Knowledge that Transforms

We draw from legal theory to offer a fundamental rethinking of agency theory along three key dimensions: redefining the principal from shareholders to the corporation, redefining the status of the board from shareholders' agents to autonomous fiduciaries, and redefining the role of the board from monitors to mediating hierarchs. These dimensions contrast with classic agency theory, offering novel conceptions that can inform further theorization and empirical research in corporate governance.

Research suggests that as one acquires domain expertise, one loses flexibility with regard to problem solving, adaptation, and creative idea generation. Here, I reconsider this trade-off between expertise and flexibility by examining the concept of cognitive entrenchment—a high level of stability in one's domain schemas. Proposing that cognitive entrenchment varies not only with expertise but also with one's task environment and attentional focus, I contend that the inflexibility-related limitations of expertise can be circumvented.

We integrate concepts from research on emotion and memory to show how critical exchanges—or anchoring events—can suddenly and durably change the rules for organizational relationships, leading them to reach nonreciprocal forms like altruism or competition. We define these events and discuss the likelihood of their occurring as a function of the current state of the relationship, the time in that state of the relationship, and the social context in which the event takes place.

Generational phenomena underlie several complex organizational challenges. Yet many fundamental questions regarding what generations mean and what the implications of generational differences in organizations are remain unanswered. The framework proposed in this paper allows us to incorporate multidisciplinary conceptualizations of generations as various dimensions of a generational identity, to specify conditions under which these dimensions may be activated in organizational contexts, and to derive implications for intergenerational interactions.

In this paper we articulate the cross-understanding construct, a group-level compositional construct having as its components each group member's understanding of each other member's mental model. We describe how the cross-understanding construct explains particular inconsistencies in the groups literature, how it provides explanations for specific group outcomes and processes beyond the explanations currently in the literature, and how different levels and different distributions of cross-understanding affect group performance and learning.

In order to adjust, expatriates working abroad must form network ties in the host country to obtain critical informational and emotional support resources. We present a five-stage process model that delineates how expatriates form adjustment-facilitating support ties in a culturally unfamiliar context. We then provide propositions about how the progression of each stage is influenced by various expatriate-, actor-, and context-related factors. We conclude by discussing our model's implications for future research and managerial action.

We argue that creating novel ventures consists of inductive analogical or metaphorical reasoning, which generates a platform for the creation and commercialization of novel ventures and facilitates the comprehension and justification of a venture. We argue that such inductive reasoning is shaped by two determinants (the applicability of prior entrepreneurial experience and the motivation to resolve uncertainty and acquire legitimacy) that interrelate to predict and explain patterns of analogical and metaphorical reasoning by which novice and experienced entrepreneurs construct meaning for themselves as well as others in the early stages of creating a venture.