Business Commons^™

Economic Outlook 2010: Innovation, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

This article discusses the importance of innovation to individuals and the overall economy.

Leading Amidst Competing Technical And Institutional Demands: Revisiting Selznick’S Conception Of Leadership, Marya Besharov, Rakesh Khurana

Marya Besharov

This chapter explores how Selznick’s approach to leadership can inform contemporary organizational theory and research. Drawing on Selznick’s writing in Leadership in Administration and related works, we characterize organizations as simultaneously technical entities pursuing economic goals and value-laden entities pursuing non-economic goals arising from their members and their role in society. These two aspects of organizations are deeply intertwined and in continual tension with one another, and the essential task of leadership is to uphold both – protecting and promoting values while also meeting technical imperatives. To do so, leaders establish a common purpose that includes values and ideals not …

Managing Social-Business Tensions: A Review And Research Agenda For Social Enterprise, Michaël Gonin, Marya Besharov, Wendy Smith, Nicholas Gachet

Marya Besharov

In a world filled with poverty, environmental degradation, and moral injustice, social enterprises offer a ray of hope. These organizations seek to achieve social missions through business ventures. Yet social missions and business ventures are associated with divergent goals, values, norms, and identities. Attending to them simultaneously creates tensions, competing demands, and ethical dilemmas. Effectively understanding social enterprises therefore depends on insight into the nature and management of these tensions. While existing research recognizes tensions between social missions and business ventures, we lack any systematic analysis. Our paper addresses this issue. We first categorize the types of tensions that arise …

A Paradoxical Leadership Model For Social Entrepreneurs: Challenges, Leadership Skills, And Pedagogical Tools For Managing Social And Commercial Demands, Wendy K. Smith, Marya Besharov, Anne K. Wessels, Michael Chertok

Marya Besharov

Social enterprises offer the promise of financially sustainable organizations that can respond to the world's most pressing problems. Yet for social enterprises to succeed their leaders must effectively manage conflicting demands that arise from dual commitments to improving social welfare and achieving commercial viability. While existing research highlights distinct skills for enabling social missions or for achieving business outcomes, we draw on paradox research to build theory about the challenges and associated skills for effectively managing the tensions emerging from the juxtaposition of social mission and business outcomes. We then use two exemplary settings for educating social entrepreneurs, one in …

Young Adult Development In Hospitality Management Schools Which Offer Craft Based Learning, John C. Niser

John C. Niser

This research set out to examine the role of craft based education in hospitality management schools from a developmental perceptive. The first exploratory study found that craft based learning could not be isolated from the total learning environment in which students were developing adult thinking skills. The second investigation examined students from the same institution in the light of young adult development literature. Relativistic thinking was identified as a general area of agreement in the literature but the underpinning structural unity of this thinking skill could possibly be challenged. In the first school I conducted my study, interviewees did not …

Negotiator Resilience.Docx, Brianna B. Caza, Mara Olekalns

Mara Olekalns

Stretching The Moral Gray Zone: Positive Affect, Moral Disengagement And Dishonesty, Lynne C. Vincent, Kyle J. Emich, Jack A. Goncalo

Jack Goncalo

We propose that positive affect promotes dishonest behavior by providing the cognitive flexibility necessary to reframe and to rationalize dishonest acts. This hypothesis was tested in two studies. The results of Study 1 showed that individuals experiencing positive affect morally disengage to a greater extent than individuals experiencing neutral affect. Study 2 built upon this finding by demonstrating that the ability to morally disengage can lead individuals who experience positive affect to behave dishonestly. Specifically, the results of Study 2 show that people experiencing positive affect are more likely to steal than individuals who experience neutral affect, particularly when self-awareness …

Using The Fcb Grid To Evaluate A Failed Mental Health Levy: The Marketing Implications Of Stigma, Oscar T. Mcknight, Ronald Paugh, Steffi Liotta, Wenhui Jin

Oscar T McKnight Ph.D.

This research found that using the FCB Grid to develop and evaluate a mental health levy campaign has merit. Likewise, stigma has both positive and negative impact on a mental health levy. Introduced is the ‘STIGMA’ planning model to help mental health professionals pass a public mental health levy.

Examining The Use Of Focus Groups In Economic Development Initiatives, Oscar T. Mcknight, Ronald Paugh, Brian Nestor, Shawn Yambor

Oscar T McKnight Ph.D.

City officials often use focus groups in economic development. However, findings indicate that group dynamics can threaten validity when seeking consensus. Data suggest a strong rebound effect for participants to return to their earlier pre-focus group assessment beliefs. Introduced is the ‘BUCKS’ Planning Model for facilitating city economic development initiatives.

Accommodation Motivation Moderates Group-Level Dissonance In Persuasion And Small Group Settings, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Evelyn Wing-Mun Au, Chi-Yue Chiu

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

No abstract provided.

Follow The Crowd In A New Direction: When Conformity Pressure Facilitates Group Creativity (And When It Does Not), Jack Goncalo, Michelle M. Duguid

Jack Goncalo

Adopting a person by situation interaction approach, we identified conditions under which conformity pressure can either stifle or boost group creativity depending on the joint effects of norm content and group personality composition. Using a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design, we hypothesized and found that pressure to adhere to an individualistic norm boosted creativity in groups whose members scored low on the Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979), but stifled creativity in groups whose members scored high on that measure. Our findings suggest that conformity pressure may be a viable mechanism for boosting group creativity, but only among those …

Members Matter In Team Training: Multilevel And Longitudinal Relationships Between Goal Orientation, Self-Regulation, And Team Outcomes, Erich Dierdorff, Kemp Ellington

Erich C. Dierdorff

Longitudinal data from 338 individuals across 64 teams in a simulation-based team-training context were used to examine the effects of dispositional goal orientation on self-regulated learning (self-efficacy and metacognition). Team goal orientation compositions, as reflected by average goal orientations of team members, were examined for moderating effects on these individual-level relationships. Finally, individual-level self-regulation was investigated for its influence on multiple team-level outcomes across time. Results showed generally positive effects of learning goal orientation and negative effects of avoid performance and prove performance goal orientations on rates of self-regulation during team training. However, several of these individual-level relationships were moderated …

Governance-Default Risk Relationship And The Demand For Intermediated And Non-Intermediated Debt, Safdar Khan

Safdar Khan

No abstract provided.

Using Secondary Sources Of Work Information To Improve Work Analysis, Erich Dierdorff

Erich C. Dierdorff

No abstract provided.

Negotiating The Gender Divide: Lessons From The Negotiation And Organizational Behavior Literatures, Carol Kulik, Mara Olekalns

Mara Olekalns

Employment relationships are increasingly personalized, with more employment conditions open to negotiation. Although the intended goal of this personalization is a better and more satisfying employment relationship, personalization may systematically disadvantage members of some demographic groups. This disadvantage is evident for women, who routinely negotiate less desirable employment terms than men. This gender-based gap in outcomes is frequently attributed to differences in the ways that men and women negotiate. We review the negotiation research demonstrating that women are systematically disadvantaged in negotiations and the organizational behavior research examining the backlash experienced by agentic women. We use the Stereotype Content Model …

The Manager's Perspective Of Psychological Contracts Before And After The Global Financial Crisis., Isabel Metz, C. Kulik, M. Brown, C. Cregan

Isabel Metz

No abstract provided.

Womens’ Managerial Aspirations: An Organizational Development Perspective, Grace Lemmon

Grace Lemmon

Some authors have explained the dearth of women leaders as an “opt-out revolution”—that women today are making a choice not to aspire to leadership positions. The authors of this article present a model that tests managers’ biased evaluations of women as less career motivated as an explanation for why women have lower managerial aspirations than men. Specifically, they hypothesize that day-to-day managerial decisions involving allocating challenging work, training and development, and career encouragement mean women accrue less organizational development, and this is one explanation for their lower managerial aspirations. The authors’ model is based on social role theory and is …

Changes In Psychological Contracts During The Global Financial Crisis: The Manager's Perspective. (Forthcoming), Isabel Metz, C. Kulik, M. Brown, C. Cregan

Isabel Metz

No abstract provided.

Facet Personality And Surface-Level Diversity As Team Mental Model Antecedents: Implications For Implicit Coordination, David Fisher, Suzanne Bell, Erich Dierdorff, James Belohlav

Erich C. Dierdorff

Team mental models (TMMs) have received much attention as important drivers of effective team processes and performance. At the same time, much less is known about the factors that give rise to these shared cognitive structures. We examined potential antecedents of TMMs, with a specific focus on team composition variables, including various facets of personality and surface-level diversity. Further, we examined implicit coordination as an important outcome of TMMs. Results suggest that team composition in terms of the cooperation facet of agreeableness and racial diversity were significantly related to team-focused TMM similarity. TMM similarity was also positively predictive of implicit …

With Feeling: How Emotions Shape Negotiation, Mara Olekalns, Daniel Druckman

Mara Olekalns

An increasingly popular topic in current research is how emotional expressions influence the course of negotiation and related interactions. Negotiation is a form of social exchange that pits the opposing motives of cooperating and competing against one another. Most negotiators seek to reach an agreement with the other party; they also strive for an agreement that serves their own goals. This dual concern is reflected in a process that consists of both bargaining and problem solving. A good deal of the research and practice literature concentrates on ways to perform these activities effectively. In earlier writing, emotions were viewed largely …

Negotiations And Trust, Mara Olekalns, Philip L. Smith

Mara Olekalns

This forthcoming entry in the Encyclopaedia of Peace Psychology provides an overview of trust in negotiation

Role Expectations As Antecedents Of Citizenship: The Moderating Effects Of Work Context, Erich C. Dierdorff, Robert S. Rubin, Daniel G. Bachrach

Robert S. Rubin

In this field study of 198 incumbents, we examine how facets of work context affect the relationship between employees’ role expectations and supervisor ratings of their citizenship. Building on an emerging focus in the citizenship literature, we expand the scope of role perceptions to capture employees’ beliefs about the importance of various work activities and worker attributes needed for successful role performance (i.e., role expectations). Results support the role theory framework that we develop and suggest that aspects of both the social and task context moderate the relationship between employees’ role expectations for prosocial role requirements and citizenship. Implications of …

Factors Affecting Judgments Of Prevalence And Representation: Implications For Public Policy And Marketing, Donnel A. Briley, L. J. Shrum, Robert S. Wyer Jr.

Donnel A Briley

Public policies are typically established to eliminate important social problems (e.g., minority discrimination, crime, poverty). And the importance of these problems, and urgency people feel about addressing them, is influenced by perceptions of their prevalence. These perceptions, however, can be unwittingly biased by extraneous sources of information that lead some either to overestimate or underestimate the seriousness of the problem at hand. We review empirical work on the construction of perceptions of frequency and representativeness and the processes that underlie them, and show that these perceptions are often biased in ways that differ over segments of the population. The implications …

Information Projection: Model And Applications, Kristof Madarasz

Kristof Madarasz

Ohio Student Social Skills Training Program Is Very Successful, David Volosin, Oscar T. Mcknight, John Sikula

Oscar T McKnight Ph.D.

This article reports on research conducted in the Parma City Schools, Ohio by The Society for Prevention of Violence (SPV). The SPV is dedicated to reducing the prevalence of violent acts and asocial behaviors of children and adults through education. It accomplishes this mission by teaching children and adults the use of the skills necessary to build their character. Findings suggest that the SPV program improves the ability of children within class to pay attention and be organized. The greatest improved social behaviors for participants were in helping others who are having trouble; increased ability to initiate positive interactions; and, …