Knowledge that Transforms

Decades of studies spanning multiple disciplines have provided insight into the critical role of loneliness in work contexts. In spite of this extensive research, a comprehensive review of loneliness and work remains absent. To address this gap, we conducted a multidisciplinary review of relevant theory and research and identified 213 articles reporting on 233 empirical studies from management, organizational psychology, sociology, medicine, and other domains to uncover why people feel lonely, how different features of work can contribute to feelings of loneliness, and the implications of employee loneliness for organizational settings. This enabled a critical examination of the distinct conceptualizations and operationalizations of loneliness that have been advanced and the theories underpinning this scholarship. We developed a comprehensive conceptual model that integrates cognitive discrepancy theory, the affect theory of social exchange, and evolutionary theory. This model elucidates the core antecedents, mediators, outcomes, moderators, and interventions forming the nomological network of work related loneliness, including cross-level influences within teams and among leaders. Our review also identifies a number of promising areas for future inquiry to improve our understanding and measurement of loneliness, the process of experiencing and managing loneliness in the workplace, and potential interventions to reduce it. Finally, we provide tangible guidance for organizations and practitioners on how to address and mitigate employee loneliness. Ultimately, our review underscores the complex nature of loneliness and work and establishes a foundation for advancing both scholarly discourse and organizational practices in this critical domain.

While most of the socialization literature has focused on factors that allow newcomers to adjust to their new job tasks successfully, less attention has been given to examining whether temporary newcomers’ task adjustment influences the likelihood of receiving a permanent position. Drawing on the identity perspective and the socialization literature, this study proposes and tests a new framework that examines the probability of task-adjusted newcomers receiving a permanent job offer contingent on two conditions: a) there is a low level of peer divestiture socialization, which enables the task-adjusted newcomer to achieve higher levels of task performance, and b) the newcomer displays low rule-following behavior, which allows the high-performing newcomer to be cognitively trusted by the supervisor. Consistent with our predictions, the results of a four-wave, multisource study featuring 194 newcomer-supervisor dyads revealed that newcomer task adjustment was positively related to the newcomer receiving a permanent job offer by way of newcomer task performance and supervisor trust in newcomers but only when peer divestiture socialization and newcomer rule-following behavior were low. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings.

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 a case of goal setting within a high-profile partnership across the academic and business sectors called Action2020, which aimed at accelerating global corporate sustainability action based on the planetary boundaries framework. We find that cross-sector goal setting is an iterative, multiphase process complicated by deep-seated sectoral differences that trigger paradoxes and conflict. Our main contribution is a process model of cross-sector goal setting comprising three phases: coalescing, protecting, and reconciling sectoral interests. Our model offers three unique insights that advance the cross-sector paradox literature: Altering the cross-sector goal can harness new opportunities of key turning points in the collaboration, shifting the opposing poles of paradoxes may be a necessary management approach to overcome collaborative barriers, and intermediaries may dampen the ambition of collaborative goals in order to temper paradoxes. We also contribute to the corporate sustainability literature and discuss the implications of moving from organization-centric to systems-based sustainability targets.

Across contemporary workplaces, organizations are increasingly deploying biometric technologies that capture, analyze, and act upon workers’ physiological and behavioral data, including heart rate variability, movement patterns, and keystroke dynamics. These technologies do not merely monitor workers; they introduce a qualitatively distinct form of managerial authority that is shaping perceptions of employees’ future organizational standing. We term this phenomenon bodily data control, defined as the organizational expectation that workers’ bodily data constitutes a legitimate input into evaluation, coordination, and intervention. We contend that bodily data control threatens a worker’s ability to think, plan, and act, which elicits job insecurity. Job insecurity refers to the perceived threat to the stability and continuity of one’s employment. We propose a theoretical model in which bodily data control threatens three dimensions of human agency: interpretive agency, moral agency, and instrumental agency. We theorize that these agency threats manifest experientially as perceived creepiness, affronts to inherent and meritocratic dignity, and reduced job autonomy, respectively, each of which elicits job insecurity through a distinct causal pathway. Our theoretical model and propositions contribute to job insecurity scholarship by reframing technology-induced job insecurity as a function of managerial authority over bodily data, rather than task displacement alone. We also contribute to broader management conversations regarding human agency, algorithmic governance, and the ethical treatment of workers in an era of pervasive surveillance.

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, they create a burden for their occupants to create a role identity that legitimizes who they are and what they do. To address this puzzle, we draw on a qualitative study of early occupants of the newly created role of lady officer within the Indian military. We find that their role identity construction involved negotiating an optimal balance between professional and inclusion-informed identities through discursive and embodied identity work. Role occupants’ identity work initially emphasized elements of their professional identity and subsequently infused elements of departure informed by their views of the role. In doing so, they sought to shape interpretations of the role and craft a sense of role legitimacy. Our key contribution lies in developing an emergent theory of identity construction by occupants of inclusion-focused roles, illustrating their efforts to craft a role identity and a sense of legitimacy for their role and themselves in it amid challenges posed by role ambiguity and by societal and organizational tensions.

We investigate the effects of entrepreneurial subjective ambivalence on a form of adaptive action: venture idea revision. Building on the affect-as-information perspective, we propose that entrepreneurial subjective ambivalence will increase venture idea revision by increasing information search behaviors. The results of a longitudinal, repeated-measures field study based on 175 entrepreneurs in a top incubator program demonstrate that when entrepreneurs experience higher subjective ambivalence (compared to lower ambivalence) in response to mentor feedback about their new ventures, they engage in higher levels of venture idea revision. We theorize and find that this increase in venture idea revision arises because subjective ambivalence is positively associated with more intense and broader information search behaviors. We discuss implications of our findings for research on affect in entrepreneurial decision-making, creative revision, and ambivalence in organizations, as well as for formal entrepreneurial mentoring programs.

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 about potential network-related sources from which it derives. Specifically, we develop arguments for how the pattern of a project’s social relations with other projects in the project network reflects the project’s status. Then, we deduce hypotheses regarding the impact of project status on employees’ career advancement and the moderating role of one’s hierarchical level in this relationship, drawing on the literature on status diffusion, endorsement, evaluative uncertainty, and attribution. Our empirical examinations entailed two studies. Study 1 provides evidence for the validity of using a network structural feature of a project to indicate its status using data from a high-tech company’s R&D projects. Study 2 tested our hypotheses by leveraging a sample of over 1,000 IT specialists in a multinational accounting firm tracked over five years. We found that employees assigned to higher-status projects received faster promotions. This career advantage was moderated by a person’s organizational hierarchical level in a complex way such that middle-level people obtained more rapid promotions when assigned to high-status projects than their bottom- or top-level counterparts.

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 literature, we propose that examining individual CSR motivation can help to better understand the effect of institutional context on CSR because it makes focusing on substantively motivated CSR possible, and it can shed light on the hitherto neglected psychological moderators in this relationship. We conducted three studies, obtaining results indicating that institutional trust is an important moderator of the institutional effect on individual CSR motivation. Overall, we found the highest individual CSR motivation when regulatory stringency and institutional trust were high, supporting the mirror hypothesis. However, in contexts of low institutional trust, this positive effect of a strong institutional context was reduced or even reversed. Our study contributes to the literature on the institutional perspective on CSR, micro-CSR, and institutional theory, and it has important practical implications for CSR management.

In the United States, more than a quarter of the working-age population experiences physical disabilities that shape workplace participation and career outcomes. Drawing on 168 articles, we synthesize the management literature to develop a unifying framework of focal mechanisms, workplace outcomes, and boundary conditions. In doing so, we offer a clear definition of physical disability, long absent from management research. We also highlight the fragmented theoretical and methodological landscape, in which most studies aggregate disability types, overlooking critical heterogeneity. Our review charts a path forward by identifying key gaps, outlining directions for future scholarship, and emphasizing the need for stronger theoretical grounding and methodological rigor. Finally, we discuss implications for policy and practice, underscoring how greater inclusion of persons with physical disabilities can advance various workplace outcomes.

This review examines the integration of institutional theory with social and environmental efforts in management (i.e., regarding sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and environmental, social, and governance objectives). By analyzing 720 studies published between 1997 and 2023, we develop a multi-level model that maps the antecedents of different actors (e.g., industries, organizations, individuals) to respond to or reshape institutional structures, the mechanisms they use, the moderators, and outcomes of their practices. Our findings emphasize the dynamic interplay between structure and agency across systemic, organizational, and individual levels, offering a comprehensive framework for future research. We highlight three key observations: first, while substantial research explores how institutions shape actors, more attention is needed to understand the reciprocal influences as actors are shaped by and reshape institutions over time. Second, individual-level dynamics remain significantly underexplored, with limited focus on resistance, demotivation, and failure—essential elements of the complexity of institutional processes. Finally, we identify a critical need to examine the unintended consequences of social and environmental efforts, revealing how these endeavors may undermine their goals, create new challenges, or generate unexpected solutions.