Knowledge that Transforms

Despite growing interest in the microfoundations of corporate social activities, prior research has not articulated the full chain connecting firm-level conditions to managers' psychological processes (a topdown pathway) and back to firm-level corporate social behavior (a bottom-up pathway), leaving existing microfoundational accounts incomplete. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) and moral self-regulation theory, we develop a cross-level moral feedback model that integrates both pathways by linking firm-level social performance feedback, individual-level managerial cognition, and firm-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We argue that social performance feedback activates managers' moral self-regulation. When a firm falls below its social performance aspiration, its managers perceive a diminished firm image, which undermines their moral self-image and triggers moral cleansing behaviors-manifested as increased CSR and/or reduced CSI. Conversely, when a firm exceeds its social performance aspiration, its managers perceive an enhanced firm image, which elevates their moral self-image and activates moral licensing behaviors-manifested as reduced CSR and/or increased CSI. Study 1, using archival data, examines the main effects of firms' social performance feedback on CSR and CSI. Study 2 uses a series of experiments to examine the proposed micro-level mechanisms, demonstrating how managers' perceived firm image and moral selfimage sequentially mediate the effects of social performance feedback on CSR and CSI. These studies provide complementary evidence for our multilevel behavioral model. Our study contributes to research on the microfoundations of corporate social activities, behavioral strategy, and moral self-regulation.

We examine industry and technology (non)emergence by integrating actor-centric and systems perspective literature streams. We use historical methods to analyze rich data tracking investments by actors spanning private, public, and academic sectors in the solar photovoltaics context. The industry took several decades after commercialization to emerge; moreover, silicon and thin film technologies experienced divergent fates despite firm takeoff. By uncovering critical interdependencies across activities by different actors, we show that, whereas attention by all actors to developing various elements of technological systems is necessary for emergence, it may not be sufficient. The industry emerged after activities by technology producers, industry associations, and government agencies ensured stable institutional support that stimulated latent demand (by utilities and end consumers) and created reinforcing loops among activities by technology producers and research institutes for solar technologies to become a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Moreover, silicon experienced additional reinforcing loops in demand-side and supply-side ecosystems, wherein technology producers and equipment manufacturers leveraged adjacent mature supply chains to meet demand-side scale and reliability requirements in fast growing markets. In contrast, thin film experienced balancing loops wherein nascent firm-specific supply side alliances could not address these demand side needs. These findings showcase how dominant designs may emerge even when there is no ex ante competitive dynamics among technology producers: Although silicon may have benefited from first mover advantage at the technology level, our study highlights that ecosystem first mover advantages of silicon relative to thin film were particularly salient in their divergent fates.

This paper investigates how the gender composition of potential heirs influences technology adoption decisions in family-owned agricultural microenterprises. Drawing on primary field data from three waves of panel surveys of 734 rural households in Ethiopia (2013–2019), we exploit the exogenous microshock of a newborn child’s gender to isolate its causal impact on farmers’ uptake of new technologies. We find that the arrival of a son—rather than a daughter—significantly increases the likelihood of adopting agricultural innovations. Additional analyses suggest that this heterogeneity is driven primarily by a combination of gendered social and succession norms that prioritize men over women in agricultural leadership together with parents’ rational expectations about sons’ future involvement in the family business. Our findings contribute to research on entrepreneurship and development by identifying family structure—specifically, heirs’ gender—as a novel determinant of technology adoption. More broadly, by situating the analysis within the family-firm paradigm, we argue that these dynamics extend beyond low-income settings; in many developing and advanced economies, gender biases in succession norms may systematically shape strategic investment decisions and long-term business sustainability.

A commonly held perspective in the cultural tightness literature is that cultural tightness tends to negatively impact creativity. Yet some findings indicate that this relationship is not strictly negative and that a more nuanced perspective should be considered. Drawing on social information processing (SIP) theory and social role theory, we build theory on how the perception of organizational cultural tightness can increase creativity for some employees, but not for others. Specifically, we propose that perceived organizational tightness—the extent to which one perceives that an organization is characterized by strong norms and sanctions for deviation—increases clarity on creativity evaluation standards and that gender moderates this relationship such that the effect is stronger for men than for women. Clarity on creativity evaluation standards subsequently enhances creative self-efficacy, which, in turn, boosts employee creativity. Across four studies (a two-wave online study, a two-wave multisource field study, and two online experiments), we found evidence supporting our theory. This research extends our understanding of when, how, and why the perceived tightness of an organization’s culture influences employee creativity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Markets are often sites of ongoing contestation regarding the acceptability of various product features and production practices. Although prior research has explored how producers resolve moral controversies, less attention has been paid to how they convince consumers of their products’ moral acceptability when consensus remains elusive. This study addresses this gap by examining a prominent tactic: producers’ strategic affiliations with high-status moral advisors. We theorize that such affiliations reassure consumers, making them more likely to accept reduced financial returns for products bearing a strong stamp of moral approval. We test and find support for this argument using data on 1,540 Shariah-compliant bonds, or sukuk, where there has been ongoing debate over what product features are allowed according to Islam. We find that sukuk endorsed by high-status Shariah scholars (sheikhs) have significantly lower coupon rates, indicating consumers’ willingness to accept reduced financial returns in exchange for moral reassurance. Additionally, the impact of high-status endorsements weakens as sukuk adhere more closely to strict moral interpretations, highlighting a compensatory relationship between status signals and substantive product features. Supplementary analyses reveal that issuers are more likely to seek endorsements from high-status moral advisors when their products are complex or opaque. Overall, this research helps to build a more comprehensive picture of the tactics producers use to overcome the challenges of contested moral markets.

A genealogical training process, in which senior (advisor) scientists mentor and train junior (advisee) scientists is one of the core organizational features of modern science. In this paper, we examine a key question faced by all junior scientists during their training: What impact does an advisee’s research agenda overlap with his or her advisor have on the advisee’s career-relevant performance outcomes? To answer this question, we constructed a novel, bibliometric-record-based data set on 11,289 U.S. biomedical scientists (advisees) who were trained in 5,632 principal investigator advisors’ labs between 1985 and 2009. We examined the relationship between advisor–advisee research overlap and an array of performance outcomes for emerging scientists, revealing a consistently positive relationship between high advisor–advisee research overlap and the junior scientist’s early-career funding outcomes. We further provide evidence that this positive relationship rests upon enhanced tacit knowledge transfer, as well as providing suggestive evidence for the boundary conditions of an intellectual independence imperative and potential competition between advisors and advisees. Taken together, these findings provide a more complete understanding of how advisor–advisee relationships shape new scientists’ performance during their early careers.

The replication of routines is fundamental to knowledge transfer and retention in organizations. Because research on routine replication has historically been divided, proceeding within knowledge transfer (spatial replication) or knowledge retention (temporal replication), respectively, our understanding of how replicating routines in new organizational units (knowledge transfer) affects an organization’s capacity to maintain adherence to those routines over time at existing units (knowledge retention) remains limited. Drawing on the organizational learning and related evolutionary economics literature on routines as well as the multiple goals literature and using data on a Fortune 100 franchise chain being scaled in the United States with thousands of outlets opened over a period of 10 years, we examine whether and how knowledge transfer affects knowledge retention. Our primary thesis is that knowledge transfer and knowledge retention create competing demands for limited attention and therefore the need to allocate attention between them. We posit that this gives rise to a negative relationship between the spatial (knowledge transfer) and temporal (knowledge retention) replication of routines, although the effect can be mitigated by organizational learning from experience. We find robust empirical support for our propositions, pointing to important attention and learning mechanisms that shape the organizational capacity to simultaneously navigate knowledge transfer and retention demands, that is, replicate routines across both space and time.

Why were incumbents able to pioneer and dominate the nascent bionic prosthetic industry, even though entrants represented the majority of the firms investing in this radical technology? To answer this question, our abductive study builds on the novel base principles definition and uses a historical approach to investigate the incubation and early commercialization periods (1974–2018) of bionic prosthetics. We use comprehensive quantitative data on all technological entrants and historical analysis of significant firms to reveal that organizational prehistory affects both the knowledge and intent of technological entrants. Start-ups, incumbents in conventional prosthetics, and established firms in other industries created and integrated subtechnologies into a radical system. Although all firms invested in component technologies, incumbents played a key role as system integrators. Incumbents dominated product commercialization; start-ups captured value through alliances or by being acquired, and established firms in other industries leveraged their knowledge in adjacent value chains as a function of their prior histories and intents. In comparing the virtues of our explanation—the creating radical systems effects—with widely accepted alternative explanations, we develop a more generalized framework of interorganizational dynamics in nascent industries as an endogenous, coevolutionary process that goes beyond explanations that privilege competitive dynamics to also include collaborative dynamics in value creation (and capture).

Through an observational field study involving quantitative and qualitative components, we explore the role of gender diversity in shaping the effectiveness of mentorship for founder teams seeking investors. Data on 984 teams of founders assigned to teams of mentors at Techstars-run accelerator programs around the world demonstrate the interteam benefits of aligned gender diversity thresholds: Founder teams characterized by the presence (absence) of gender diversity engage more investors when matched with mentor teams also characterized by the presence (absence) of gender diversity. Neither the presence of gender diversity in the founder team nor the presence of gender diversity in the mentor team exerts a positive influence on investor counts as a standalone factor, but the aligned presence of intrateam gender diversity helps ventures maximize participating investors. We find that the number of participating investors has a positive downstream impact, increasing the amount of funding that the venture raises. Results are robust to the inclusion of controls for venture, founder, and mentor characteristics, with clustering at the Techstars cohort level. Qualitative insights from 20 semistructured interviews reveal how interteam gender alignment facilitates interpersonal attraction, whereas intrateam gender diversity enables resource acquisition. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this phenomenon for internal-external team interactions in venture funding and beyond.

Social purpose lies at the heart of nonprofit organizations, serving as a nexus that motivates support from volunteers, donors, and other stakeholders, driving collective efforts to address social issues and anchoring everyday practices in moral imperatives that transcend organizational boundaries. Whereas a compelling social purpose is seen as vital for the survival and growth of nonprofits, we know surprisingly little about how purpose develops in these organizations. Drawing on a triadic framework that conceptualizes social purpose as narratives, shared understandings, and enactment in practice, we investigate how purpose forms and evolves within a nonprofit organization. Our findings elaborate how discrepancies can emerge between founders’ abstract, future-oriented visions and members’ practices related to the organization’s beneficiaries. These discrepancies may lead to conflicting or fragmented understandings of purpose, but they can also be generative, driving its evolution toward a resonant and achievable social impact. Whereas leaders are commonly seen as guarding organizational purpose from drift, our study shows how members in nonprofits protect purpose from irrelevance and inefficacy.