Knowledge that Transforms

This study contrasts the structural perspective with the individual perspective in explaining group performance in a dynamic setting. The authors argue that these perspectives are not mutually exclusive but have different predictive powers at different group stages. Results from 45 project groups show (a) group structures provide stronger performance predictions at the later stage, whereas individual-based attributes do so at the earlier stage, and (b) different group structures and individual-based attributes provide distinctive insights at respective stages. This indicates the need to explore the potential bridge between the two perspectives in advancing group studies.

Increasingly, small and medium enterprises are outsourcing human resource (HR) activities to professional employer organizations (PEOs). The authors draw on social network theory, transaction cost economics, and social exchange theory to examine how PEO and client characteristics moderate the impact associated with outsourcing human capital-enhancing HR services. Results from a study suggest that using a PEO for human capital-enhancing services was positively related to HR outcomes and that this relationship was stronger when a weak-ties service delivery model was used, client receptivity was high, and the PEO contract was more detailed.

When I was a doctoral student and a young faculty member, I dreaded dealing with editors because I was afraid I would inadvertently do or say the wrong thing. And, because I attributed to editors great power over my career, I worried about the consequences of any misstep on my part. Now that I am on the other side of the table as editor of Journal of Management, I realize that I wasted a worry. Editors are in the business of trying to publish articles, not reject them. Indeed, the major gratification of being an editor is bringing manuscripts from rough shape to final acceptance. For that reason, editors are typically more lenient than reviewers in their judgments. Moreover, after years of being beaten up as authors themselves, editors are usually quite empathic to the unhappiness authors feel when getting negative feedback, to the frustration authors feel when getting tossed about by reviewers, and to the anxiety authors feel when important tenure and promotion decisions hang in the balance. During the past 3 years, particularly in the context of conducting doctoral student and junior faculty consortia, I have received many questions about when and how authors should converse with editors. The frequency of such questions makes me realize that the tacit knowledge senior faculty have accumulated over the years on this topic is not as obvious to new entrants into our field, who are supposed to somehow “pick it up” through some vague socialization process along the way. What I thought might be instructive here is providing some fairly specific recommendations about how to most effectively communicate with editors. Obviously, there will be some style differences across journals and editors in our field, but by and large, I think most editors at most journals in the organizational sciences would agree with the basic principles outlined below. First, I address the communications between authors and editors; then, I address the communications between reviewers and editors. Reviewers play an integral role in editors’ conversa-