Scholarly and practitioner interest in authentic leadership has grown at an accelerating rate over the last decade, resulting in a proliferation of publications across diverse social science disciplines. Accompanying this interest has been criticism of authentic leadership theory and the methods used to explore it. We conducted a systematic review of 303 scholarly articles published from 2010 to 2023 to critically assess the conceptual and empirical strengths and limitations of this literature and map the nomological network of the authentic leadership construct. Results indicate that much of the extant research does not follow best practices in terms of research design and analysis. Based on the findings obtained, an agenda for advancing authentic leadership theory and research that embraces a signaling theory perspective is proposed.

Private equity funds implement various management and governance practices in firms they endorse, signaling higher quality of sponsored IPOs (Initial Public Offer). However, the participation of such PE funds comes at a cost for newcomer firms, as they may lose both autonomy and future post-IPO earnings. If they do not choose to signal quality through PE funds, the IPO literature points to the validity of other mechanisms, such as the experience and centrality of the board of directors. We theorize and test the effect of the tradeoff between private equity sponsorship and board centrality and experience on IPO performance. We analyzed the effects of signaling on long-term performance through the one-year cumulative abnormal return in Brazilian IPOs issued between 2004 and 2013. Our results indicate that private equity sponsorship is the most effective signal, completely overtaking the relevance of board centrality and experience to explain IPO performance. However, these latter board characteristics significantly affected the performance of non-private equity-backed IPOs. Between PE-backed companies, there is a reverse effect of the board centrality on the IPO's performance and a substitution effect of the board's previous experience with IPO processes.

Are strangers sincere in their moral praise and criticism? Here we apply signaling theory to argue ceteris paribus moral criticism is more likely sincere than praise; the former tends to be a higher-fidelity signal (in Western societies). To offer an example: emotions are often self-validating as a signal because they're hard to fake. This epistemic insight matters: moral praise and criticism influence moral reputations, and affect whether others will cooperate with us. Though much of this applies to generic praise and criticism too, moral philosophers should value sincere moral praise and moral criticism for several reasons: it (i) offers insight into how others actually view us as moral agents; (ii) offers feedback to help us improve our moral characters; and (iii) encourages some behaviors, and discourages others. And so as moral agents, we should care whether moral praise and moral criticism is sincere.

Research has demonstrated that trusting belief in one's ability is critical to coproducer selection; however, the importance of trusting belief in dedication has been ignored. This study aims to explore how reputation (i.e., word-of-mouth, certification, and recommendation) affects trusting belief in a potential coproducer's ability and dedication and examines its mediating effects in coproducing with a potential partner.

Empirical results show significant mediating effects of trusting belief in a potential coproducer's ability from certification, word-of-mouth, and recommendation, which in turn motivate coproduction, whereas certification leads to the motivation for coproduction through trusting belief in a potential coproducer's dedication. The findings refer to a unitary acceptance of ability but a divergent recognition of dedication. The focal party may regard certification as factual without personal distortion, while the recommendation is an evaluation worth considering. In considering dedication, the focal party may be unable to assess the extent of distortion from second-hand information (e.g., word-of-mouth).

Drawing upon signaling theory, we propose that a specific form of non-market action, receiving government officials’ visits, reduces transaction costs between firms and their potential exchange partners and thus contributes to firms’ competitive advantage in China. We also contend that severity of information asymmetry and availability of alternative ways of reducing transaction costs moderate the relationship between receiving government officials’ visits and company financial performance in opposite directions. The former factor increases the ex ante value of receiving government officials’ visits and strengthens its positive impact on financial performance, while the latter factor decreases the ex post value of receiving government officials’ visits and reduces its positive impact. Our conceptual framework is supported by analyses that draw on a sample of listed manufacturing firms in China. Our study contributes to a more in-depth understanding of non-market actions in emerging economies, their contingencies, and their performance implications.

Forming strategic alliances with foreign organizations is critical for firms, as it can enable them to access external resources globally. However, because firms, especially those in emerging economies, may possess less legitimacy in foreign countries, potential foreign alliance partners may lack satisfactory organizational information to adequately evaluate them. By applying signaling theory, this study argues that alternative sources, such as the prestige characteristics of the top management team, play an important role in signaling the quality of firms. Additionally, this study expects that the effects of the prestige characteristics of top management teams on the formation of international strategic alliances are lessened when the number of prior international alliances increases. The empirical results support our arguments. Overall, this study contributes by bringing signaling theory into the research of the formation of international strategic alliances.

Signaling is an important element in the lender-borrower relationship that influences the cost and availability of debt capital to agricultural borrowers. This paper analyzes the effects of signaling on farm capital structure in conjunction with the pecking order and trade-off theories. The aggregate estimation indicates that signaling does affect agricultural credit relationships through measures of past cash flow and profitability. High-quality borrowers achieve greater credit capacity by providing lenders with valid signals of their financial status, while adjusting toward target debt levels over time and following the pecking order relationship in the short run.

Eric Posner’s signaling theory of social norms holds that individuals adopt social norms in order to signal that they have a low discount rate (that is, they value the future more than the present), and are therefore reliable long-term cooperative partners. This paper radically expands Posner’s theory by incorporating internalization into his model (the sense that norms possess some sort of binding quality, an “ought to”). I do this by tethering Posner’s theory to an evolutionary model. I argue that internalization is an adaptive quality that enhances the individual’s ability to play Posner’s signaling game and was thus selected for. The idea that internalization is evolutionarily conditioned is not new; however, linking this to Posner’s theory of discount rate signals is, and doing so offers tremendous explanatory potential.

Part I identifies the limitations of Posner’s purely rational choice approach, argues for the necessity of including internalization, and then proposes a model that does so – what I call the Expanded Signaling Model of Norms (ESM). Part II examines the problems that arise when we embrace such a model. How this model answers some key criticisms plaguing sociobiology is also briefly explored. Part III then examines existing criticisms of Posner’s theory, demonstrating how the Expanded Signaling Model clearly resolves these issues. The paper concludes that incorporating internalization into Posner’s signaling model greatly broadens the explanatory reach of Posner’s theory, providing a measure of clarity and predictability regarding how and why norms are internalized – an important insight, as these beliefs form the normative underpinning to law.