceptions of diffusion.

The present research examines the within-person structure of job performance, with an emphasis on the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). We demonstrate, via two experience-sampling studies, that OCB and CWB are affect-driven phenomena that exhibit considerable within-person variation. Furthermore, as predicted, the within-person affective forces on OCB were independent of those on CWB—and the two phenomena were themselves independent. When directed at an organization (rather than a supervisor or coworkers), both were, however, related (within-person) to each other and to overall job performance. We discuss implications for the within-person performance structure.

Drawing from resource-based theory, we argue for a broader interpretation of human capital and demonstrate that unit service orientation contributes to unit effectiveness over time. Operationalizing unit service orientation as the unit-level (n = 1,255) aggregate of individual level (n = 114,198) service employee competencies, we modeled the data over three quarters and found a positive but decreasing relationship between the flow of unit service orientation and changes in unit effectiveness. Although building a high-quality stock is important, we show that the key driver of change in unit effectiveness is the flow of unit service orientation over time.

That public policy affects organizational behaviors is well accepted, but less explored is how these effects may depend on other external environmental factors. We investigated policy as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for understanding the growth of commercial banking in the United States, 1896–1978. We highlight a trade-off for banks between centralized and dispersed growth strategies and show that which strategy prevails depends on how policy enabling branching interacts with technological, economic, and cultural environments. Our findings contribute to understanding the contingent effects of policy on organizations and on the growth of large corporations in the 20th century.

This article employs rhetorical theory to reconceptualize institutionalization as change in argument structure. As a state, institutionalization is embodied in the structure of argument used to justify a practice at a given point in time. As a process, institutionalization is modeled as changes in the structure of arguments used to justify a practice over time. We use rhetoric surrounding the institutionalization of total quality management (TQM) practices within the American business community as a case study to illustrate how conceptualizing institutionalization as changes in argument structure can help show how institutions simultaneously constrain and enable social action.