The Academy of Management is a growing, thriving association, with membership around the globe. Yet the Academy faces challenges in the next decade, some the result of the Academy's success. I identify a few key challenges I believe the Academy will face and discuss how these are actually opportunities for growth and evolution. I also suggest some ideas for dealing with these challenges, ending with a note of optimism about the future of the Academy, due primarily to the dedication of the leadership and members of the Academy.
By integrating a social networks perspective with charismatic leadership theory, we attempt to explain how charismatic perceptions of leaders spread among distant followers through third-party individuals (surrogates). We propose a mediated model considering how individuals engage in surrogate behavior (promoting the leader, defending the leader, and modeling followership) that increases charismatic perceptions among distant followers. We consider the behaviors associated with this role, as well as antecedents and moderators that may explain motivation to engage in the role and effectiveness of the role in influencing followers.
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.
International assignments are a catalyst for changes in both the family and work lives of expatriates. This is especially true for the majority of expatriates who are married or in a committed relationship (Copeland & Norell, 2002; Harvey, 1985; Tung, 1987, 1999). Before the assignment, both partners have full lives intertwined with those of relatives, friends, colleagues, and community contacts. Upon arriving in the new country, however, they only have each other and, for some, their children. It is not uncommon that both partners work and share household responsibilities before a posting abroad (Harvey, 1995; Harvey & Wiese, 1998a; Reynolds & Bennett, 1991). The assignment often disturbs this balance as the expatriate becomes the sole earner and provider for the family and the expatriate partner becomes a household caretaker and a stay-at-home parent, having not only lost a job but also foregone a career, financial independence, and extended family support. Partners, even those who have not been employed before the move, find themselves faced with new tasks and expectations (e.g., Linehan & Scullion, 2001; Pellico & Stroh, 1997; Punnett, 1997; Reynolds & Bennett, 1991; Riusala & Suutari, 2000). In cases where the expatriate couple has children, additional challenges arise, such as children’s anguish and uncertainty related to identity formation, break-up of friendships, and disruption of schooling (Borstorff, Harris, Feild & Giles, 1997; De Leon & McPartlin, 1995; Harvey, 1985).
Building on research that suggests a negative relationship between repeat collaboration and team creativity, we propose that team mental models developed in earlier projects are likely to interfere with the processes that constitute creative abrasion: idea generation, disclosure/advocacy, and convergence. Suppression of these processes leads to less creative outcomes. We conclude by proposing that these negative effects can be mitigated by process and project charter interventions and by outsider entry into the project team.
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.
To date, leader-member exchange (LMX) research has primarily examined member outcomes, such as member attitudes and performance. However, little research exists regarding outcomes specific to the leader. Focusing on the leader-member dyad, we develop a framework of leader outcomes resulting from resource exchanges with members. We propose specific resource substitutes and discuss the impact of LMX quality on the leader.
Environmental velocity has emerged as an important concept but remains theoretically underdeveloped, particularly with respect to its multidimensionality. In response, we develop a framework that examines the variations in velocity across multiple dimensions of the environment (homology) and the causal linkages between those velocities (coupling). We then propose four velocity regimes based on different patterns of homology and coupling and argue that the conditions of each regime have important implications for organizations.