Academy of Management Review
Past Research
Articles from the past 3 years
Browse, filter, and search through older research articles. Use the filters below to narrow by journal or topic, sort by date or journal name, and search by keywords in titles and authors.
2025
Journal of Management
Ownership Matters: How Family Control Affects the Value of Board Chair Types After CEO Successions
Abstract
This study examines the performance consequences of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) successions, focusing on the types of board chairs and firm ownership structures. While CEO successions can bring adaptation benefits and performance gains through strategic ...
This study examines the performance consequences of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) successions, focusing on the types of board chairs and firm ownership structures. While CEO successions can bring adaptation benefits and performance gains through strategic realignment, they can also cause disruption costs and performance losses by disturbing stakeholder relationships. We examine how the presence of a predecessor CEO or an independent individual as board chair affects postsuccession performance differently depending on the level of family control. Our analysis of a panel dataset of S&P 1500 firms from 2003 to 2022 and a series of robustness tests provide strong support for our predictions. We found that with increasing family control, predecessor CEOs as board chairs have a more positive effect on postsuccession performance, while the opposite holds true for independent board chairs. Further, within family-controlled firms, the effect of predecessor retention is stronger for outside than inside CEO successions. Our findings expand CEO succession and board chair research by demonstrating that the value of a board chair type after a CEO succession depends on a firm’s ownership structure, particularly the degree of family control.
Journal of Management
Knowledge-Based Assets in Business Groups: A Dynamic Capabilities View of Complementarity and Rents
Abstract
We extend the business group (BG) literature by combining the knowledge-based perspective and the dynamic capabilities view to explain the benefits of group affiliation. In the BG context, group affiliates can use not only their own firm-level knowledge-...
We extend the business group (BG) literature by combining the knowledge-based perspective and the dynamic capabilities view to explain the benefits of group affiliation. In the BG context, group affiliates can use not only their own firm-level knowledge-based assets (KBAs), but also group-level KBAs. While prior research examines the efficiencies of BG affiliation by comparing BG affiliates to non-affiliated firms, we ask to what extent affiliate-specific rents from group-level KBAs vary among affiliate firms and why. To explain this variation, we identify affiliate-specific rents generated by the complementarity between firm- and group-level KBAs. Drawing from the dynamic capabilities view, we developed a framework to explain the sources of such complementarity and tested a series of hypotheses. This study provides empirical evidence using firm-level data on 524 affiliates of keiretsu groups in Japan from 1985 to 2015. To measure KBAs and their characteristics, we use data on 11.5 million patents matched to the sample firms. This study provides a knowledge-based perspective to explain BG affiliation benefits and the persistence of BGs as an organizational form of economic activity.
Academy of Management Journal
Research Methods
Information Exchange in Negotiations: Trust Level, Trust Radius, and Harmony Concern in East Asia versus West
Abstract
Decades of negotiation research support the theory linking trust and integrative negotiations: high levels of trust foster cooperation, which manifests in information exchange about interests and priorities, ultimately leading to insight and joint gains. In this research, we present a meta-analysis (Study 1) demonstrating that this Western-centric model may not generalize to non-Western cultures. To better understand the processes underlying integrative negotiations in East Asian cultures, we…
Decades of negotiation research support the theory linking trust and integrative negotiations: high levels of trust foster cooperation, which manifests in information exchange about interests and priorities, ultimately leading to insight and joint gains. In this research, we present a meta-analysis (Study 1) demonstrating that this Western-centric model may not generalize to non-Western cultures. To better understand the processes underlying integrative negotiations in East Asian cultures, we introduce two constructs to the theory. “Trust radius” refers to the width of the social circle within which people are willing to trust and cooperate. “Harmony concern” refers to the intention to cultivate and maintain a harmonious relationship that avoids conflict and discord with others. In four studies—a survey (Study 2), two experiments (Studies 3a and 3b), and a simulation (Study 4)—we show that trust radius, which tends to be wider in Western than in non-Western cultures, moderates the relationship between trust level and information exchange. We also find that harmony concern, rather than trust level, directly predicts information exchange in East Asian cultures but not in Western cultures. This research offers a novel perspective on the cultural differences between the West and East Asia in negotiation processes. It also highlights the theoretical distinction between trust level and trust radius in social contexts where people encounter unfamiliar counterparts.
Journal of Management
Training & Development
Research Methods
Organizational-Level Training and Performance: A Meta-Analytic Investigation
Abstract
While extensive research has examined the relationship between human resource management systems and organizational performance, the impact of organizational-level training—defined as the quantity and quality of training that an organization provides to ...
While extensive research has examined the relationship between human resource management systems and organizational performance, the impact of organizational-level training—defined as the quantity and quality of training that an organization provides to its employees—remains less understood. In this article, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between organizational-level training and organizational performance to determine the magnitude of the relationship and test a set of moderators of the relationship. Grounded in human capital theory, our meta-analysis employs a theoretically driven moderator analysis to identify the conditions under which organizational-level training significantly influences organizational performance. The results from 159 studies (N = 75,033) show that the relationship between organizational-level training and organizational performance is positive and significant ( ρ = .13, SD ρ = .17, 95% CI [.11, .16]). More importantly, the effect size differs significantly across several theoretical (e.g., training dimensions, type of human capital, outcome dimensions, and timing of measurement) and contextual (e.g., industry knowledge intensity, firm age, and region) moderators. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.
Academy of Management Journal
Research Methods
Not Just Hearsay and Rumor: How Managers (Actually) Perceive the Credibility of Secondhand Accounts of Employee Voice
Abstract
Employees may raise concerns based on what they hear from others, yet conventional wisdom suggests that managers should be skeptical of these “secondhand accounts” of prohibitive voice. Drawing on the heuristic-systematic model of persuasion, we argue that managers’ beliefs about how they should evaluate secondhand versus firsthand accounts diverge from their actual judgments when encountering either type of prohibitive voice. We report qualitative and quantitative data on managerial lay…
Employees may raise concerns based on what they hear from others, yet conventional wisdom suggests that managers should be skeptical of these “secondhand accounts” of prohibitive voice. Drawing on the heuristic-systematic model of persuasion, we argue that managers’ beliefs about how they should evaluate secondhand versus firsthand accounts diverge from their actual judgments when encountering either type of prohibitive voice. We report qualitative and quantitative data on managerial lay theories, demonstrating that secondhand accounts are seen as less credible and therefore less likely to require managerial action than firsthand accounts. However, using archival data of over two million instances of employees speaking up through companies’ internal reporting systems, we show that manager behaviors are inconsistent with lay theories—managers are more likely to substantiate secondhand than firsthand accounts. Then, through four experimental studies, we (1) illustrate that despite lay theories that secondhand accounts should be discounted, managers are more likely to find credible and take action on voice from secondhand sources compared to firsthand sources; and (2) provide evidence of mechanisms underlying these effects. In highlighting this disconnect between manager lay beliefs and their actions, we suggest important considerations for voice researchers and practical implications for managers.
Academy of Management Journal
From Confusion to Fusion: A New Organizational Form and the Evaluation of Category Spanning in an Established Form
Abstract
We investigate how an overall change in audience preferences for category spanning occurs by examining the role of new organizational forms. We suggest that a new organizational form that emphasizes category spanning in its products can enhance evaluations of category spanners in an established form. By promoting an alternative theory of value, the new form helps disrupt existing evaluative frameworks for the established form and shifts audience preferences toward spanning. Using the rise of…
We investigate how an overall change in audience preferences for category spanning occurs by examining the role of new organizational forms. We suggest that a new organizational form that emphasizes category spanning in its products can enhance evaluations of category spanners in an established form. By promoting an alternative theory of value, the new form helps disrupt existing evaluative frameworks for the established form and shifts audience preferences toward spanning. Using the rise of gourmet food trucks in the U.S. restaurant industry, we analyze Yelp ratings and find an increase in returns to spanning by brick-and-mortar restaurants with the prevalence of gourmet food trucks in the same metropolitan area. A preregistered vignette experiment in the restaurant context provides additional evidence consistent with our argument. We contribute to research on category dynamics and organizational forms by investigating how outsiders influence audience evaluations of spanning, revealing how a new form can heterogeneously affect organizations within an established form. By employing a mixed methods approach that integrates qualitative, statistical, and experimental techniques, this study also makes a methodological contribution.
Academy of Management Review
Is Time The Great Equalizer? How Interpersonal Time Request Processes are Shaped by and Reproduce Disparities
Abstract
We extend the predominantly individual view on time use and inequality by spotlighting and sharpening the view of time request processes in the dyadic context of interpersonal interactions. Despite its prevalence, little research has examined how requests for time—a scarce resource with economic, psychological, and collective social meanings—unfold in organizations. Drawing from and integrating time and status literatures, we work toward a theory that unpacks the processes of conceiving of,…
We extend the predominantly individual view on time use and inequality by spotlighting and sharpening the view of time request processes in the dyadic context of interpersonal interactions. Despite its prevalence, little research has examined how requests for time—a scarce resource with economic, psychological, and collective social meanings—unfold in organizations. Drawing from and integrating time and status literatures, we work toward a theory that unpacks the processes of conceiving of, making, interpreting, and responding to time requests occurring between two coworkers. Further, we theorize how forms of status disparity derived from both cues for achieved status (i.e., task-based expertise) and cues for ascribed status (i.e., observable demographic characteristics) shape how an initiator and a responder engage in time request processes, affecting their relative expenditures in psychological resources and clock time. We specify how dyadic temporal contracts emerge over time from an interaction history of time request episodes, which in turn exert normative influence on future time requests in ways that can reproduce disparities between organizational members. We conclude by outlining how our theorizing can enable future research and inform practices about time use and inequality.
Academy of Management Journal
Training & Development
Autonomous, Yet Interdependent: Designing Interfaces across Routine Clusters
Abstract
This paper examines the process of designing interfaces between routine clusters in a world in flux in which interdependencies are emergent. We reveal that designing interfaces is an endogenous and iterative process of creating and harmonizing interdependencies. In our ethnographic study of the reorganization of agile software development, actors implemented a second routine cluster, which they envisioned to work autonomously. Because the teams shared resources, however, they created…
This paper examines the process of designing interfaces between routine clusters in a world in flux in which interdependencies are emergent. We reveal that designing interfaces is an endogenous and iterative process of creating and harmonizing interdependencies. In our ethnographic study of the reorganization of agile software development, actors implemented a second routine cluster, which they envisioned to work autonomously. Because the teams shared resources, however, they created interdependencies across the two routine clusters that challenged their autonomy. Our findings contribute to research on routine dynamics, interdependence, and organizations design. They do so, first, by showing how the dynamics of designing interfaces are driven by the emergent nature of interdependencies, which routine participants may endogenously harmonize through routine performances. Second, our findings detail the practices through which “interface design work” is accomplished. Although some of these practices imply transitory variations in routine performances, others change the patterning of interfaces more sustainably. Third, resources play an important role in designing interfaces because making them readily available may require their reconfiguration. Moreover, the pooled interdependencies that flow from shared resources can escalate into more complex types of interdependence.
Academy of Management Review
Diversity & Inclusion
Why and How Societal Crises Give Rise to Extreme Growth Outliers: A Theory of External Enablement
Abstract
We develop new theory to explain the apparent mystery that societal crises recurringly and consistently give rise to extreme growth outlier organizations that reach prominent positions in their industries and markets. We argue that societal crises increase demand for the market offerings of a minority of organizations, which can help the negatively affected majority of economic agents adapt to the crisis conditions. Because the majority of economic agents struggle, this externally-enabled…
We develop new theory to explain the apparent mystery that societal crises recurringly and consistently give rise to extreme growth outlier organizations that reach prominent positions in their industries and markets. We argue that societal crises increase demand for the market offerings of a minority of organizations, which can help the negatively affected majority of economic agents adapt to the crisis conditions. Because the majority of economic agents struggle, this externally-enabled minority simultaneously benefits from mutually reinforcing improvements to resource supply and institutional legitimation—advantages that are usually not bestowed on organizations that experience demand surges under non-crisis conditions. We further argue that societal crises with a broad scope, sudden onset, and extended duration provide sufficient enablement to make extreme growth possible for a select few organizations. Finally, we argue that organizations must be internally dispositioned to leverage resource expansibility, flexibility, and distributability to actualize this external enablement. Our theory about the occurrence of crisis-enabled extreme growth outliers extends emerging conversations around the important minority of organizations that benefit from crises’ overall detrimental effects. It also invites more research into the essential and systematic impact of environmental changes on economic activity to extend existing agent-based theories.
Academy of Management Review
Leadership
Diversity & Inclusion
The Power and Peril of Awe in Leadership: Transforming Follower Identity and Behavior
Abstract
Awe is a profound emotion that has captured significant attention within psychological research. While the potential for leaders to inspire awe in followers has received some recognition, systematic research on the nature and effects of awe in leadership—and within organizational contexts more broadly—remains limited. In this article, we offer a conceptual framework that explains the multifaceted and transformative nature of leadership through the power of awe. Specifically, we identify four…
Awe is a profound emotion that has captured significant attention within psychological research. While the potential for leaders to inspire awe in followers has received some recognition, systematic research on the nature and effects of awe in leadership—and within organizational contexts more broadly—remains limited. In this article, we offer a conceptual framework that explains the multifaceted and transformative nature of leadership through the power of awe. Specifically, we identify four leader behaviors—charismatic leadership tactics, exceptional performance, problem reframing, and self-sacrificial behavior—that elicit awe among followers. We further propose three variants of awe-inspiring leaders, describing how variation in a leader’s self-construal (independent, collective-interdependent, or humanity) differentially orients followers toward hero worship, in-group favoritism, or universal prosociality through follower identification processes. Finally, we argue that a leader’s zero-sum beliefs either intensify or weaken these behavioral consequences. By advancing this framework, we hope to stimulate further research on the effects of awe within organizations and deepen our understanding of how this transformative emotion shapes identity, behavior, and more.
Organizational Research Methods
Training & Development
Work Design
Efficient Processing of Long Sequence Text Data in Transformer: An Examination of Five Different Approaches
Abstract
The advent of machine learning and artificial intelligence has profoundly transformed organizational research, especially with the growing application of natural language processing (NLP). Despite these advances, managing long-sequence text input data ...
The advent of machine learning and artificial intelligence has profoundly transformed organizational research, especially with the growing application of natural language processing (NLP). Despite these advances, managing long-sequence text input data remains a persistent and significant challenge in NLP analysis within organizational studies. This study introduces five different approaches for handling long sequence text data: term frequency-inverse document frequency with a random forest algorithm (TF-IDF-RF), Longformer, GPT-4o, truncation with averaged scores and our proposed construct-relevant text-selection approach. We also present analytical strategies for each approach and evaluate their effectiveness by comparing the psychometric properties of the predicted scores. Among them, GPT-4o, the truncation with averaged scores, and the proposed text-selection approach generally demonstrate slightly superior psychometric properties compared to TF-IDF-RF and Longformer. However, no single approach consistently outperforms the others across all psychometric criteria. The discussion explores the practical considerations, limitations, and potential directions for future research on these methods, enriching the dialogue on effective long-sequence text management in NLP-driven organizational research.
Organizational Research Methods
What Are Mechanisms? Ways of Conceptualizing and Studying Causal Mechanisms
Abstract
Over the last two decades, much of management research has converged on the belief that one of its major aims is to identify the causal mechanisms that produce the phenomena that researchers seek to explain. In this paper, we review and synthesize the ...
Over the last two decades, much of management research has converged on the belief that one of its major aims is to identify the causal mechanisms that produce the phenomena that researchers seek to explain. In this paper, we review and synthesize the literature that has amassed around causal mechanisms. We do so by detailing the different methodological perspectives that are featured in management research, which we label as the contextual, constitutive, and interventionist perspectives. For each of these perspectives, we examine what it theoretically presupposes a mechanism to be, how this connects to methodological choices, and how this shapes the kind of mechanism-based explanations that each perspective offers. We also explore the main inferential challenges for each of these perspectives and offer specific methodological guidance in response. In this way, we aim to offer a common plank for theorizing and research on causal mechanisms in ways that recognize and harness the productive differences across different epistemologies and methodological traditions.
Organizational Research Methods
Training & Development
Shedding Light on the Black Box: Integrating Prediction Models and Explainability Using Explainable Machine Learning
Abstract
In contemporary organizational research, when dealing with large heterogeneous datasets and complex relationships, statistical modeling focused on developing substantive explanations typically results in low predictive accuracy. In contrast, machine ...
In contemporary organizational research, when dealing with large heterogeneous datasets and complex relationships, statistical modeling focused on developing substantive explanations typically results in low predictive accuracy. In contrast, machine learning (ML) exhibits remarkable strength for prediction, but suffers from an unexplainable analytical process and output—thus ML is often known as a “black box” approach. The recent development of explainable machine learning (XML) integrates high predictive accuracy with explainability, which combines the advantages inherent in both statistical modeling and ML paradigms. This paper compares XML with statistical modeling and the traditional ML approaches, focusing on an advanced application of XML known as evolving fuzzy system (EFS), which enhances model transparency by clarifying the unique contribution of each modeled predictor. In an illustrative study, we demonstrate two EFS-based XML models and conduct comparative analyses among XML, ML, and statistical models with a commonly-used database in organizational research. Our study offers a thorough description of analysis procedures for implementing XML in organizational research, along with best-practice recommendations for each step as well as Python code to aid future research using XML. Finally, we discuss the benefits of XML for organizational research and its potential development.
Journal of Management
Training & Development
Job Attitudes
Performance Management
Impending-Exit Period and Employee Performance: Rethinking Human Capital Disruption
Abstract
The well-established disruptive effects of employee turnover on firms have typically been attributed to post-exit dynamics, such as losses of human and social capital. Little is known, however, about leavers’ pre-exit job performance, which, if declining ...
The well-established disruptive effects of employee turnover on firms have typically been attributed to post-exit dynamics, such as losses of human and social capital. Little is known, however, about leavers’ pre-exit job performance, which, if declining in sufficient magnitude as separation nears, may drive some of this disruption. Drawing on career concerns research, we argue that impending exit weakens incentives to improve future career prospects at the firm, thereby resulting in reduced performance. Our analysis reveals strikingly large negative relationships, as job performance during the impending-exit period declines by 53.9% and 79.8% across two performance measures. Additionally, we predict and find that these performance decrements are more pronounced for junior-level employees and partially mitigated for those anticipating a continuing relationship with the organization after exit. We test our predictions using longitudinal data on 4,104 patent examiners who left the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 2001 to 2018.
Academy of Management Review
Diversity & Inclusion
It Takes Two to Untangle: Illuminating How and Why Some Workplace Relationships Adapt While Others Deteriorate after a Workplace Microaggression
Abstract
Although scholars largely assume that workplace microaggressions negatively impact the work relationship between the target and the perpetrator, relational deterioration is not the only observable relational outcome. Indeed, there are instances of relational restoration or even positive adaptation after a workplace microaggression. To coherently make sense of myriad relational outcomes, we draw on theory on relational fractures and theory on intergroup relations to build new theory that…
Although scholars largely assume that workplace microaggressions negatively impact the work relationship between the target and the perpetrator, relational deterioration is not the only observable relational outcome. Indeed, there are instances of relational restoration or even positive adaptation after a workplace microaggression. To coherently make sense of myriad relational outcomes, we draw on theory on relational fractures and theory on intergroup relations to build new theory that specifies how and under what conditions varied relational outcomes may emerge. We theorize that a workplace microaggression, as a relational fracture, by and large activates a target’s motivational system aimed at protecting the self at the expense of the relationship (a self-protective motivation). We then pinpoint the relational conditions under which targets may shift from a self-protective motivation to a relationship-promotive one (characterized by reflection and inquiry) and how, in turn, perpetrators may proceed (in terms of the motivational system activated). We complete our theory by theorizing the conditions under which the pair of motivational systems activated leads to shallower or deeper levels of dyadic relational repair work, with consequences for the work relationship. Our theory offers important insights that challenge, redirect, and extend scholarship on workplace microaggressions.
Academy of Management Review
Careers
A Theory of the Start-Up Workforce
Abstract
Start-up employees are a crucial yet understudied stakeholder group. This paper develops a theory of the start-up workforce that positions early-stage employees as influential co-constructors of entrepreneurial opportunities. Drawing on constructivist logic and integrating insights from entrepreneurship and organizational behavior, I explore how entrepreneurial opportunity narratives and career fit narratives, generated at the firm and start-up employee levels, respectively, interact and evolve…
Start-up employees are a crucial yet understudied stakeholder group. This paper develops a theory of the start-up workforce that positions early-stage employees as influential co-constructors of entrepreneurial opportunities. Drawing on constructivist logic and integrating insights from entrepreneurship and organizational behavior, I explore how entrepreneurial opportunity narratives and career fit narratives, generated at the firm and start-up employee levels, respectively, interact and evolve over time. My model unpacks how narrative fidelity—the completeness and coherence of a story—changes across levels as start-ups take shape. Low-fidelity entrepreneurial opportunity narratives attract employees by allowing them to envision themselves as co-constructors. However, narratives solidify as fidelity increases through employment growth and employee entrainment. This process then influences employees’ career fit narratives and their decisions to maintain entrainment or resist and exit. By illuminating the dynamic interplay between macro-level entrepreneurial opportunities and micro-level employee career fit, this interdisciplinary theory advances our understanding of why and when start-up employees entrain or resist, and how their co-constructive efforts significantly influence both the respective start-up’s trajectory and their career fit narrative revisions. My work provides tractable theoretical foundations to further distinguish the start-up workforce as a unique stakeholder group within new ventures facing a novel employment situation.
Academy of Management Review
Diversity & Inclusion
Achieving Holism: Narrating Multiple Identities in the Moment and Over Time
Abstract
People’s multiple identities often wax, wane, and are transformed over their lifetimes, both as sources of personal meaning and as realities communicated to others. Yet, despite a research turn toward studying identities as multiple and dynamic, largely still missing is a cohesive view of people’s efforts to narratively integrate the sum of their many evolving parts. In this paper, we take a narrative perspective on the notion of identity holism to theorize how people build a meaningful whole…
People’s multiple identities often wax, wane, and are transformed over their lifetimes, both as sources of personal meaning and as realities communicated to others. Yet, despite a research turn toward studying identities as multiple and dynamic, largely still missing is a cohesive view of people’s efforts to narratively integrate the sum of their many evolving parts. In this paper, we take a narrative perspective on the notion of identity holism to theorize how people build a meaningful whole by making narrative claims involving “4Cs”—credibility, coherence, continuity, and causality. Cutting across these claims are more abstract themes, or leitmotifs, of identity coalescence and coevolution, which are internally experienced as static and dynamic holism, respectively. We discuss how holism, and particularly dynamic holism, fosters personal authenticity, wisdom, adaptiveness, and resilience; the broader contributions of our theorizing to the literatures on identity and narrative; and implications for management and future research.
Journal of Management
Methods and Theory for Using Parcels in Management Research: An Overview and Guide for Improved Analysis
Abstract
Research questions and subsequent methodology in the field of management continue to evolve, bringing about more complex models and heightened data requirements and considerations. Thus, the difficulties associated with meeting the requirements of growing ...
Research questions and subsequent methodology in the field of management continue to evolve, bringing about more complex models and heightened data requirements and considerations. Thus, the difficulties associated with meeting the requirements of growing methodological rigor (e.g., increasing sample size) have influenced scholars to develop procedures aimed at mitigating these challenges. One such practice is parceling or combining subsets of scale items to form composite indicators of latent variables. Since introduced, parceling approaches have proliferated in a piecemeal fashion, leading to inconsistencies and inaccuracies regarding how parceling is both conducted and reported. With limited consensus about how to parcel, scholars risk perpetuating disjointed, incomplete, or errant approaches that confound the quality of research, accenting the need for a review that organizes the concept of parceling. In response, we offer an examination of parceling in management research with the aim of offering much-needed insight and instruction. To accomplish this, we provide insights that include an overview of parceling from practical and theoretical standpoints, needed clarification surrounding the importance of construct dimensionality when parceling, and robust, informed insights into best practices to aid future researchers in appropriately crafting and reporting on parceling moving forward.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Personality
Because it is fun! Individual differences in effort enjoyment belief relate to behavioral and physiological indicators of effort-seeking.
Abstract
Effort is commonly characterized as a negative, unpleasant experience. This research explores the extent to which individuals vary in whether they believe effort to be enjoyable or aversive and how this relates to a range of behavioral and physiological indicators of effort exertion. In five studies (N = 2,338), participants either completed an Effort Enjoyment Belief Scale or were experimentally led to believe that effort is enjoyable or aversive. Across our studies, descriptive analyses of…
Effort is commonly characterized as a negative, unpleasant experience. This research explores the extent to which individuals vary in whether they believe effort to be enjoyable or aversive and how this relates to a range of behavioral and physiological indicators of effort exertion. In five studies (N = 2,338), participants either completed an Effort Enjoyment Belief Scale or were experimentally led to believe that effort is enjoyable or aversive. Across our studies, descriptive analyses of the Effort Enjoyment Belief Scale revealed no general tendency among participants to perceive effort as aversive; instead, some participants tended to endorse a belief that effort is enjoyable. Both measured and manipulated effort enjoyment belief predicted difficulty selection on an arithmetic task. Further, the belief predicted effort exertion as assessed via cardiovascular measurements (β-adrenergic sympathetic activity) and was associated with high school grades and subjective evaluation of academic success at university. These results imply that the subjective cost or value of effort may be affected by (social) learning experiences, shaping individuals’ effort enjoyment belief and, in turn, their tendency to approach or avoid demanding tasks and the exertion of effort. Thus, when modeling behavior as the result of a cost–benefit analysis, effort may not contribute exclusively to the costs but also add value to a course of action, depending on individuals’ effort enjoyment belief. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Journal of Management
Leadership
Diversity & Inclusion
The Role of Inclusive Leadership in Reducing Disability Accommodation Request Withholding
Abstract
Workplace disability accommodations are intended to help level the playing field and create more accessible, inclusive workplaces. Yet, research shows that people with disabilities often experience insufficient accommodations as a result of both employers’...
Workplace disability accommodations are intended to help level the playing field and create more accessible, inclusive workplaces. Yet, research shows that people with disabilities often experience insufficient accommodations as a result of both employers’ and employees’ attitudes about accommodations. The current work seeks to shed new light on psychological processes underlying disability accommodation request withholding. To do so, we draw upon a relational framework and use social tuning theory to develop a model examining the relationship between inclusive leadership and accommodation request withholding, as mediated by employees’ perceived disability stigma and moderated by disability severity and relational-interdependent self-construal. We tested our model across two studies with Chinese employees—including a survey study with three waves of data from 290 employees with physical disabilities and an experimental-causal-chain designed vignette study with 526 participants. Our findings indicated that inclusive leadership was associated with employees’ lower perceived disability stigma, and that was related to reduced accommodation request withholding. Furthermore, this relationship was more pronounced in employees with higher disability severity and relational-interdependent self-construal. Our research provides novel insights for disability diversity management, particularly around the role of inclusive leadership in fostering enabling workplace environments.
Journal of Management
Leadership
Well-being & Health
Clarifying the Construct of Supervisor Support for Recovery and Its Impact on Employee Recovery Experiences
Abstract
Insufficient recovery from work stress is a pernicious issue for many workers. This study aims to understand the important role that supervisors play in employees’ recovery experiences. Specifically, we (1) proposed an expanded conceptualization of ...
Insufficient recovery from work stress is a pernicious issue for many workers. This study aims to understand the important role that supervisors play in employees’ recovery experiences. Specifically, we (1) proposed an expanded conceptualization of supervisor support for recovery (SSR), and (2) developed and validated a measure consistent with this expanded conceptualization. We refined the conceptualization of SSR with four dimensions: refraining from communicating about work during nonwork time, refraining from requiring work during nonwork time, modeling recovery, and encouraging recovery. These dimensions align with the recovery literature, which highlights the necessity of refraining from recovery-hindering behaviors to reduce energy exertion and engaging in recovery-promoting behaviors to provide recovery opportunities. The recovery-promoting dimensions also align with key themes of role modeling and encouragement emphasized in social cognitive theory. Based on the conceptualization, we further developed and validated an SSR scale using three different designs (cross-sectional, supervisor-subordinate dyadic, time-separated) in six studies. Results showed that SSR was distinct from related supervisor constructs (e.g., leader-member exchange and family supportive supervisor behaviors), was positively associated with recovery experiences, and provided further insight into recovery experiences, over and above the other supervisor constructs. This study provides a foundation for future research to better understand how supervisors can support employee recovery from work stress.
Journal of Management
Diversity & Inclusion
Organizational Culture
Turning Task-Adjusted Temporary Newcomers into Permanent Employees: An Identity Perspective
Abstract
While most of the socialization literature has focused on factors that allow newcomers to adjust to their new job tasks successfully, less attention has been given to examining whether temporary newcomers’ task adjustment influences the likelihood of ...
While most of the socialization literature has focused on factors that allow newcomers to adjust to their new job tasks successfully, less attention has been given to examining whether temporary newcomers’ task adjustment influences the likelihood of receiving a permanent position. Drawing on the identity perspective and the socialization literature, this study proposes and tests a new framework that examines the probability of task-adjusted newcomers receiving a permanent job offer contingent on two conditions: a) there is a low level of peer divestiture socialization, which enables the task-adjusted newcomer to achieve higher levels of task performance, and b) the newcomer displays low rule-following behavior, which allows the high-performing newcomer to be cognitively trusted by the supervisor. Consistent with our predictions, the results of a four-wave, multisource study featuring 194 newcomer-supervisor dyads revealed that newcomer task adjustment was positively related to the newcomer receiving a permanent job offer by way of newcomer task performance and supervisor trust in newcomers but only when peer divestiture socialization and newcomer rule-following behavior were low. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
Diversity & Inclusion
Pride in the Workplace: An Integrative Review, Synthesis, and Future Research Agenda
Abstract
Research on the role of emotions in organizations has evolved into a major field of study over the past two decades, often referred to as the “Affective Revolution,” (e.g., Barsade, Brief, and Spataro 2003; Elfenbein 2007). Taking note, many scholars have investigated the emotion most proximally associated with workplace achievement, self‐efficacy, status and rank, identity, and collective belonging: pride. Pride reflects satisfaction with one's achievements and identity, the achievements of…
Research on the role of emotions in organizations has evolved into a major field of study over the past two decades, often referred to as the “Affective Revolution,” (e.g., Barsade, Brief, and Spataro 2003; Elfenbein 2007). Taking note, many scholars have investigated the emotion most proximally associated with workplace achievement, self‐efficacy, status and rank, identity, and collective belonging: pride. Pride reflects satisfaction with one's achievements and identity, the achievements of others or groups with whom one is closely associated (e.g., an organization; Helm 2013), or the possession of attributes that are socially valued (Tracy and Robins 2004). Surprisingly, despite the abundant and rapidly growing literature on pride in a work context, a comprehensive review of the literature is notably absent. Our review integrates and distills the current state of the science across this vast and fragmented literature, spread over multiple content domains. We identify emergent themes, offer an integrated process framework of pride in a work context, help to resolve conflicting findings and ongoing debates in this literature, and provide a series of generative and theoretically grounded suggestions for meaningfully extending the literature on pride in a work context.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
Training & Development
Motivation
Work Design
Promoting Fun or Competition? Testing Interventions on Ludic and Agonistic Work Design
Abstract
Research highlights the benefits of play‐at‐work, yet little is known about training employees to self‐initiate it. We tested two programs to train employees on designing work with elements of fun (ludic work design [LWD]) or competition (agonistic work design [AWD]). Based on self‐determination theory, we propose that enhancing LWD or AWD will positively impact work motivation. Considering literature suggesting that employees engage in mental distancing to protect resources, we further propose…
Research highlights the benefits of play‐at‐work, yet little is known about training employees to self‐initiate it. We tested two programs to train employees on designing work with elements of fun (ludic work design [LWD]) or competition (agonistic work design [AWD]). Based on self‐determination theory, we propose that enhancing LWD or AWD will positively impact work motivation. Considering literature suggesting that employees engage in mental distancing to protect resources, we further propose that employees' pretraining mental distancing limits the training's effectiveness. Using an intervention design (N = 228 employees) with two training groups (LWD and AWD) and an active control group, we found that the AWD group reported higher AWD 4 weeks after the training and that the training related to autonomous work motivation 8 weeks later through posttraining AWD. The LWD training did not increase LWD. Instead, LWD decreased after 4 weeks among employees with high pretraining mental distancing. Qualitative follow‐up analysis on these differential intervention effects indicated that AWD training participants predominantly engaged in work‐embedded and independent play, whereas LWD training participants engaged equally in work‐embedded and diversionary as well as independent and social play.
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