Knowledge that Transforms

We argue that effective management action is impeded by a simplistic understanding of time—one dominated by a clock-time perspective. Using the concept of improvisation, we reconcile two major time dichotomies associated with organizational phenomena: clock time versus event time and linear time versus cyclical time. We propose that improvisation offers a means for management theorists and practictioners to overcome these apparent time dichotomies.

In order to produce a beneficial result, professionals must sometimes cause harm to another human being. To capture this phenomenon, we introduce the construct of “necessary evils ” and explore the inherent challenges such tasks pose for those who must perform them. Whereas previous research has established the importance of treating victims of necessary evils with interpersonal sensitivity, we focus on the challenges performers face when attempting to achieve this prescribed standard in practice.

We examine how social capital dimensions of networks affect the transfer of knowledge between network members. We distinguish among three common network types: intracorporate networks, strategic alliances, and industrial districts. Using a social capital framework, we identify structural, cognitive, and relational dimensions for the three network types. We then link these social capital dimensions to the conditions that facilitate knowledge transfer. In doing so, we propose a set of conditions that promote knowledge transfer for the different network types.

In our conceptualization of executive job demands, we sought to integrate a diverse body of literature from strategy, organization theory, and organizational behavior. Ganster suggests that such an integration of ideas is highly welcome but also incomplete. We build on several of Ganster's key points to further clarify the executive job demands construct, and we expand the range of possible research questions that come out of a more complete integration of ideas from the macro and micro spheres of organizational science.

Territorial feelings and behaviors are important, pervasive, and yet largely overlooked aspects of organizational life. Organizational members can and do become territorial over physical spaces, ideas, roles, relationships, and other potential possessions in organizations. We examine how territorial behaviors are used to construct, communicate, maintain, and restore territories in organizations. We then go on to discuss the organizational consequences of these behaviors, including their effects on organizational commitment, conflict, preoccupation, and individual isolation.

I attempt to explain why employees prefer different forms of social exchange by proposing that such preferences align with their identity orientations. I also develop a model outlining how identity orientations play an important role in developing employee exchange relations and how they may help predict the consequences of exchange dynamics. By identifying linkages between identity orientations and forms of social exchange, I hope to stimulate future research on the connections between social exchange theory and the identity orientation framework.

We conceptualize democracies as marketlike processes where demanders and suppliers of various public policies interact. Firms may enter political markets to seek new or to maintain existing policies that affect their current business operations or future opportunities. We contend that a firm's decision to become politically active is influenced, in part, by the attractiveness of the political market, and we outline conditions that make political markets more or less attractive for firms to compete in to advance their interests.

We critically examine the content of contemporary understandings of corporate citizenship and locate them within the extant body of research dealing with business-society relations. Our main purpose is to realize a theoretically informed definition of corporate citizenship that is descriptively robust and conceptually distinct from existing concepts in the literature. Specifically, our extended perspective exposes the element of “citizenship” and conceptualizes corporate citizenship as the administration of a bundle of individual citizenship rights—social, civil, and political—conventionally granted and protected by governments.

This special topic forum explores how governments matter in a number of ways: the extent to which government action can foster industry creation and economic development, the impact of corrupt governments on firm-level decision making by managers of multinational enterprises, the concept of the attractiveness of political markets and the impacts they can have on firm-level strategies, and how deregulation can affect the governance mechanisms of firms. Here we offer readers four views on research issues intended to complement the STF articles and to suggest other avenues for fruitful research.