This research presents and tests a trickle-down model of social undermining in the workplace. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study specifically demonstrates that supervisor social undermining is positively associated with coworker social undermining in the workplace. Furthermore, this study argues that employee bottom-line mentality will exacerbate the positive relationship between supervisor social undermining and coworker social undermining, whereas employee self-efficacy will buffer this positive relationship. Overall, our findings support our proposed trickle-down model using field data obtained from several information technology and financial organizations in India. Theoretical and practical implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.

This paper addresses longstanding questions about how promise and obligation, two of the key conceptual building blocks for psychological contract research, are conceptualized and operationalized: How do employees understand these concepts? Would their understandings be congruent with the researchers’ and how would this knowledge inform future psychological contract research? Drawing on interviews with 61 Chinese workers from diverse backgrounds, our results suggest the concepts have distinct meanings for participants in terms of three criteria (defining characteristics, key features and manifestations in employment). We argue that promise and obligation are likely to serve different functions in employment relationship and have different meanings for researchers versus participants, and accordingly we highlight the challenges of using them to conceptualize and operationalize psychological contracts in China and beyond.

Turnover intention is a negative outcome for an organization. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationships among work passion, subjective well-being, career adaptability, and turnover intention for Chinese government employees. The article consists of an empirical study with a sample of 472 government employees in Shandong Province, China. Participants completed a series of questionnaires in three waves. The results indicate that harmonious passion is negatively related to turnover intention and that obsessive passion is positively related to turnover intention. Additionally, the relationship between harmonious/obsessive passion and turnover is mediated by subjective well-being, and career adaptability moderates the relationship between harmonious/obsessive passion and subjective well-being. Implications are discussed.

This study examines the impact of employability on turnover intention by differentiating internal and external employability, and considering the possible moderating roles of perceived organizational support (POS) and career orientation. Using a sample of 411 responses to a two-wave questionnaire survey generated from six cities in China, we find that external employability positively influenced turnover intention, but internal employability negatively influenced turnover intention. The results also indicate that POS had a positive moderating effect only on the relationship between external employability and turnover intention. Furthermore, for employees with disengaged career orientation, external employability exerts a strong impact on turnover intention. This study adds to the limited research empirically linking employability and turnover intention, whereas the findings can be used by HRM practitioners to factor in organizational support and career orientation initiatives that improve the retention of employees with high external employability.

Scholars often assume that reference groups are industry-wide, homogeneous, and stable. We examine this assumption and suggest hypotheses based on managers’ motivations such as self-enhancement and self-improvement, social identity, and affiliation-based impression management. We test hypotheses on failure-induced changes in reference groups and their direction in terms of upward and downward comparisons. An empirical examination of changes in reference groups for firms listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index between 1993 and 2008 shows that performance below social aspirations induces changes in reference groups and toward upward comparisons. The results indicate that managers can choose to change the reference group – a cognition-centered response – as an alternative to such action-centered responses as organizational search and risk-taking in response to poor performance from social aspirations and that upward comparisons may be the result of social performance shortfalls to give a better impression and to improve firm performance.

In this case study we address the issue of CEO succession drawing directly on the experience of the board of directors of Air New Zealand. Despite extensive literature on CEO-board relations, there has been a scarce number of studies on managing the processes of CEO succession and appointment from the board perspective. Drawing on documentary sources as well as in-depth interviews with all board members and CEOs appointed in the period 2002–2013, we shed light on this important governance process primarily for teaching purposes. We emphasise the board’s role in the context of the transformation of the airline into an award-winning, financially performing company in a highly competitive and mature industry. The case study examines how the board developed, implemented, and managed a succession process for three CEOs that was sound in design and achieved its desired benefits. By focusing on board leadership and board processes our case study provides evidence that independent boards can shape a specific combination of governance practices which contribute to successful CEO transitions.

Taking urgent action to combat climate change is a pivotal Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Since it is closely intertwined with the other 16 goals, it is frequently characterized as a ‘wicked problem par excellence.’ Interdisciplinary research, i.e., research crossing disciplinary boundaries, offers promise for grappling with wicked problems, but also entails significant challenges to researchers. In this study, we use bibliometric methods to understand how management scholars have, over the course of four decades, straddled disciplinary boundaries and what impact their efforts have had on top-tier climate change research appearing in Science and Nature. We find that management scholarship on climate change (1) has grown significantly since the mid-2000s, (2) features substantial engagement with an interdisciplinary knowledge base, and (3) fails to attract the attention of climate change research within top-tier interdisciplinary journals. We discuss these findings with reference to the ongoing discourse on raising management scholarship's relevance and impact.

Inconsistent findings from prior research on the performance consequences of new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) origin led us to study the moderating effect of managerial discretion on the link between CEO outsiderness and firms’ post-succession performance. Data from 75 CEO succession events from an emerging economy show that new CEO outsiderness, without managerial discretion context influences, has no direct impact on post-succession performance. Further, our findings emphasise the moderating impacts of managerial discretion, stemming from factors in a company’s external and internal contingencies, which either strengthen or weaken the association between new CEO outsiderness and post-succession firm performance. It is found that market complexity, but not munificence, provides CEOs with more discretion in the Turkish context, thus strengthening the positive associations between CEO origin and firm performance. Firms inertia weakens both managerial discretion level and the association between CEO outsiderness and firm performance. The results show that internal corporate governance also matters. Finally, when a CEO assumes the dual role of both the chairman and the CEO, the link between CEO outsiderness and performance of the firm becomes stronger.

This paper discusses how transnational knowledge intensive firms manage complexity across multiple locations, integrating various functional specializations and catering to multifaceted customer demands. Practice theory is used to help us understand collaboration among experts across national borders. By exploring what experts do and analyzing their practices transnationally, different configurations to provide services were found. In total, six configuration types are identified: bilateral, trilateral, chain, star, network and co-location. These configurations differently relate to three interdependent axes: coordinated actions, interaction modes and spatial dimensions. The configurations expose the relevant integrative and responsive settings. The paper contributes to the international organization literature by extending, elaborating and providing examples of transnationality; and to practice theory by exposing shapes and qualitative complexity of transnational collaboration and service provision.

Although the characteristics of top managers is an important factor associated with competitive advantage, and managerial resources are recognized as a firm’s major resource, there is limited research concerning the role of top manager’s capabilities in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and international performance. Based on the upper echelons perspective and resource-based view, the present study aimed to analyze top manager’s cultural intelligence as an internal contingency of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and international performance. The study’s theoretically derived research model was tested using survey data obtained from 206 small- and medium-sized enterprises. The findings suggested that the extent to entrepreneurial orientation was related to a firm’s international performance was contingent on the level of three dimensions of cultural intelligence (metacognitive, cognitive, and motivational). Furthermore, as the level of all four cultural intelligence dimensions of top managers increased, the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and international performance increased in strength. The implications of the present findings for future research and practice were discussed.

This paper expands the Theory of Planned Behavior to explore the role of leaders’ normative expectations in driving employees’ service performance. Two quantitative studies in the context of retailing indicate that leaders’ normative expectations for high-quality service are related to employee service performance, through employee self-expectations for quality service (Study 1; N=75), and service role identity (Study 2; N=226). Both studies apply Kelman’s Theory of Social Influence by exploring how leaders influence employees’ expectations and corresponding behaviors, through the three processes of social influence: compliance, identification, and internalization. Leaders’ normative expectations for high-quality service enhances employee service performance not only by adjusting self-expectations to comply with an authority figure’s expectations or by identification with the leader as a role model, but rather as a deep-rooted process where the leader’s normative expectations are internalized into employee’s role identity. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The present study is aimed at investigating the impact of strategic leadership on the affective commitment of Gen Y employees working in the Indian IT industry. Also, the link between organizational learning and affective commitment is examined alongwith the effect of competency development in mediating the relationship between them. A primary data were collected from a sample of 356 Gen Y employees (born between 1980 and 2000) from IT industry in Delhi, NCR India. Data analysis was carried out using CFA and an SPSS macro named PROCESS. Findings reveal that organizational learning has a direct influence on the affective commitment of Gen Y employees and competency development mediates the relationship between the two; also strategic leadership positively moderates the linkage of organizational learning and competency development. This study contributes to the literature on strategic leadership, organizational learning, competency development, and affective commitment.

In recent years there has been a growing scholarly interest in authentic leadership, a leadership style that fosters positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate. This study focuses on the Certified Public Accounting profession, which is known as a detail-oriented occupation. We examined if Certified Public Accounting managers exhibiting an authentic leadership style were capable of strengthening the commitment of their subordinates and, at the same time, reducing role-stress and intentions to leave. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 512 Certified Public Accountings in Israel using structural equation modeling. Results revealed that perceived authentic leadership was negatively related to role-conflicts and role-ambiguity, directly and through the mediation of affective commitment. In addition, the negative correlation between authentic leadership and intention to leave was fully mediated by affective commitment. Limitation and applications for organizations are discussed.

In this study, I propose supervisors’ upward leader–leader exchange relationships as an important boundary condition for the relationship between average leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships and a climate for innovation support at the group level. Specifically, I argue that the effect of resource spillover to poor-LMX subordinates within a work group is an important mechanism that leads to the development of a climate that supports innovation. I test the hypothesized moderated-mediation model by using multisource and multiwave data collected from 590 employees and 75 supervisors. The findings indicate that the indirect effect of team LMX relationships on team effectiveness via a climate for innovation support is more positive under high conditions of leader–leader exchange, whereas the effect is less positive under low conditions of leader–leader exchange. Implications and limitations relevant to developing research around LMX and innovation are addressed.

Based on the conservation of resource theory, this study investigated a moderated mediation model in which perceived co-worker support moderated the mediation of supervisory feedback avoidance between abusive supervision and help-seeking behaviour. Data from matching dyads of 220 house officers and 86 postgraduate medical staff were collected from several hospitals in Pakistan. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses supported the hypothesized model that abusive supervision first positively led to supervisory feedback avoidance, which in turn positively led to help-seeking from co-workers. Moreover, the mediating effect of supervisory feedback avoidance was stronger at the high value of co-worker support than that at the low value of co-worker support. This study contributes to the recently emerged notion in abusive supervision research that supervisees’ perception of abusive supervision may not always lead to abundantly reported negative work behaviours; instead, it may also lead to positive work behaviours, such as help-seeking behaviour that is highly beneficial for both supervisees and the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how middle managers respond when an existing institutional logic is reinforced through radical organisational change. We analyse documents and interviews with middle managers in three public sector contexts (hospitals, upper secondary schools, municipal agencies) in which the power balance between the managerial and professional logics changed through mergers. Contrary to expectations from previous research, we found a variety of responses across contexts. Our data suggest that the middle managers chose whether to acknowledge available information about the managerial logic, and that they either accepted or rejected the new power balance between the logics. There were two different ways of accepting the new power balance: by showing loyalty or through resignation. Its rejection took the form of strategically adhering to the managerial logic as a novice, even though a middle manager was, or should have been, familiar with this logic.

Role incongruity, sex role stereotypes and candidate selection procedures which oversatisfy masculine role expectations evoke an underrepresentation of femininity in organisations. The author seeks to remedy this bad state of affairs. This study is designed based on an experiment with 288 young executives simulating self-organised work groups and manipulated the degree of gender-related (not sex-related) heterogeneity. Results generally show a curvilinear relationship with an upright U-shaped format between heterogeneity and performance, team identity and intrateam communication. The major contribution in specific is that highly homogeneous teams outperform other team types in the short run, whereas highly heterogeneous teams succeed in the long run. Consequently, this work recommends ‘femininity enrichment’ in firms and discusses manageable practical advice to do so. As for the laboratory character, findings and implications for practicing managers have to be treated with caution. Finally, the most promising avenues for further research are illuminated.

Scholarly work in the field of crisis management has flourished in recent years with contributions from numerous disciplines, including strategic management, organizational behavior, public relations, risk management, and disaster management. However, the substantial and prospective applications from behavioral economics – from Herbert Simon to modern theorists – have yet to be systematically integrated into the literature. This paper presents a framework that categorizes applications from behavioral economics along three stages of the crisis management life cycle – crisis preparation, crisis action, and postcrisis. It provides insights for scholars and practitioners into the crisis decision-making process and outlines why ‘less-than-rational’ decision-making approaches often appear in crisis environments.

Museums are organizations that need to maintain relationships with several stakeholders in order to achieve their economic and social objectives. In this context, the current paper explores the effect of an organization’s bonding social capital and a manager’s social capital on the organization’s ability to build external relationships, in other words, bridging social capital. Results from the study indicate that the structure of internal social capital (cohesion and diversity) and the manager’s role as a bridging tie facilitate relations with stakeholders and other museum networks. Moreover, collective social capital (bonding and bridging) has a direct impact on innovative proposals, on the museum’s image and on incomes, all of which entail key management implications.