Knowledge that Transforms

Green innovation is an organizational strategy aimed to address climate crises and create low-carbon growth, yet, its implementation remains a significant challenge. We focus on green innovation implementation (GII) and argue that GII is a distinctive strategic process. Traditional innovation implementation, centered on short-term economic growth, can be problematic as it often decouples nature from innovation in the pursuit of profit maximization. Thus, the traditional approach fails to adequately explain GII, specifically, who implements it and how they do it. We adopt a strategy-as-practice perspective and conduct a systematic review of 224 journal articles across various management fields to synthesize existing knowledge of GII. This review makes three main contributions. First, we posit that GII is theoretically distinct with unique implementation challenges: recoupling nature with innovation implementation introduces complex antecedents and environment-inclusive benefits, requiring a long-term implementation process and a broader scope. Second, we develop a framework that synthesizes practitioners, antecedents, processes, and impact of GII from three theoretical foci: (1) resource-based perspective, (2) sustainable value-driven perspective, and (3) institutional perspective. This framework complements the traditional understanding of innovation implementation by offering diverse theoretical insights on GII. Third, we propose theoretical and methodological directions for future research to advance knowledge on green innovation and provide meaningful insights on GII.

Vision communication plays a crucial role in leadership, strategic management, and organizational change. However, current research on vision communication is fragmented, leading to a limited understanding of the topic. To advance this topic, this paper synthesizes the existing literature on the dimensions, theoretical mechanisms, moderators, and outcomes of vision communication, drawing on 150 papers. In particular, we identify four key dimensions of vision communication: vision attributes (e.g., imagery, metaphor), vision content (e.g., emphasis on profits or product quality), vision communication frequency (e.g., infrequent vs. frequent), and non-verbal delivery (e.g., emotional displays, eye gaze). Furthermore, we integrate four theoretical perspectives—motivation-based, identification-based, affect-based, and cognition-based—to explain the effects of vision communication. In essence, vision influences various outcomes by ensuring that employees are motivated and feel confident in their ability to achieve them (i.e., motivation-based), identify with the vision or leadership (i.e., identification-based), experience emotional inspiration or positive affect (i.e., affect-based), or understand the vision (i.e., cognition-based). Based on these mechanisms, we outline four categories of moderating factors that shape their impact (e.g., leader factors, follower factors, leader-follower relationships, and contextual factors). Finally, we outline future research directions to further advance research on vision communication.

Perceived overqualification (POQ) has traditionally been seen as an undesirable employment situation associated with negative outcomes. However, recent research suggests that POQ may have positive implications for both employees and organizations. Despite the growing literature on this topic, scholars have offered numerous explanatory mechanisms for linking POQ with its work outcomes, and inconsistent findings have been reported, highlighting the need for a comprehensive understanding of why, where, and for whom POQ is beneficial or detrimental. In the present study, we developed an integrative theoretical framework that depicts the consequences, mechanisms, and moderators of POQ. We then conducted a meta-analytical review of the POQ literature, analyzing 704 effect sizes from 251 independent samples (N = 87,229). By organizing the dominant mechanisms in POQ research within a unified framework of work motivation, we elucidate the distinct pathways by which POQ induces differential work consequences. We further consider the role of key cultural, economic, sociodemographic, and methodological characteristics as boundary conditions. Overall, our findings provide support for our predictions and provide novel insights into the work-related consequences of POQ. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are thoroughly discussed.

Research suggests that teams can greatly enhance their performance through boundary management, which comprises activities that establish, maintain, and regulate linkages with the surrounding environment. However, such performance gains do not materialize equally in all instances, and some teams struggle to benefit from boundary management. Integrating insights from social network and team-level resource allocation theories, we develop a contingency framework that considers the internal organization of a team's boundary management (i.e., the carrier, target, and type of such activities) as a key moderating factor that accounts for the varying effects. To test this framework, we use a meta-analytic approach that synthesizes >30 years of empirical research (i.e., 85 primary studies covering 10,848 teams). Our results show a positive main effect of team boundary management on team performance. Crucially, these performance benefits are more pronounced when the target of boundary management is extraorganizational rather than inside the home organization and when the type of boundary management activities is boundary spanning (e.g., coordination, representation, or information search) rather than boundary strengthening (e.g., buffering, guarding, or sentry activities). Moreover, boundary management is more effective when executed by formal team leaders rather than team members, and our results tentatively suggest that this may reflect differences in effectiveness between leaders and members in boundary strengthening, rather than boundary spanning. Overall, our findings advance theory on team boundary management by clarifying previously ambiguous findings and illustrating how teams can design their boundary management activities to be most effective.

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are popular assessment approaches that present scenarios describing situations that one may experience in a job. Due to its long history and cross-disciplinary nature, today’s SJT literature is quite fragmented. In this integrative review, we start by systematically taking stock and synthesizing the SJT literature from the different scientific disciplines via bibliometric techniques on 524 unique documents. We identify six literature clusters (i.e., SJTs in the medical sciences, SJTs in personnel selection, methodological issues and SJTs for specific constructs, SJTs to assess emotional intelligence and related constructs, technological advances in SJTs, SJTs for teacher assessment and development) that correspond to academic disciplines and research streams within them. We also identify current trends in SJT research by examining the clusters formed by a recent subset of the SJT literature. We then build on the bibliometric analysis by categorizing the identified themes in an organizing framework with two fundamental dimensions: the main purpose of a study (i.e., conceptual understanding, prediction, other [e.g., understanding mean group differences, applicant reactions]) and its research focus (i.e., SJTs holistically, content, and design and methods). Finally, on the basis of this framework, we provide recommendations to encourage greater knowledge sharing between scientific disciplines. In addition, we outline an agenda for future research in terms of four broad directions: SJT theory, SJT constructs, SJT design and methods, and SJT application domains.

Extant research has yielded conflicting theoretical and empirical predictions about whether family firm acquirers perform better or worse in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) than their nonfamily firm counterparts. To help resolve this controversy, we take a socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective to theorize that family members’ desire to preserve their SEW favors the pursuit of M&A strategies that are both beneficial (industry-related M&As) and detrimental (domestic M&As) to M&A performance. We further theorize that the desire to preserve SEW leads to family firm idiosyncratic SEW resources that help family firm acquirers, on average, achieve better M&A performance than nonfamily firm acquirers. Meta-analytic results based on 51 primary studies covering 242,123 M&A deals are in line with our predictions. Thus, our study contributes to the literature on family firms and M&A performance by explaining how the different M&A strategies chosen by family firms have positive and negative consequences for M&A performance. Our theory and findings have implications for future family business and M&A research.

Although overconfidence is acknowledged as one of the most common managerial decision-making biases, much uncertainty remains about its implications for firm performance. To resolve this uncertainty, we investigate how and why CEO overconfidence is related to firm performance using meta-analytic techniques on a sample of 199 studies. In particular, relying on behavioral decision theory, we develop alternative hypotheses regarding the impact of CEO overconfidence on firm performance. Contrary to the conventional belief that CEO overconfidence is detrimental, this study reveals that CEO overconfidence is, on average, beneficial for firm performance. Drawing on recent refinements of upper echelons theory and theoretical insights from the psychology literature, we then dive deeper into this positive relationship and hypothesize that overconfident CEOs engage in strategic risk taking through cognitive, motivational, and social mechanisms. This risk taking is positively related to firm performance. Our results confirm that the positive relationship between CEO overconfidence and firm performance is partially mediated through strategic risk taking. Thus, although CEO overconfidence is a cognitive bias, it does not automatically lead to inferior performance but can create value for firms by impelling CEOs to take actions that involve risk. We also test whether this relationship is stronger under conditions of high managerial discretion. Our results generally validate these predictions. Finally, on the basis of our findings, we discuss implications and directions for future CEO overconfidence research, including determining the limits of CEO overconfidence, exploring new moderators and mediators, and investigating the implications of different operationalizations of CEO overconfidence as well as the implications for practice.

A rich history of research on job demands suggests that employees’ demands at work are related to their strain and engagement. This research often considers job demands to be fixed and stable over the course of workers’ experiences, despite the existing research showing that some employees experience high levels of job demands one day and low levels the next. We seek to extend research on job demands by introducing the idea that different employees experience different levels of job demand variability (i.e., variability in job demands over workers’ daily experiences). Relying on arousal theory, we posit that job demand variability moderates the between-person effects of overall job demand levels on employee strain and engagement. To test our theory, we conduct a meta-analytic path analysis of the existing experience sampling methodology research on challenge and hindrance job demands. Results show that the between-person effects of challenge (on strain and engagement) and hindrance demands (on engagement only) are stronger in studies where those demands have higher levels of daily within-person variability. Unexpectedly, the relationship between hindrance demands and strain was similarly strong across lower and higher degrees of variability. Our study suggests a need for more nuanced theory that explains how job demand variability plays a role in employee outcomes. Further, we conducted a simulation study to validate our methodology, offering utility to the broader management literature applying meta-analysis to study within-person variability. We discuss theoretical and practical implications as well as several directions for theory in this new line of reasoning.

Collaboration, coordination, and cooperation lie at the core of interorganizational activities. To address the confusion regarding the definitions of these three terms, recent works have proposed redefinitions. Although these proposals address an important concern, we believe that they might be premature because (1) they do not build on a systematic examination of how these terms have been used in the literature and (2) they seem to narrow the focus to a given theory and alliances only, which might unduly restrict the meaning of the terms defined. In this paper, we review the definitions of the three terms as they appear in nine top journals in the general management literature (1948-2017). By studying the definitions, we identify three interactional dimensions that are present to different extents in collaboration, coordination, and cooperation: attitude, behavior, and outcome. Our systematic review confirms the confusion and lack of parsimony in the extant definitions. The overlap in the content of these dimensions across the three terms does not provide a basis for distinctively defining collaboration, coordination, and cooperation. Thus, we further draw on our review to identify two discriminating dimensions that allow us to distinguish these three terms: the temporal stage and the type of goal. Our review contributes to theoretical development by offering a conceptual redefinition of the three terms that renders them distinct and thus facilitates knowledge accumulation and theory development. Moreover, the set of interactional and discriminating dimensions generates a host of managerially relevant research questions about a wide range of interorganizational relationships.

In the strategic human resource (HR) management literature, over the past three decades, a shared consensus has developed that the focus should be on HR systems rather than individual HR practices because the effects of HR practices are likely to depend on the other practices within the system. Despite this agreement, the extent to which the fundamental assumption in the field of interactions and synergy in the system holds true is unclear. We present a systematic review of 495 empirical studies on 516 HR systems in which we analyze the development of HR systems research over time and identify important trends, explicitly linking conceptualization and measurement of the HR system. Our findings suggest that the increasingly broad conceptualization and measurement of HR systems and the lack of clarity on the HR systems construct at different levels have hampered research progress. Much of the research to date does not align with the fundamental assumption of synergies between HR practices in a system, the measures have problems and increasingly confound HR systems with related concepts and outcomes, and insufficient attention is paid to the HR system construct at different levels. Overall, we thus still know little about the “systems” element and how synergies and interactions in an HR system operate. We offer actionable suggestions on how to advance HR systems research towards conceptual clarity and construct refinement, focusing both on how to conceptualize, measure, and combine practices in systems and on studying such systems at different levels of analysis.