Knowledge that Transforms

Academy of Management Review

Analytic techniques have associated mindsets that can determine the way scholars conceptualize their objects of study. I propose that switching these “analytical mindsets” can lead to new theoretical insights. Using two examples, I show how switching analytical mindsets allows for divergent, creative thinking that can help researchers generate new theoretical foci. I conclude by discussing the importance of attending to methodology when engaging in the process of theory construction.

We introduce a model of interorganizational governance within regional clusters. Drawing on the “new institutional economics” literature, we show how firms' governance designs are shaped by the relationship between transaction-level characteristics and the cluster macroculture. We then consider how subsequent transaction-level governance designs are affected by path dependencies from past governance choices. Finally, we suggest that intertransactional path dependencies exhibit directional asymmetries, and we draw implications for the literature on clusters, on transaction costs, and on interorganizational relationships.

We offer a theory of action-oriented problem solving that links interpretation and choice, processes usually separated in the sensemaking literature and decision-making literature. Through an iterative, simulation-based process we developed a formal model. Three insights emerged: (1) action-oriented problem solving includes acting, interpreting, and cultivating diagnoses; (2) feedback among these processes opens and closes windows of adaptive problem solving; and (3) reinforcing feedback and confirmation bias, usually considered dysfunctional, are helpful for adaptive problem solving.

Although death awareness is pervasive in organizations and can have powerful effects on employees ’ experiences and behaviors, scholars have paid little attention to it. We develop a theoretical model of the nature, antecedents, and consequences of death awareness at work. We differentiate death anxiety and reflection as distinct states that strengthen self-protective versus prosocial motivations, examine how mortality cues and aging processes trigger these states, and explore their impact on withdrawal and generative behaviors. The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny.... Of all things that move man, one of the principal ones is his terror of death (Becker, 1973: ix, 11). The tragedies of September 11 had a dramatic effect on work experiences and behaviors, both for those who were directly involved (Bacharach & Bamberger, 2007) and those who were not (Johns, 2006). For some employees the terrorist attacks resulted in crippling anxiety, leading to stress and absenteeism from work (Byron & Peterson, 2002; Salgado, 2002). For others the at-tacks inspired reflection about death and the meaning of life, motivating remarkable efforts to contribute to other people and society. Organi-zational scholars began to reflect on how they could best serve the public interest through their research and their students through their teach-