Knowledge that Transforms

In this paper, we examine how the attributes of female and racial minority directors differ from those of white males. We track a sample of white male, white female, African-American female and African-American male directors who serve on Fortune 1000 boards and find differences in occupational background, education, and patterns of board affiliation. Female and African-American directors are more likely to come from non-business backgrounds, are more likely to hold advanced degrees, and join multiple boards at a faster rate than white male directors.

This article provides a review of recent developments in two topical areas of research in contemporary organizational behavior: diversity and emotions. In the section called “Diversity,” we trace the history of diversity research, explore the definitions and paradigms used in treatments of diversity, and signal new areas of interest. We conclude that organizational behavior in the 21st century is evolving to embrace a more eclectic and holistic view of humans at work. In the section called “Emotions,” we turn our attention to recent developments in the study of emotions in organizations. We identify four major topics: mood theory, emotional labor, affective events theory (AET), and emotional intelligence, and argue that developments in the four domains have significant implications for organizational research, and the progression of the study of organizational behavior. As with the study of diversity, the topic of emotions in the workplace is shaping up as one of the principal areas of development in management thought and practice for the next decade. Finally, we discuss in our conclusion how these two areas are being conceptually integrated, and the implications for management scholarship and research in the contemporary world.

Corporate governance has been a central focus of strategic management research, particularly the associations among governance structures, strategic leaders, and firm performance. Extant research, however, provides little evidence of systematic relationships in these areas. There are a series of theoretical/conceptual rationales suggesting that such relationships might be more pronounced in entrepreneurial firms. Accordingly, we provide an overview and synthesis of the entrepreneurship literature addressing the intersection of governance and strategic leadership with firm performance. The strongest relationships reflected in this literature are consistent with a resource dependence perspective of the firm. We conclude with several suggestions for advancing research in this important domain.

Within this manuscript I present conceptual and empirical evidence that indicates that within the US small business sector high performance work systems (HPWS) are associated with outcomes that are key to the success of small US firms. I also present empirical evidence that indicates that within this sector of the US economy HPWS do not necessarily produce outcomes that exceed the labor costs associated with the use of these systems.

In this study we examined the characteristics of human capital as well as the human resource (HR) configurations used for employees in four different employment modes (knowledge-based employment, job-based employment, contract work, and alliance/partnership). Results from 148 firms show that the strategic value and uniqueness of human capital differs across these four employment modes. In addition, each employment mode is associated with a particular type of HR configuration (commitment-based, productivity-based, compliance-based, and collaborative).