Abstract: When newcomers enter teams, they seek out identity resources from team incumbents to help their socialization. In turn, team incumbents offer identity resources to newcomers to support incumbents' existing held team identities. Based on theories of identity and socialization, we make a case for the identity partnership, a relationship in which identity resources are exchanged between an incumbent team member and a team newcomer. We first explore the identity needs of both team newcomers and team incumbents and how such needs drive proactivity. We then examine the initial selection of possible others for identity partnerships and the evaluation of initial exchanges between parties once initial selections have been made. Finally, we discuss partnership formation and shared identification as dyadic outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of how the dyadic identity partnership relationalizes our understanding of newcomer socialization.
Cooper, D., Rockmann, K. W., Moteabbed, S., & Thatcher, S. M. B. 2021. Integrator or Gremlin? Identity Partnerships and Team Newcomer Socialization. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 128-146. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2018.0014
Abstract: Scholarly interest in necessity entrepreneurship has risen steadily over the last four decades, with much of the research in this area focused on distinguishing individuals who are pushed into entrepreneurship by negative factors, such as unemployment, from those who are pulled into it by its attractiveness. Yet, although past research has extended knowledge considerably, the dichotomous framing commonly employed in studies in this realm has limited theoretical development, as it ignores important variation among necessity entrepreneurs and, hence, the processes by which they engage in entrepreneurship. In this paper, we seek to reconceptualize the necessity entrepreneurship construct by drawing on a motivational theory of necessity to predict how variation in founders' basic needs influences the entrepreneurial process, conditional on the level of their human capital endowments, the environmental context in which they are embedded, and the presence of supportive institutional levers. We conclude by discussing the implications of our study and the potential ways in which our theory can be tested and extended.
Dencker, J. C., Bacq, S., Gruber, M., & Haas, M. 2021. Reconceptualizing Necessity Entrepreneurship: A Contextualized Framework of Entrepreneurial Processes under the Condition of Basic Needs. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 60-79. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2017.0471
Abstract: Conventional wisdom holds that CEOs should avoid wading into society's debates. Yet, CEOs are increasingly ignoring this dictum and taking public stances on socially contentious issues. We address this relatively unexplored but important phenomenon by developing a theory of CEO sociopolitical activism. Our stakeholder alignment model posits that CEO activism stems foremost from a CEO's personal values but is facilitated (or suppressed) by the CEO's expectation of support from stakeholders, particularly employees and customers. We also highlight the importance of CEO power, celebrity, and narcissism in influencing whether, and how vividly, the CEO's values manifest in activism. Then, following an episode of CEO activism, stakeholders psychologically respond to the leader's action. Those who were ex ante predisposed toward the CEO's public stance will feel pride in their affiliation with the company, and will consequently experience heightened identification with the firm and with the CEO's stance. Stakeholders who were ex ante averse to the CEO's stance will experience diminished identification with the firm, and their oppositional stance will be further cemented. Finally, we juxtapose CEO activism with other society-oriented firm practices (e.g., corporate social responsibility and corporate lobbying) and develop propositions about their independent and joint effects on stakeholder identification.
Hambrick, D. C., & Wowak, A. J. 2021. CEO Sociopolitical Activism: A Stakeholder Alignment Model. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 33-59. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2018.0084
Abstract: Management scholars have typically regarded the widespread instances of hypocrisy across business, religious, and political institutions to be motivated and strategic. We suggest, however, that hypocrisy may stem not only from people’s motivation to interpret and utilize information in a self-serving manner but also from fundamental differences in people’s access to that information itself. More specifically, we present a multi-stage theory of ethical accounting (TEA) that describes how this differential access to information, specifically about the self versus others, can create an interrelated series of cognitive distortions in how people account for the same unethical behavior. TEA posits that such distortions can allow people to believe they are being fair and consistent when appraising the morality of the self and others while actually being inconsistent in how they do so, and describes how this can ultimately make it harder to address not only hypocrisy but also unethical behavior more broadly in organizations.
Kim, P. H., Wiltermuth, S. S., & Newman, D. T. 2021. A Theory of Ethical Accounting and Its Implications for Hypocrisy in Organizations. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 172-191. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2018.0161
Abstract: We live in an "audit society" in which performance accounting and auditing requirements continue to expand, despite widespread criticism by academics and practitioners alike. Macro-institutional theories are good at explaining why organizations adopt practices whose efficacy is dubious by appealing to the power of their legitimizing and symbolic properties. Yet these theories are less able to explain how adoption happens and why practices of accounting and auditing persist and amplify, despite being objects of critique. This article addresses this puzzle by supplementing macro-institutional explanations of the audit society with a micro-foundational analysis grounded in a process model. The model theorizes the humble notion of the audit trail as a process that not only produces auditable accounts but is also a logic that is formative of organizational actors' dispositions to reproduce those accounts. The analysis contributes to debates about organizational micro-processes and micro-foundations by proposing that this logic of the audit trail is strongly performative of the conditions of its own reproduction and expansion. In explaining the persistence and amplification of the audit society, the model also shows how accounting and auditing are not inherently value-subverting and may be value-enhancing.
Power, M. 2021. Modelling the Micro-foundations of the Audit Society: Organizations and the Logic of the Audit Trail. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 6-32. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2017.0212
Abstract: Networks change when either the ties or the nodes are modified. Research on interfirm networks has conceptualized network change as being driven almost exclusively by modifications in ties (additions and deletions). Yet firms frequently engage in actions that modify the ownership and existence of nodes: acquisitions "collapse" nodes, divestitures "split" nodes, industry entries "create" nodes, and industry exits "remove" nodes. The literatures on corporate strategy and organizational networks have mostly overlooked the implications of node-modifying actions for network change. We explore those implications in three ways. First, we systematically analyze and compare the network-changing properties of the six node- and tie-changing actions. Second, we link the strategic objectives that boundedly rational firms pursue through each corporate action to changes in their ego network positions (openness, closure, and status). Third, we consider how these local network changes set off ripple effects that create externalities for the networks of the focal firm's immediate partners and that modify the structure of the global network. The result is a much more expansive understanding of the mechanisms driving structural change in interfirm networks.
Hernandez, E., & Menon, A. 2021. Corporate Strategy and Network Change. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 80-107. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2018.0013
Abstract: A pervasive phenomenon in the workplace is that men appear eager to show how “tough” they are as negotiators. We introduce the Masculinity Effects in Negotiations model to explain men’s negotiation behaviors and outcomes. According to the model, men perceive negotiating as an activity through which they can signal their masculinity and pursue social status, but they also recognize that their masculinity might be questioned and that they might lose social status. As a result, men can become enthusiastic but also anxious about negotiations and these emotions lead them to display a number of agentic negotiation behaviors to protect and underscore their masculinity and their social status. Depending on their own and their counterpart's behavior, men then either succeed or fail to obtain favorable economic negotiation outcomes, which influence their subsequent emotions (e.g., pride or shame). With our model, we advance a novel explanation for gender differences in negotiations and expand the understanding of men's workplace behaviors and outcomes (e.g., their pay, position, and reputation).
Mazei, J., Zerres, A., & Hueffmeier, J. 2021. Masculinity at the Negotiation Table: A Theory of Men’s Negotiation Behaviors and Outcomes. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 108-127. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2017.0570
Abstract: Taking three recent business books on artificial intelligence (AI) as a starting point, we explore the automation and augmentation concepts in the management domain. Whereas automation implies that machines take over a human task, augmentation means that humans collaborate closely with machines to perform a task. Taking a normative stance, the three books advise organizations to prioritize augmentation, which they relate to superior performance. Using a more comprehensive paradox theory perspective, we argue that, in the management domain, augmentation cannot be neatly separated from automation. These dual AI applications are interdependent across time and space, creating a paradoxical tension. Overemphasizing either augmentation or automation fuels reinforcing cycles with negative organizational and societal outcomes. However, if organizations adopt a broader perspective comprising both automation and augmentation, they could deal with the tension and achieve complementarities that benefit business and society. Drawing on our insights, we conclude that management scholars need to be involved in research on the use of AI in organizations. We also argue that a substantial change is required in how AI research is currently conducted in order to develop meaningful theory and to provide practice with sound advice.
Raisch, S., & Krakowski, S. 2021. Artificial Intelligence and Management: The Automation-Augmentation Paradox. Academy of Management Review, 46(1): 192-210. DOI: 10.5465/amr.2018.0072
