Knowledge that Transforms

This article describes how people adapt to new roles by experimenting with provisional selves that serve as trials for possible but not yet fully elaborated professional identities. Qualitative data collected from professionals in transition to more senior roles reveal that adaptation involves three basic tasks: (1) observing role models to identify potential identities, (2) experimenting with provisional selves, and (3) evaluating experiments against internal standards and external feedback. Choices within tasks are guided by an evolving repertory that includes images about the kind of professional one might become and the styles, skills, attitudes, and routines available to the person for constructing those identities. A conceptual framework is proposed in which individual and situational factors influence adaptation behaviors indirectly by shaping the repertory of possibilities that guides self-construction.

This paper investigates how the interorganizational networks of young companies affect their ability to acquire the resources necessary for survival and growth. We propose that, faced with great uncertainty about the quality of young companies, third parties rely on the prominence of the affiliates of those companies to make judgments about their quality and that young companies “endorsed” by prominent exchange partners will perform better than otherwise comparable ventures that lack prominent associates. Results of an empirical examination of the rate of initial public offering (IPO) and the market capitalization at IPO of the members of a large sample of venture-capital-backed biotechnology firms show that privately held biotech firms with prominent strategic alliance partners and organizational equity investors go to IPO faster and earn greater valuations at IPO than firms that lack such connections. We also empirically demonstrate that much of the benefit of having prominent affiliates stems from the transfer of status that is an inherent byproduct of interorganizational associations.

A multimethod field study of 92 workgroups explored the influence of three types of workgroup diversity (social category diversity, value diversity, and informational diversity) and two moderators (task type and task interdependence) on workgroup outcomes. Informational diversity positively influenced group performance, mediated by task conflict. Value and social category diversity, task complexity, and task interdependence all moderated this effect. Social category diversity positively influenced group member morale. Value diversity decreased satisfaction, intent to remain, and commitment to the group; relationship conflict mediated the effects of value diversity. We discuss the implications of these results for group leaders, managers, and organizations wishing to create and manage a diverse workforce successfully.

Drawing on work from behavioral learning theory in psychology, this study examines the influence of prior organizational acquisition experience on the performance of acquisitions. This theory, which examines both the conditions preceding organization events and organizational responses, predicts that experience effects may range from positive to negative. Consistent with this theory, data from 449 acquisitions show an overall U-shaped relationship between organization acquisition experience and acquisition performance. In addition, the more similar a firm's acquisition targets are to its prior targets, the better they perform. These findings suggest that relatively inexperienced acquirers, after making their first acquisition, inappropriately generalize acquisition experience to subsequent dissimilar acquisitions, while more experienced acquirers appropriately discriminate between their acquisitions. Behavioral learning theory, then, may enhance understanding of organization experience effects.

This paper describes a qualitative study of how people use their time at work, why they use it this way, and whether their way of using time is optimal for them or their work groups. Results of a nine-month field study of the work practices of a software engineering team revealed that the group's collective use of time perpetuated its members' “time famine,” a feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. Engineers had difficulty getting their individual work done because they were constantly interrupted by others. A crisis mentality and a reward system based on individual heroics perpetuated this disruptive way of interacting. Altering the way software engineers used their time at work, however, enhanced their collective productivity. This research points toward a “sociology of work time,” a framework integrating individuals' interdependent work patterns and the larger social and temporal contexts. The theoretical and practical implications of a sociology of work time are explored.

This paper presents a model of team learning and tests it in a multimethod field study. It introduces the construct of team psychological safety—a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking—and models the effects of team psychological safety and team efficacy together on learning and performance in organizational work teams. Results of a study of 51 work teams in a manufacturing company, measuring antecedent, process, and outcome variables, show that team psychological safety is associated with learning behavior, but team efficacy is not, when controlling for team psychological safety. As predicted, learning behavior mediates between team psychological safety and team performance. The results support an integrative perspective in which both team structures, such as context support and team leader coaching, and shared beliefs shape team outcomes.

Arguing that knowledge in the social sciences is socially constructed through the selective interpretation of major works, we examine the fate of a classic article in organizational theory, DiMaggio and Powell's 1983 essay on institutional isomorphism. We show that one aspect of this article, the discussion of mimetic isomorphism, has received attention disproportionate to its role in the essay. A detailed examination of 26 articles in which researchers attempted to operationalize various components of DiMaggio and Powell's model shows that measures used to capture one of their concepts could have served as valid measures of one of the others. Findings show that DiMaggio and Powell's thesis has become socially constructed, as authors have selectively appropriated aspects of the work that accord with prevalent discourse in the field, and that centrally located researchers in sociology and organizational behavior are more likely than other scholars to invoke this dominant interpretation of their article.