Knowledge that Transforms

Sampling data from organizations and humans associated with those organizations is essential to organizational research. Much of what we know about organizations is based on such work. However, this empirical foundation may be compromised, calling into question the field’s theoretical and empirical findings. Studies often sample data from relatively similar, narrow contexts, so a lack of sample diversity accumulates in the discipline. To conceptualize this lack of sample diversity and examine its prevalence across research publications, we conduct a pre-registered systematic review of articles from 2018 to 2022 in six top management journals and another systematic review of articles from 2013 to 2022 in six additional journals (not pre-registered). Our review assesses sample country diversity while also exploring within-country factors that are relatively under or oversampled, such as the size or industry of the sampled organization. We find a lack of sample diversity, for instance, a strong bias toward WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) samples and an underrepresentation of small and medium-sized enterprises in organizational research. Based on the findings and past work, we introduce a conceptual framework for sample diversity along three dimensions: the sample’s geographical, organizational, and personnel contexts. Additionally, we discuss factors that contribute to a lack of sample diversity and propose guidelines for authors, reviewers, and editors to enhance it. Overall, this article seeks to improve the robustness and relevance of theoretical and empirical organizational research, thereby preventing the formulation of misinformed policies and practices in both organizational settings and broader societal contexts.

Modern organizations frequently expect their employees to exhibit high creativity while facing considerable job insecurity. Although it is often assumed that job insecurity diminishes individual creativity, the empirical findings on this relationship are not consistent. The present study aims to scrutinize this assumption and to address such inconsistencies. To do so, we cast both job insecurity and creativity as multidimensional constructs, and we examine key mechanisms and boundary conditions of their linkages. Results from both a longitudinal (Study 1) and a time-lagged multisource survey study (Study 2) illustrated a negative indirect relation between quantitative job insecurity and radical creativity via diminished career commitment. For qualitative job insecurity, by contrast, there was a negative indirect relation with incremental creativity via reduced organizational identification. Moreover, Study 2 revealed distinct moderators for these associations. Employees’ turnover risk propensity buffered the indirect connection between quantitative job insecurity and radical creativity, whereas Confucian traditionality mitigated the indirect relation between qualitative job insecurity and incremental creativity. These findings shed new light on the important role of job insecurity for individual employees’ creative performance and advance our theoretical understanding of the complexities underlying these linkages.

Entrepreneurial affect has emerged as a burgeoning area of study, with a wealth of articles demonstrating that affect, broadly conceptualized, plays an important part in entrepreneurial life. While a few affective phenomena, such as passion and positive and negative affect, are primarily driving the affective revolution in entrepreneurship, a wide range of additional forms of affect, from momentary feelings to enduring affective dispositions, have been found to influence entrepreneurs’ judgments, decision-making, attitudes, and behaviors in distinct parts of the entrepreneurial process. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ affective experiences and displays of these experiences influence entrepreneurial behaviors and investors’ decision-making. Although this is an exciting time for work on entrepreneurial affect, several theoretical and empirical inconsistencies impede further knowledge accumulation. To assess how and why affect is critical to entrepreneurship, to clarify the theoretical inconsistencies, and to provide an integrative framework, we conduct a systematic review of 276 published empirical and conceptual articles on entrepreneurial affect. In doing so, we analyze how various affective phenomena (e.g., emotions, moods, sentiments), along with their discrete forms (e.g., anger, grief, happiness), influence and are influenced by specific stages of the entrepreneurial process. We conclude that while this body of research confirms that entrepreneurship is an emotional endeavor, the collective approach has thus far obscured a more detailed and useful understanding of affect in each stage of the entrepreneurial process. We examine the theoretical and empirical approaches taken to date and lay out an agenda for future scholars, thus bolstering the affective revolution in entrepreneurship.

In this editorial, we discuss and define the “future of work” as a phenomenon and research area, and outline avenues for further research at the conceptual and empirical level. We first offer a brief review of the different streams of research that study the future of work, both in management and organization studies and in adjacent fields. We then elaborate on what we see as the most promising avenues for research on the future of work, organized around five questions of what, when, who, how, and why. That is, research on the future of work needs to clarify its assumptions about (1) the phenomena it considers within scope; (2) the temporality associated with these phenomena; (3) which future of work actors it is about and whom it is for; (4) the methods and data types used to be able to study the future empirically; and (5) desired impact and envisioned outcomes. We discuss how moving beyond techno-determinism, depoliticization, and a present-day focus could open up new and important avenues for further research on the near and distant future of work. We conclude with some specific examples of research questions and methods.

Signaling theory is about decision-making and communication. It describes scenarios where signalers send observable signals that carry credible information about unobservable qualities. When decision-makers have incomplete or imperfect information, signals can help them make better decisions. The power of a signal, though, lies in its cost, with the best signals being highly costly for low-quality signalers and less costly for high-quality signalers. Given the centrality of these ideas in the organizational sciences, we examine management studies that use signaling theory to help explain phenomena that occur within and among organizations. Our review draws attention to how signaling theorists have introduced important complexities to the signaling process, uncovered theoretical boundary conditions of signaling, described new actors within signaling systems, and demonstrated novel ways to apply signaling theory to understand behavior in an array of research contexts involving a wide range of organizational stakeholders. We also offer ideas about how scholars can account for costs when they apply the theory, extend the theory in more organizational settings, and create abstract extensions of the theory’s major concepts. Our intent is to provide researchers with a panoramic perspective on the state of signaling theory and inspire further development so that we can collectively advance signaling theory as much in the next decade as it has advanced in the last.

The detrimental influence of cognitive biases on decision-making and organizational performance is well established in management research. However, less attention has been given to bias mitigation interventions for improving organizational decisions. Drawing from the judgment and decision-making (JDM) literature, this paper offers a clear conceptualization of two approaches that mitigate bias via distinct cognitive mechanisms—debiasing and choice architecture—and presents a comprehensive integrative review of interventions tested experimentally within each approach. Observing a lack of comparative studies, we propose a novel framework that lays the foundation for future empirical research in bias mitigation. This framework identifies decision, organizational, and individual-level factors that are proposed to moderate the effectiveness of bias mitigation approaches across different contexts and can guide organizations in selecting the most suitable approach. By bridging JDM and management research, we offer a comprehensive research agenda and guidelines to select the most suitable evidence-based approach for improving decision-making processes and, ultimately, organizational performance.

Social comparisons are one of the most ubiquitous behaviors that individuals, groups, and firms undertake. In particular, social comparison theory is based upon the premise that actors are motivated to engage in comparisons and that decisions throughout this process impact employees’ core self-evaluations, team relations, executives’ behaviors, firm prestige, and more. However, despite the prevalence of the phenomenon—and thereby the frequent application of the theory in organizational studies—a synopsis of the theory’s underpinnings and extant findings remains absent. Here, we present a state-of-the-art review that summarizes the theory’s history and mechanics and critically examines how social comparison theory has been applied in organizational studies across multiple levels of analysis. In particular, we identify several problems within the literature, including patterns of theoretical imprecision when applying the theory, lopsided attention paid to the micro-level of analysis, and an underappreciation of subjective comparisons. In addition to discussing the extant literature and common methodological approaches, we present a simplified model of social comparisons. Based on this new theory-building, we discuss ways the field can move forward to reconcile some of the identified problems.

Perceived overqualification (POQ) has traditionally been seen as an undesirable employment situation associated with negative outcomes. However, recent research suggests that POQ may have positive implications for both employees and organizations. Despite the growing literature on this topic, scholars have offered numerous explanatory mechanisms for linking POQ with its work outcomes, and inconsistent findings have been reported, highlighting the need for a comprehensive understanding of why, where, and for whom POQ is beneficial or detrimental. In the present study, we developed an integrative theoretical framework that depicts the consequences, mechanisms, and moderators of POQ. We then conducted a meta-analytical review of the POQ literature, analyzing 704 effect sizes from 251 independent samples (N = 87,229). By organizing the dominant mechanisms in POQ research within a unified framework of work motivation, we elucidate the distinct pathways by which POQ induces differential work consequences. We further consider the role of key cultural, economic, sociodemographic, and methodological characteristics as boundary conditions. Overall, our findings provide support for our predictions and provide novel insights into the work-related consequences of POQ. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are thoroughly discussed.

Orchestrators shape ecosystem development by aligning diverse participants while advancing their own competitive agendas. This alignment becomes fragile when a new entrant offers an alternative value proposition that appeals to ecosystem participants but threatens an orchestrator’s position. Whereas prior research highlights the success of new entrants, less is known about how an orchestrator defends its competitive interests and position while addressing expectations of cooperation from ecosystem participants, which we call the “orchestrator’s dilemma.” We investigate these dynamics through a longitudinal study of Ericsson’s responses as Intel attempted to promote WiMAX as an alternative to LTE, Ericsson’s fourth-generation mobile technology. Our analysis shows how Ericsson recombined its substantive resource commitments and signaling tactics to develop three distinct strategic responses—avoiding competition, covert competition, and overt competition—as ecosystem support for the new entrant’s value proposition changed over time. We show how an orchestrator can defend its position against disruptive entrants by decoupling signaling tactics from substantive resource commitments to influence ecosystem dynamics. We contribute by theorizing these dynamic strategic responses as a way to overcome the orchestrator’s dilemma and by highlighting the social aspects of ecosystem alignment and its fragility.

Work experiences and political participation outside work are intrinsically linked. Management scholars have acknowledged the role that organizations play in shaping political behavior from a firm-level perspective, but the specific working conditions and how they translate into employee political participation and attitudes outside work remain poorly understood. This paper offers an interdisciplinary review of the empirical literature from the past 25 years across the management and political science disciplines. It examines how individual work-related experiences (broadly categorized into job content, working environment, employment characteristics, and social relations at work) relate to political engagement outside of work: political participation, political attitudes, political trust, and political values. The results show that enabling work experiences (e.g., more skill use, autonomy, higher income, more social interactions) and experiences that caused grievances (e.g., more job or financial insecurity) were both related to more political participation but differed in their effect on political trust and regarding political attitudes on economic and cultural issues. We also review the main theoretical explanations and consolidate contradictions. Finally, we propose a future research agenda, calling for the expansion of theoretical lenses, a focus on individual-level explanatory mechanisms, and more multilevel research.