Knowledge that Transforms

The justice literature suggests that adhering to justice rules should be self-reinforcing. Yet, the literature on bias suppression (a facet of procedural justice) indicates that the effects of debi...

Research on identity has provided key insights into the challenges individuals experience when their professional self-concept is disrupted. But there has been little consideration of individuals’ ...

Multiteam systems (MTSs) operating in complex and dynamic environments often have a formal hierarchical leadership structure. However, it is unclear whether individuals should stick exclusively to performing their designated tasks within the hierarchical leadership structure, or if, instead, they should switch between different types of tasks to align efforts with changes in the environment. We refer to such task switching—an individual shifting to or from tasks designated for a particular leader position—as leadership task transitions. Our qualitative study of six MTSs responding to live-actor mass-casualty incidents revealed that leadership task transitions are a double-edged sword as they can simultaneously help manage the MTS–environment interface and harm MTS internal functioning. More specifically, leadership task transitions benefit the MTS by rapidly reallocating effort to alleviate the dominant environmental pressure at that time. However, they also harm the MTS by disrupting its internal task-based cycles. Rapidly restoring the disrupted cycles mitigates this harmful effect, but such cycle restoration is not successful when there is a high level of cycle activity or when multiple areas of the MTS are disrupted. Our findings generate new knowledge on how and why leadership task transitions impact MTSs. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Firms often depend on relationships with other firms to access important resources. When a crisis strikes a firm, continuation of those relationships can be jeopardized, as many indirectly affected...

One of the most effective ways leaders can promote change is by generating visions with image-based rhetoric (“make children smile”). By conjuring visual snapshots of the future, leaders paint a po...

We conducted an inductive study of discourse associated with the U.S. luxury hotel category, from its beginnings in 1790 through 2015, to explain how cultural processes contribute to elite category endurance. Analyzing data from historical archives, interviews, and observations, we use both qualitative and quantitative methods to reveal how the endurance of an elite category is an ongoing cultural accomplishment that occurs via periodic redefinition of its “symbolic boundary”-that is, the set of meanings and practices that distinguish the elite from nonelite. Modeling the boundary in terms of semiotic codes of opposition, we find that the encoding of the symbolic boundary serves as a temporary settlement that conveys both the category's elite exclusivity and its cultural consonance with broader societal beliefs, tastes, and practices. Over time, however, with industry and societal changes, tensions erupt in the balance between the needs for exclusivity and consonance, propelling a redefinition of what it means to be elite. Our research extends current theorizations of elite category endurance by revealing how the elite symbolic boundary is neither permanent nor unassailable; rather, we show how it changes to enable long-term elite category endurance.

Experienced passage of time, the extent to which employees perceive the passage of work time as being fast or slow, is a fundamental aspect of work experience. We identify two novel temporal work design characteristics that can speed up employees’ experienced passage of time: temporal predictability and task segmentation. Jobs with high temporal predictability do not make employees go through uncertain wait times before embarking on their next task. High task segmentation occurs when a large chunk of work time is segmented by categorically different temporal markers. We tested a model in which temporal predictability and task segmentation affect experienced passage of time, which in turn influences job performance, with five studies: two experiments that established the internal validity of temporal predictability and task segmentation (Studies 1a and 1b), a naturalistic field study in a factory that investigated the natural consequences of distinct temporal work design (Study 2), an organizational field study that constructively replicated the model using a sample of knowledge workers and their supervisors (Study 3), and an online survey in which we connected our model with the broader work design literature (Study 4). Altogether, the studies support a new temporal approach to work design.

Research on clusters highlights that some areas display superior conditions to locally nurture concentrations of businesses. But why do certain industries—despite ascribing their origin to specific locations—emerge away from their birthplace? We respond by qualitatively investigating the influence that the town of Arco, Italy, and its periodic event ‘RockMaster’ exerted on the emergence of the global sport climbing industry. We advance the concept of ‘catalyzing places’ that support the emergence and growth of industries through an ongoing, cyclical process of three forces—centripetal (i.e., attracting), catalyzing (i.e., reacting), and centrifugal (i.e., ejecting). The forces attract communities of practice to the place, expose them to intense, transformational experiences towards entrepreneurship, and ultimately induce them to establish their businesses elsewhere. By redeploying the resources and reputation acquired in the place, these scattered communities enact a collective phenomenon of user entrepreneurship, and ultimately industry emergence. We claim that the ongoing activities of the place, and the periodic ones of the event, are mutually reinforcing. We advance two novel elements, ‘portable economies’ and ‘springboard firms,’ which in catalyzing places exert the antithetical effect of ‘agglomeration economies’ and ‘anchor firms’ in clusters. We discuss our contribution to research on industry emergence, new practices, and user entrepreneurship.

Facilitating refugees’ transitions to host country society is of interest to their host countries and municipalities, employers within those countries, and the refugees themselves. We develop and t...