Future Organizational Research Research Articles

Shells, Fronts, Astroturfing, and Beyond: Examining Concealment Strategies of Proxy Organizations

This study investigates what we call proxy organizations (e.g., shell companies, front organizations, astroturfing efforts). Drawing on existing literature to better conceptualize proxy organizations and their communicative nature, we position these proxy organizations within scholarship on visibility management and hidden organizing. To answer research questions about public discourse around these proxies and their use of concealment strategies, we analyze news coverage of these organizations from 2001, 2011, and 2021. Findings suggest sizable increases in discourse about each proxy type. Additionally, analysis reveals several concealment themes in that media coverage: dark/secret money/finances, hidden owners, shadowy influence, anonymous proxies, covert links, online concealment, secret/illegal activities, and revelation safety/fear. We then draw conclusions, discuss implications, and suggest directions for future organizational communication research about proxy organizations.

Since Albert and Whetten: the dissemination of Albert and Whetten’s conceptualization of organizational identity

Since the seminal work of Albert and Whetten, the organizational identity concept has become ubiquitous and highly relevant in various fields. This study systematically reviews how Albert and Whetten’s concept of organizational identity has been disseminated in different research areas. It employs quantitative (topic modeling) and qualitative text analysis, as well as a network analysis to examine a sample of 1,041 papers published between 1985 and mid-2022 that cite Albert and Whetten’s seminal work. Using this method of systematic literature analysis, the current study investigates the criteria of the basic definition and hypotheses mentioned in their work that contribute to its increasing significance, and those with the potential to become substantial aspects of future organizational identity research. Accordingly, Albert and Whetten’s conceptualization of organizational identity is often partially adopted in the literature. Thus, this study contributes to organizational identity research by unveiling further research questions on the evolving character of organizational identity, research methodology, and quantitative operationalization, on the basis of Albert and Whetten’s organizational identity conceptualization.

The Flow of Information through Organizations: Exploring Multilevel Theorizing and Future Directions

The massive influx of information flowing through organizations has completely changed the landscape of work. The abundance of information offers both exciting and promising opportunities as well as creates workplaces that have become increasingly complex and difficult to navigate, presenting counterproductive and even harmful challenges. Therefore, how do (or should) individuals, teams, and organizations better process, harness, and influence the flow of information through hierarchies and other organizing structures? This question is especially relevant in the context of a greater push for transparency that we are seeing in society as well as in times of severe organizational uncertainty and instability (e.g., in light of the pandemic and its economic fallout)? In this moderated panel symposium, we seek to engage in meaningful discussion on how individuals, teams, and organizations can fully realize potentials and detriments of the increased information flow. Our symposium consists of a panel of five leading scholars -- Brandy Aven, Ethan Berstein, Nir Halevy, Markus Reitzig, and Daan van Knippenberg (in alphabetical order by last name) -- who hold diverse perspectives and who were chosen due to their expertise on this topic. This symposium will highlight important insights into the potential possibilities and issues confronting scholars on information flow and information management, which we hope will guide future organizational research.

Taking stock and moving forward: A textual statistics approach to synthesizing four decades of job insecurity research

We collected the abstracts of manuscripts examining job insecurity published between 1984 and 2019 and carried out a textual analysis to investigate the defining clusters, their development over time, and whether there was evidence of siloed knowledge. Results suggested that job insecurity research seems to be fragmented into disciplinary foci (organizational psychology, public health, economics, and sociology). Further analyses on the organizational psychology corpus, revealed 25 topics with distinct temporal trajectories: some were increasing (analytical advances and differentiation between cognitive and affective job insecurity) while other were decreasing (scale development). The remaining abstracts revealed 15 topics with more stable trajectories. Based on these results, we identified five areas for future organizational research on job insecurity: the changing labor market, the need to better understand the experiences of marginalized workers and non-work outcomes of job insecurity, the added-value of qualitative research, and the need to critically evaluate our assumptions as researchers. Since the paper by Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt, research on job insecurity has burgeoned. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, we collected the abstracts of all peer-reviewed manuscripts examining job insecurity published between 1984 and 2019 and carried out a textual analysis using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation and the Reinert method to investigate (a) the defining clusters of job insecurity research, (b) the development of such clusters over time, and (c) whether there was any evidence of siloed knowledge. Results suggested that indeed job insecurity research seems to be fragmented into four main disciplinary foci (organizational psychology, public health, economics, and sociology) with relatively little cross-fertilization. We conducted further analyses of the abstracts stemming from organizational research on job insecurity, revealing 25 topics with distinct temporal trajectories (e.g., “hot” topics including the increasing use of advanced analytic techniques and differentiation between cognitive and affective job insecurity) and “cold” topics including the development of job insecurity measures). The remaining abstracts revealed 15 topics with more stable research interests over time (e.g., a continued reliance on appraisal theories). Based on these results, we identified five areas for future organizational research on job insecurity based on: the changing labor market, the need to better understand the experiences of marginalized workers and non-work outcomes of job insecurity, the added-value of qualitative research, and finally the need to critically evaluate our assumptions as researchers.

Construcción y validación de una escala de autoestima en la clase de lengua extranjera (EACLE)

This paper describes the development and standardization of a measure of self-esteem in the foreign language classroom. The reliability and validity of self-esteem in the foreign language classroom scale (SEFLS) were determined for a sample of 252 Spanish native speakers studying a foreign language. The test reliability coefficient was ω= ,92. Confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) yielded a 10-item three-dimension structure acceptable model fit. The three dimensions were language competence, skills performance and perceived social support. The SEFLS measure could be a useful tool for assessing students’ self-esteem in the foreign language classroom. Implications, limitations, and directions for future organizational research are discussed.

Self-efficacy at Workplace: Validation of Spanish Versions of Occupational Emotional, Social, and Task Self-efficacy scales

Self-efficacy is one of the most important resources in the workplace. We adapted “Occupational Emotional, Social, and Task Self-efficacy at Work scales” to Argentinian employees providing new validity evidence of the cross-cultural equivalence. 771 Argentine employees participated of both genders (58% women), aged between 18-76 years (M = 31.18; SD = 10.95), and 55% of the participants had an incomplete university education level. Data were collected using a “Spanish version self-efficacy at work scales” and “Professional Self-Efficacy Questionnaire”. Exploratory Factor Analysis have found a three-factor structure explaining the 38% of the variance of self-efficacy at workplace. However, confirmatory factor analyses have demonstrated that the four-factor solution presents a better fit (CFI = .986; RMSEA = .028; SRMR = 0.057). The Spanish version of the self-efficacy scale maintains the same original structure and demonstrate adequate reliability and validity for Argentinian workers. Implications for future organizational research and practice are discussed.

Interventions in Organizational Research: Lessons Learned, Best Practices, Future Directions

Research in management and organizations aims to produce work that is theoretically grounded and practically useful. One promising and increasingly popular research method that strikes a balance between theory and practice is intervention-based research. Despite the potential of intervention-based research, several challenging questions currently limit the promise of this methodology: When should researchers use an intervention study? How do researchers design and implement good interventions? And how do researchers evaluate their results and make sound conclusions? In this symposium, we seek to provide important insight into the practice of intervention-based organizational research. Our symposium consists of a panel of six leading researchers who have rich and diverse experiences with designing and conducting empirical research using interventions. Our intent is that an audience interested in doing this kind of research will benefit from hearing about the choice points and reasoning of these scholars who have profound knowledge of and deep experiences with conducting interventions. This symposium will highlight important insights into the issues confronting scholars interested in using interventions in their research and provide guidelines and tips on effective intervention-based research, which we hope will guide future organizational research using interventions.

The well‐being and voice of migrant workers in participatory organizational interventions

AbstractOrganizational interventions that draw on participatory processes to tap into the views of workers can benefit both the health of workers and their organizations. However, the frameworks used to develop participatory organizational interventions are often described in a generic, ‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ manner. Considering the specific needs of diverse groups such as migrants is important, given current migration rates globally. Using the literature of migrant voice, cross‐cultural management, organizational change and organizational intervention, this paper extends the research by applying theoretical insights into identify specific strategies that enable migrant workers to have a genuine voice in organizational interventions. The paper further contributes to the literature by proposing a participatory intervention framework that organizations can implement to maximize the voice of migrant workers and subsequently improve their well‐being. The directions of future organizational intervention research involving migrant workers and implications for integration policy, integration support systems and unionization are discussed.

Organizational science and cybersecurity: abundant opportunities for research at the interface

Cybersecurity is an ever-present problem for organizations, but organizational science has barely begun to enter the arena of cybersecurity research. As a result, the “human factor” in cybersecurity research is much less studied than its technological counterpart. The current manuscript serves as an introduction and invitation to cybersecurity research by organizational scientists. We define cybersecurity, provide definitions of key cybersecurity constructs relevant to employee behavior, illuminate the unique opportunities available to organizational scientists in the cybersecurity arena (e.g., publication venues that reach new audiences, novel sources of external funding), and provide overall conceptual frameworks of the antecedents of employees’ cybersecurity behavior. In so doing, we emphasize both end-users of cybersecurity in organizations and employees focused specifically on cybersecurity work. We provide an expansive agenda for future organizational science research on cybersecurity—and we describe the benefits such research can provide not only to cybersecurity but also to basic research in organizational science itself. We end by providing a list of potential objections to the proposed research along with our responses to these objections. It is our hope that the current manuscript will catalyze research at the interface of organizational science and cybersecurity.

Job Performance and the PERMA Framework of Subjective Well-Being: U.S.-China Multi-Group Comparisons

In the present study, the researchers empirically examined the factor structure of the PERMA framework (positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, accomplishment) of subjective well-being and conceptual links between the PERMA framework and specific job performance dimensions (task performance, innovative behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, proactive behavior). Specifically, the researchers conducted multi-group comparisons for the factor structure of the PERMA framework (N = 704) and PERMA- performance links with online samples of participants from the United States (N = 147) and China (N = 202). After conducting these tests, we incorporated hierarchical multiple regression and relative weight analysis with each sample to identify which PERMA dimensions were focal predictor variables in explaining variance in the performance dimensions. Implications regarding the usefulness of the PERMA framework in future cross-cultural organizational research are discussed.

Perils of conversation: #MeToo and opportunities for peacebuilding

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the opportunities for future organizational and leadership research presented by positioning dialogue related to the #MeToo movement within a peacebuilding agenda. The #MeToo movement raised public consciousness about the pervasiveness of sexual assault and harassment in schools, workplaces and other institutions by an international social media campaign. However, subsequent discussions are often charged with hostility and outrage that result in divisiveness within workplaces and other settings that can further silence about these issues. The authors argue a community peacebuilding framework can create space to have difficult conversations to further the efforts of the #MeToo movement. Design/methodology/approach The authors will discuss the implications of a peacebuilding framework by the discussion of a case study in a rural setting to highlight the ways in which community conversations necessary to further the goals of the #MeToo movement. Findings A grassroots community peacebuilding framework can present opportunities for victims, offenders, family members and the community to voice expressions harms experienced and to enable processes of accountability. Promotion of a positive relational peace includes opportunities for education, skill development and conflict resolution that are healing and transformative for individuals and communities. Research limitations/implications The systemic social and cultural change required to prevent sexual harassment and sexual assault must happen within face-to-face relationships within community dialogue. Practical implications The authors argue a critical relational peace lens offers an emancipatory framework that can initiate change from the bottom up to facilitate social healing and further the efforts of the #MeToo movement. Social implications Grassroots peacebuilding invites a relational peace established by dialogue within communities. This dialogue is often not easy but is recognized as essential to establishing trust, resolving conflict and fostering community integrity. Originality/value In this paper, the authors offer a community peacebuilding framework to provide skill development and a vision necessary to host difficult conversations to inform the next wave of the #MeToo movement.

Employee Happiness: Why We Should Care

Albert Schweitzer once stated that “success is not the key to happiness, happiness is the key to success.” Despite this widespread belief, employee happiness is often perceived by organizations as an insubstantial topic, irrelevant to bottom-line outcomes. Equally as problematic, past investigations have primarily utilized other positive emotion variables as a proxy for happiness, thus convoluting the relationships between happiness and work outcomes. As such, taking a scientist-practitioner approach, the present study sought to address the need to: (a) directly measure employees’ happiness, (b) link employee happiness to outcomes of organizational interest, and (c) assess the impact that organizational psychosocial factors have in decreasing employee happiness levels. Therefore, by measuring employee happiness, job demands, and organizational outcomes through a two-wave full panel design, the present study provided evidence for employee happiness’s ability to significantly mediate the relationship between job demands and organizational outcomes. Explicitly, a high level of job demands decreased employee happiness, which subsequently decreased employees’ organizational commitment, task performance, and contextual performance, while increasing turnover intentions and counterproductive work behaviors. These results carry significant theoretical and practical implications. Future QOL (Quality of Life) and organizational research would benefit from building on the present findings and establishing a nomological net of employee happiness. Additionally, practitioners have the opportunity to utilize this evidence to demonstrate the impact that employee happiness has on organizationally-relevant outcomes and the role that organizations can have in fostering employee happiness.

Advancing and Evaluating IRT Model Data Fit Indices in Organizational Research

Item response theory (IRT) models have a number of advantages for developing and evaluating scales in organizational research. However, these advantages can be obtained only when the IRT model used to estimate the parameters fits the data well. Therefore, examining IRT model fit is important before drawing conclusions from the data. To test model fit, a wide range of indices are available in the IRT literature and have demonstrated utility in past research. Nevertheless, the performance of many of these indices for detecting misfit has not been directly compared in simulations. The current study evaluates a number of these indices to determine their utility for detecting various types of misfit in both dominance and ideal point IRT models. Results indicate that some indices are more effective than others but that none of the indices accurately detected misfit due to multidimensionality in the data. The implications of these results for future organizational research are discussed.

Symbolic Capital: A Promising Construct for Organizational Research

The concept of symbolic capital is employed within an increasing number of studies in fields as diverse as anthropology, economics, political science, sociology, management, and entrepreneurship. In this paper, we aim to clarify the concept of symbolic capital by synthesizing theoretical and empirical knowledge accumulated on the concept and by developing a theoretical framework that identifies the origins or sources, advantages, disadvantages, and outcomes of symbolic capital. This synthesizing task and the associated framework then permits us to start theorizing about usefulness of the concept for future organizational theory and research.

Testing a Social Cognitive Model of Well-Being With Women Engineers

The present study tests the utility of the Social Cognitive Model of Well-Being (SCWB) in the context of work, with a sample of 348 women engineers. Using structural equation modeling, we examined the relations of positive affect, self-efficacy, work conditions, goal progress, and environmental supports and barriers that were assumed to account for job satisfaction and life satisfaction of women engineers. Overall, the model provided a good fit to the data, and SCWB predictors accounted for a significant amount of variance in job satisfaction (63%) and life satisfaction (54%) with our sample of women engineers. As expected, most paths of the SCWB model were significant; however, we also found nonsignificant relations among variables in the model. In particular, goal progress did not play a critical role in the present study. In addition, we examined the indirect effects of environmental variables (e.g., supports and barriers) on job satisfaction via sociocognitive variables (e.g., self-efficacy and perceived work conditions) in the engineering work domain. Implications for practice, theory, and future vocational and organizational research in engineering are discussed.

K-Centres Functional Clustering

In the present paper, we introduce k-centres functional clustering ( k-centres FC), a person-centered method that clusters people with similar patterns of complex, highly nonlinear change over time. We review fundamentals of the methodology and argue how it addresses some of the limitations of the traditional approaches to modeling repeated measures data. The usefulness of k-centres FC is demonstrated by applying the method to weekly measured commitment data from 109 participants who reported psychological contract breach events. The k-centres FC analysis shows two substantively meaningful clusters, the first cluster showing reaction patterns with general growth in commitment after breach and the second cluster showing general decline in commitment after breach. Further, the reaction patterns in the second cluster appear to be the result of a combination of two interesting reaction logics: immediate and delayed reactions. We conclude by outlining how future organizational research can incorporate this methodology.

Microhistory of James Meredith’s Contested Leadership:An ANTi-History Approach

Through a unique combination of ANTi-historical and Microhistorical methodological approaches, we analyze the exemplary historical case of James Meredith’s contested leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. The analysis of several hundreds of archived letters written to Meredith by opponents of his actions revealed not only the importance of collective opposition in the formation of socially-endorsed, yet contested leadership, but the underlying latent process through which opponents demonstrated their collective angst against Meredith’s leadership. Our unique approach to historically uncovering theoretical concepts and processes holds promise for future management and organizational research through a historical lens.

Attachment theory at work: A review and directions for future research

SummaryThe influence of attachment theory on organizational scholarship is growing, with more articles published on the subject in the past 5 years than the preceding 25 years combined. Prior research and reviews have primarily focused on attachment styles and their relationship with organizational outcomes. However, in the past 5 years, organizational scholars have begun exploring new directions in attachment research such as situational influences on attachment states, attachment as a moderating variable, and attachment as a dynamic process in various forms of work relationships. These advances offer new directions for organizational behavior research, notably through the lens of the attachment behavioral system—an innate psychological system that accounts for why and how people seek support from others. In this paper, we provide an overarching framework for understanding attachment dynamics in organizations and review key findings from attachment theory research on dyadic relationships, group dynamics, and the employee–organization relationship. We further discuss promising areas for future organizational research on attachment, as well as methodological developments in the priming of attachment states.

The Spiral of Deinstitutionalization Untangled: An Observation about the Field Opinion within Kuomintang against Public Opinion during the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign

As political scientists start applying the complex-system approach to study party politics and as business scholars start to apply communication theories to study deinstitutionalization, we prospect a new possibility to study and explain politics within a political party. This study employs a systematically collected field observation data to evaluate Clemente and Roulet’s (2015) “the spiral of deinstitutionalization” framework. Based on analysis of news events and internal reports within Kuomintang from April 20 to October 17, 2015, we believe that this framework facilitates explanation about how the decision of nominating Hung Hsiu-Chu as the party’s first female presidential candidate was replaced three months before the Election Day. We interpret the whole story and provide details that contribute to enriching the framework for future organizational and political party research.

Organizational Media Affordances: Operationalization and Associations with Media Use

The concept of affordances has been increasingly applied to the study of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in organizational contexts. However, almost no research operationalizes affordances, limiting comparisons and programmatic research. This article briefly reviews conceptualizations and possibilities of affordances in general and for media, then introduces the concept of organizational media affordances as organizational resources. Analysis of survey data from a large Nordic media organization identified six reliable and valid organizational media affordances: pervasiveness, editability, self-presentation, searchability, visibility, and awareness. Eight media scales based on frequency of use of 10 media within each of three organization levels were differentially associated with these affordances. The conceptualization, measurement approach, and results from this study provide the foundation for considerable future organizational communication and ICT research.