Knowledge that Transforms

Relying on the work on creative prototype and role theory, we demonstrate that having a creative identity can lead to moral objection depending on the implication of the act for one’s identity as a creative individual. In a pilot study using a survey of working adults, we find that employees’ creative identities and their intention to object in moral situations are positively and significantly correlated. Utilizing measurement-of-mediation (Study 1) and experimental mediation (Studies 2–4) approaches, we test and find support for the mediating role of norm-breaking motives predicting moral objection. In Studies 2–4, we find that creative identities lead to moral objection when moral objection is counter-normative and not when it is an expected, normative behavior. Across five studies ( N = 1,327), utilizing both experimental and correlational methods, this paper shows that creative identities can prompt moral objection when such objection is counter-normative, aligning with the creative prototype and reinforcing a creative identity through norm-breaking motives. We extend prior theories on the consequences of creativity, the creative prototype, creative identities, and their link with moral acts.

While learning is key for pioneers—firms introducing new products without existing competitors—a lack of competitors limits learning opportunities. To compensate, pioneers in safety-critical industries frequently resort to failure repositories—databases that track failure reports in an industry. However, the sheer volume, inconsistency, and unstructured nature of such failure reports make them difficult to use without clear referents that provide a benchmark and context for interpretation. We investigate how the entry of a competitor enhances pioneers’ learning effectiveness by offering such a stable basis for comparison and analysis. Specifically, we observe changes in failure reports that support our theory that pioneers adjust their learning processes in response to the altered availability and nature of failure information in a repository after competitor entry. Consumer failure reports, which provide unfiltered and unique information, are crucial for understanding and addressing problems that may result in failure. Our analysis of the medical device industry shows that pioneers learn more effectively after a competitor enters the market. Pioneers learn more effectively from consumer reports, especially when not interspersed with less valuable sources, such as expert and internal firm reports. Notably, pioneer learning after competitor entry leads to lower reported alleged future injuries and product malfunctions. These findings contribute to repository-based learning by showing how competition can improve effectiveness and suggesting that distinct consumer feedback is particularly valuable for pioneering firms. Besides adding to the literature on organizational learning, this study also highlights the role of competition in fostering innovation and improving safety.

Companies strive to gain a competitive advantage by recruiting highly qualified employees. One way to achieve this goal is by recruiting foreign workers, frequently through the H-1B visa program. However, immigration has become a contentious political issue in the United States, making it more difficult to recruit foreign workers. We examine how politicians on the board influence recruitment strategies aimed at attracting foreign workers. Studying the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” policy, we estimate the impact of political directors on recruiting strategies. By analyzing the near-universe of job advertisements in the United States, we develop novel firm-level measures of employment barriers for foreign workers. We find that the presence of political directors increased the employment barriers for foreign workers after Trump’s inauguration. We also argue that the information processing capabilities of the board moderate this effect: diverse boards and boards with Human Resources committees decrease the employment barriers for foreign workers, whereas shareholder meetings during periods of heightened political risk increase these employment barriers.

While workload has been traditionally studied as a type of challenge stressor with motivational benefits for employees, recent research suggests that the nature of workload is more complex and nuanced than merely eliciting positive reactions. Although this perspective has emerged in the study of workload at the individual level, research on collective workload in teams and the associated team-based mechanisms remains underexplored. Particularly, team-based work arrangements come with both enhanced capabilities to meet task goals and heightened expectations for team members; encountering and handling collective workload can motivate team members’ engagement in collective actions (i.e., team processes) and at the same time drive their appraisals of teamwork experience as depleting. To examine this dual account, we draw from job demands–resources theory to elucidate how and when team workload impacts team effectiveness via both positive and negative pathways. Using daily diary and objective record data collected from 610 employees working in 99 bank branches (i.e., teams) for five workdays, we found daily team workload enhanced daily team processes, which in turn benefited team member satisfaction at the end of each workday and team performance during the study period. We also found daily team workload elevated daily team member depletion, which hindered end-of-work team member satisfaction. Further, we found team members’ perceived task significance and positive affect at the beginning of each workday strengthened and buffered, respectively, the positive association between daily team workload and daily team processes or daily team member depletion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This study examines the influence of firms’ internal control weakness (ICW) reported under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on their subsequent divestiture decisions and the performance of these decisions. We argue that following ICW disclosure, firms are inclined to pursue corporate divestitures because such divestitures can reduce organizational complexity and help remedy firms’ ICW. We also propose that the positive influence of ICW disclosure on divestitures is stronger when a firm has recently appointed a CEO but weaker when there is a higher prevalence of ICW within the industry. Furthermore, we investigate the dual performance implications of divestitures following ICW disclosure. Although these divestitures, compared to divestitures not following ICW disclosure, are associated with higher stock market performance, they are also associated with slower sales growth for firms’ core businesses. We present empirical evidence that supports our arguments using a sample of S&P 1500 firms from 2003 to 2020. This study advances corporate strategy research by highlighting the role of ICW in shaping corporate divestiture decisions and documenting the multifaceted performance implications of such divestitures.

How do individual independent directors make sense of their director role? We examine this question in the context of competing expectations among key corporate governance actors during the onboarding process of independent directors. This study explores how independent directors navigate these expectations, which stem from both external change agents, such as government agencies and the media, and internal actors, especially management. Given the inherent ambiguity of their roles, which involve multiple board tasks and lack explicit definition, independent directors often face role conflicts. Our findings reveal that independent directors resolve these conflicts by adopting one of three role orientations: external adaptive, organizational alignment, or provisional balancing. Through this process, they construct their director role by coping with the expectations of key governance actors. This study contributes to the micro-foundations of corporate governance research by shedding light on the individual-level dynamics that shape how independent directors interpret and enact their roles.

Despite the wealth of theorizing about the relationship between business and government, research on corporate political activity (CPA) has yet to comprehensively consider how political context (e.g., party ideology and the degree of united or divided party government control) may shift the salience of how CPA materializes across industry-, firm-, and executive-level factors, which can shed light on the level of effects that appear to matter more (or less). To advance our understanding, we conducted a variance decomposition analysis on U.S. public firms (2001–2019), exploring the relative effect of each level on firm (lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions) and government actions (government contracts), and parsing our sample based on whether key government branches are Democrat- or Republican-controlled. We generally found that firm effects explain the most variance, followed by industry, while executive effects explain the least. However, this pattern shifts notably when considering political context across our sample period. As such, our findings have important implications for future CPA research and theorizing.

Research points to the importance of establishing inclusive workplaces. Yet, the same research also suggests that getting employees to buy in and engage in these sorts of inclusive behaviors can be a challenging endeavor. While the current literature offers some practical suggestions for garnering inclusion among employees, most recommendations center on programs and contexts with direct ties to inclusion (e.g., diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings), which at times have limited success. Our article diverges from this approach by considering the impact of employee volunteering—a practice without explicit inclusion-related objectives—on employees’ inclusive behaviors. Drawing on a set of theories about cognitive processing, we propose that employee volunteering presents an opportunity to foster inclusive behavior by enhancing perspective taking. We further suggest that these benefits are contingent upon an individual’s motivation for volunteering—in particular, that the perspective-taking potential of volunteering is best realized when employees volunteer for prosocial motives and not for self-protective motives. We find support for these predictions in a combination of a laboratory experiment, a quasi-field experiment, and a multisource field study. The results advance our understanding of the types of unconventional activities—such as employee volunteering and volunteer motives—that can be leveraged into more inclusive behavior among employees.

Population ecologists have sidestepped infant industries. Moreover, prior examinations have overlooked the level issue of legitimacy and the role of illegitimacy in firm failure. We suggest that both legitimacy and illegitimacy are potent antecedents of firm failures in an infant industry. We separate industry-level legitimacy from firm-level legitimacy and propose a novel “one-stage model.” This model indicates that incumbents of the infant industry concurrently take actions to advertise their typical and atypical firm features to industry spectators. These actions not only elevate both the industry-level legitimacy of the infant industry and the firm-level legitimacy of the incumbents but also simultaneously incite competition among the incumbents. We used a manually collected database of news articles on Chinese bicycle-sharing companies to examine firm failures in this infant industry from 2014 to 2017. We found that at the industry level, while industry-level legitimacy reduces a firm’s mortality, industry-level illegitimacy elevates the firm’s mortality. At the firm level, we confirm both the detrimental and beneficial effects of interfirm competition. When the rivals of the focal firm tout their atypical firm features, the focal firm’s likelihood of failure increases; when rivals and focal firm try to highlight their typical firm features, the focal firm’s failure rate decreases. When it comes to firm-level illegitimacy, both the focal firm and its rivals’ illegitimacies increase a firm’s mortality. We confirm that legitimacy and illegitimacy are not two poles of a single continuum.

Asian Americans (AsAms) carry unique group identifications that likely impact how they navigate workplace racial discrimination. Yet, extant workplace discrimination research has not thoroughly considered the implications associated with such unique group identifications, especially given the context of American society’s increasingly polarized views of AsAms as outsiders versus insiders. To gain insights into these aspects, we conducted three studies using qualitative and quantitative methods. Our qualitative interviews (Study 1) with AsAm employees during COVID-19 reveal that AsAms have internalized society’s polarization of their American and Asian group identifications and navigate their workplace discrimination accordingly. Integrating these findings with group identification research, we develop a dual-serial-mediation navigation process model, whereby AsAms with strong American group identification intend to leave their organization via blaming and then not forgiving their offenders (i.e., “suffering path”), whereas those with strong Asian group identification intend to stay in the organization via perspective taking and then forgiving their offenders (i.e., “protected path”). In a different sample of AsAms who faced workplace discrimination, we found support for our model (Study 2). Finally, we largely replicated these results in a third sample of AsAms who faced workplace discrimination and found that such navigation processes were largely unique to AsAms versus other racial-minority groups (Study 3). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.