Paradox Research in Management Science: Looking Back to Move Forward

Paradox studies offer vital and timely insights into an array of organizational tensions. Yet this field stands at a critical juncture. Over the past 25 years, management scholars have drawn foundational insights from philosophy and psychology to apply a paradox lens to organizational phenomena. Yet extant studies selectively leverage ancient wisdom, adopting some key insights while abandoning others. Using a structured content analysis to review the burgeoning management literature, we surface six key themes, which represent the building blocks of a meta-theory of paradox. These six themes received varying attention in extant studies: paradox scholars emphasize types of paradoxes, collective approaches, and outcomes, but pay less attention to relationships within paradoxes, individual approaches, and dynamics. As this analysis suggests, management scholars have increasingly simplified the intricate, often messy phenomena of paradox. Greater simplicity renders phenomena understandable and testable, however, oversimplifying complex realities can foster reductionist and incomplete theories. We therefore propose a future research agenda targeted at enriching a meta-theory of paradox by reengaging these less developed themes. Doing so can sharpen the focus of this field, while revisiting its rich conceptual roots to capture the intricacies of paradox. This future research agenda leverages the potential of paradox across diverse streams of management science.     

Eight puzzles of leadership science

In the early 1900s, David Hilbert introduced a set of 23 mathematical problems. These problems caught the imagination of mathematicians around the world for the coming century and beyond. The advantage of such defined scientific puzzles is to galvanize coordinated efforts to pursue key scientific questions, whose answers can also address the grand challenges faced by society. Consequently, science can advance more quickly in a theory-driven, rigorous, open and collaborative manner, with meaningful implications for stakeholders. In the current editorial, I propose eight puzzles that could similarly motivate and guide leadership science. Whereas this list is not exhaustive--rather it is just eight starting points--beginning to solve such puzzles will accelerate our science and deliver on shared promises to our stakeholders. I then present actionable guidelines necessary to solve these puzzles and conclude by discussing the role The Leadership Quarterly will play in facilitating the pursuit of solutions to these puzzles.     

Future management research directions in nanotechnology: A case study

Leading experts believe that advances in nanotechnology will lead to dramatic changes in the way materials, devices and systems are understood and created. Generalizations about nanotechnology-based innovations abound in technical circles and in the media, where they are typically described as radical, their anticipated impact on firms as disruptive, and their effect on society as transformative. To-date, no articles have been published in peer-reviewed technology management research journals on the subject. This paper suggests that nanotechnology is a general purpose technology and that, as such, its applications will spread through many economic sectors with varying magnitudes and forms of impact on existing firms and industries. This paper also demonstrates how the innovation management literature can be used to guide further research aimed at anticipating the magnitude and nature of the impact of specific nanotechnology-based innovations.     

What is the future of work? A science mapping analysis

This article aims to systematise and provide a structure for research into the Future of Work (FoW). We used SciMAT to conduct a science mapping analysis based on co-word bibliographic networks. The Web of Science (WoS) database was used for article retrieval, and a total of 2,286 documents were identified from 1959 to 2019. Our results are counterintuitive, as concerns over satisfaction, leadership values or corporate social responsibility (CSR) appear alongside traditional human resource management (HRM) themes, such as organisational commitment or careers, as well as more current FoW themes, such as the impact of technological change on employment, wage inequality, vulnerable workers, telework or talent management. In addition, we offer a classification of the most prolific FoW research themes and challenges into technological, social, economic and political categories.     

PROPOSALS FOR A PROGRAM OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH INTO THE PROPERTIES OF TRIANGLES*

Physical geometry is viewed in this essay as the prototype of a successful generalizing empirical science. Suppose that physical geometry had been studied in ancient Egypt by empirical methods similar to those commonly used today by many researchers seeking general propositions useful in explaining, predicting, or controlling phenomena of interest to practicing managers. Would these methods have produced valid and useful geometric generalizations? This intriguing question is explored in Part I by means of a parable which suggests a negative answer to the question. The reasons for this negative conclusion are developed in Part II. In the successful generalizing sciences, general propositions (or theory) have not been the result of an a posteriori“induction” from observational data, but rather the result of an a priori“construction” of a framework for the coordination of measurement operations. Such a framework, whether explicitly articulated or not, is a necessary condition for the collection of coherent and reproducible observational data and, therefore, for explanation, prediction, and control of phenomena. Yet, despite its a priori character, an acceptable framework or theory must be “empirical” in Popper's sense of being subject to refutation by observation. If the framework is logically prior to data, however, what is its source? In the successful generalizing sciences, it is argued in Part III, theories have been generalized not from data but from the skills—the coordination of operations—of practitioners. This genesis “explains” the success of the sciences, because an effective skill includes within itself tests of its range of applicability and adapts itself to changing conditions. A discussion of the implications of this argument for making management “scientific” concludes the essay.     

Implications of dispositional and process views of traits for individual difference research in leadership

This article assesses the conceptual and methodological limitations associated with traditional dispositional approaches to personality and leadership, and it proposes that more process-oriented approaches will better enable leadership research to explore emergent leadership phenomena such as perception and effectiveness. By reconceptualizing the structure of the self as a dynamic, but stable entity, we maintain that an explicit focus on events as a fundamental level of analysis is needed, which will help reduce the inaccuracies of aggregate retrospective leadership measures that collapse across different situations and time. Event-level research methodologies can also help account for the effects that situational contingencies have on leader behavioral flexibility, the development of leadership skills, and leadership emergence within shared or distributive leadership structures.     

Craft,magic and the re-enchantment of the world

This essay challenges the prevailing view of progressive rationality and disenchantment as set out in Max Weber's social theory and reproduced in organizational neo-institutionalism. We observe that rationality and disenchantment cannot exist in the absence of magic, mystery and enchantment. We argue that the contemporary celebration of rationality and disenchantment is a modernist discourse that has marginalized equally compelling instances of re-enchantment. Drawing from the popular press and management research we identify five themes of re-enchantment in the world; the rise of populism, the return of tribalism, the resurgence of religion, the re-enchantment of science and the return to craft. We use these phenomena to elaborate four alternative constructs – authenticity, reflexivity, mimesis and incantation - that counterbalance the over rationalized and paralyzing concepts in neo-institutionalism – legitimacy, embeddedness, isomorphism and diffusion.     

Opportunities of Reforming the WTO: Resistance and Potentials of Change

This paper intends to show both that a reform of the WTO is severely needed in order to establish a fairer international trade order but also that it is possible. The first section of this paper analyzes the functioning and the most controversial rules of the organization. The second and third sections intend to look for current opportunities of reforming the WTO by analyzing the main existing critical responses to the institution’s deficiencies—namely coalitions of southern Nation-States and global civil society movements—and their potential to achieve some change. It is concluded that these two key group actors, while playing different roles, do have common goals on selected issues of international trade and if so, their combined negotiating power is considerably increased for achieving a progress in the direction of a positive reform of the WTO for the developing world.

Follower behavior renders leader behavior endogenous: The simultaneity problem,estimation challenges,and solutions

Traditionally, leadership research has focused on unidirectional questions in which leader attributes are considered to determine follower outcomes. However, many phenomena between leaders (x) and followers (y) involve a simultaneous influence process in which x affects y, and y also affects x (i.e., simultaneity). Unfortunately, this simultaneity bias creates endogeneity and is often not properly addressed in the extant leadership literature. In three studies, we demonstrate the challenges of simultaneity bias and present two methodological solutions that can help to correct problems of simultaneity bias. We focus on simultaneity that occurs between follower resistance and leader control. We mathematically demonstrate the simultaneity bias using a simulated dataset and show how this bias can be statistically solved using an instrumental variable estimation approach. Furthermore, we present how the simultaneity bias can be resolved using an experimental design. We discuss how our approach advances theory and methods for leadership research.     

Revisiting emergence in emergent leadership: An integrative,multi-perspective review

We draw attention to how and why multiple perspectives on emergence can promote leadership scholarship within the broad umbrella category of emergent leadership. Tracing the derivation of emergent leadership and related concepts since 1941, we identify four empirically derived themes: Entries, or how and where definitions were introduced and adopted; Essences, identification of key components and processes; Eclipses, where certain constructs and approaches have gained prominence over others; and Erasures, where particular lines of inquiry and methodologies have been subsumed, ignored, or removed from easy access by researchers. In critically reviewing the emergent leadership literature, we apply these themes to reveal a number of flaws that inhibit emergent leadership research, including: inconsistent measures, narrow sampling frames, tautological definitions, limited theorization, and very little attention to implications for the development of leader-follower relations. Based on this analysis, and with reference to contemporary issues, we propose an agenda for future research on emergent leadership that is informed by interdisciplinary perspectives that give prominence to emergence dynamics.     

The Organization of Factions: Interest Mobilization and the Group Theory of Politics

Theories of interest group mobilization are central to political science but current research on interest organizations has not proven useful for scholars in related fields. I argue that, by adapting organizational theory to account for the particular function of interest organizations, scholars can build a widely applied theoretical framework. The key step is an analysis of the role that organizations play in the mobilization of influence: they are intermediaries, reliant on their constituents and their lobbying targets. Reviewing research on ethnic politics and political economy, I demonstrate that this intermediary view of interest organizations encourages theoretical ideas to travel between subfields.

Bridging Practice and Theory: A Design Science Approach

Despite ambitious efforts in various fields of research over multiple decades, the goal of making academic research relevant to the practitioner remains elusive: theoretical and academic research interests do not seem to coincide with the interests of managerial practice. This challenge is more fundamental than knowledge transfer, it is one of diverging knowledge interests and means of knowledge production. In this article, we look at this fundamental challenge through the lens of design science, which is an approach aimed primarily at discovery and problem solving as opposed to accumulation of theoretical knowledge. We explore in particular the ways in which problem‐solving research and theory‐oriented academic research can complement one another. In operations management (OM) research, recognizing and building on this complementarity is especially crucial, because problem‐solving–oriented research produces the very artifacts (e.g., technologies) that empirical OM research subsequently evaluates in an attempt to build explanatory theory. It is indeed the practitioner—not the academic scientist—who engages in basic research in OM. This idiosyncrasy prompts the question: how can we enhance the cross‐fertilization between academic research and research practice to make novel theoretical insights and practical relevance complementary? This article proposes a design science approach to bridge practice to theory rather than theory to practice.     

On the scientific study of small samples: Challenges confronting quantitative and qualitative methodologies

Often phenomena that are important to understand and predict are very rare. Rare events can prove difficult to analyze systematically because they do not generate many sampling observations. In this article I examine how small sample sizes can be studied scientifically. The article begins with an explanation of the distinction between research and science. I then bring to the fore the importance of counterfactual comparisons and outline the nature of the methodological problems posed by the study of small samples. These problems include challenges related to using a single case, small sample sizes, selecting on the dependent variable, regression toward the mean, explaining a variable with a constant, and using the same data to both generate and test hypotheses. I provide potential resolutions to these problems which are: (a) employing matched controls; (b) shifting or widen the category of inquiry; (c) selecting variables based on variance in the independent variable; (d) including counterfactuals; (e) ensuring that both independent and dependent variables demonstrate variation; and (f) testing potential hypotheses against data sets that are fully independent of those used to generate the hypotheses. I conclude with a discussion of future directions for undertaking a more scientific approach to using small samples.     

Clustering with or without the approximation

We study algorithms for clustering data that were recently proposed by Balcan et al. (SODA’09: 19th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 1068–1077, 2009a) and that have already given rise to several follow-up papers. The input for the clustering problem consists of points in a metric space and a number k, specifying the desired number of clusters. The algorithms find a clustering that is provably close to a target clustering, provided that the instance has the “(1+α,ε)-property”, which means that the instance is such that all solutions to the k-median problem for which the objective value is at most (1+α) times the optimal objective value correspond to clusterings that misclassify at most an ε fraction of the points with respect to the target clustering. We investigate the theoretical and practical implications of their results. Our main contributions are as follows. First, we show that instances that have the (1+α,ε)-property and for which, additionally, the clusters in the target clustering are large, are easier than general instances: the algorithm proposed in Balcan et al. (SODA’09: 19th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 1068–1077, 2009a) is a constant factor approximation algorithm with an approximation guarantee that is better than the known hardness of approximation for general instances. Further, we show that it is NP-hard to check if an instance satisfies the (1+α,ε)-property for a given (α,ε); the algorithms in Balcan et al. (SODA’09: 19th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 1068–1077, 2009a) need such α and ε as input parameters, however. We propose ways to use their algorithms even if we do not know values of α and ε for which the assumption holds. Finally, we implement these methods and other popular methods, and test them on real world data sets. We find that on these data sets there are no α and ε so that the dataset has both (1+α,ε)-property and sufficiently large clusters in the target solution. For the general case where there are no assumptions about the cluster sizes, we show that on our data sets the performance guarantee proved by Balcan et a. (SODA’09: 19th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 1068–1077, 2009a) is meaningless for the values of α,ε for which the data set has the (1+α,ε)-property. The algorithm nonetheless gives reasonable results, although it is outperformed by other methods.     

Theory Development in Operations Management: Extending the Frontiers of a Mature Discipline via Qualitative Research

This invited paper discusses theory development in operations management. Many stellar researchers have made excellent contributions to theory development in our field. Operations management is a maturing discipline. Recently, theory driven empirical research has become common in top‐tier journals in our field. Impelled by this trend and due to the path dependency of research, in general, researchers have examined operations phenomena using theories from management and organizational science. How do we extend the frontiers of knowledge in our maturing discipline? How do we develop theories within the field of operations management? In examining some of the seminal ideas that have shaped our field, a common characteristic is that they relied on observational studies and conceptual reasoning. Is it time for us to stress the usefulness of qualitative research methods in our field? Could this lead to an intellectual renewal in our field and extend the frontier of a maturing discipline? This paper explores these questions and advances the notion that qualitative analysis needs to be emphasized more than it has been in recent past. This paper is meant to provoke discussion among empirical researchers in operations management.     

The evolution of Omega-The International Journal of Management Science over the past 40 years: A bibliometric overview

The aim of this study is to reflect on where Omega-The International Journal of Management Science (Omega) comes from and evaluate where Omega currently is in a field that arguably paves the way for the challenging task of identifying future directions and trends. To achieve this goal, this study presents a bibliometric overview of Omega over the past 40 years, from 1979 to 2018. First, this study outlines the basic bibliometric profile of Omega. Second, VOSviewer is employed to visualize the collaborative relationships that Omega has with other journals to show how Omega has linked to them over the past 40 years. Finally, co-occurrences of keywords are analysed and strategic diagrams are built to reveal the thematic trends in Omega. The results show that Omega has substantial influences in the field of operational research and management science (OR&MS), with contributors from all over the world. Omega has strong connections with other leading journals in the fields of OR&MS and engineering. The mainstream research of Omega mainly focuses on production and manufacturing management, mathematical modelling for optimization problems, supply chain management, data envelopment analysis, multicriteria and decision making. Moreover, motor themes, highly developed-and-isolated themes, emerging-or-declining themes, and basic-and-transversal themes are identified. The study provides strong evidence that Omega has been a story of success, and the findings of this study will support decision making for the Omega-related scientific community.     

A 25-year perspective on levels of analysis in leadership research

The purpose of this article is to present a comprehensive 25-year review of the incorporation of levels of analysis into conceptual and empirical leadership research published within Leadership Quarterly throughout its history. We assessed the population of Leadership Quarterly's research (790 research articles) on four key levels of analysis-based issues: (1) explicit statement of the focal level(s) of analysis; (2) appropriate measurement given level of constructs; (3) use of a multi-level data analysis technique; and, (4) alignment of theory and data. Prior reviews regarding levels of analysis incorporation into leadership research have been limited to major research domains. Results revealed that while both conceptual and empirical articles only explicitly state the focal level of analysis in approximately one-third of the articles, appropriate levels-based measurement and alignment between theory and data are relatively strong areas of achievement for the articles within Leadership Quarterly. Multi-level data analysis techniques are used in less than one-fifth of all articles. Although there is room for improvement, there is evidence that Leadership Quarterly is a premier outlet for levels-based leadership research. Given the increasing complexity of organizational science with regard to groups, teams and collectives, Leadership Quarterly has an opportunity to model for organizational research on how to build and test complicated multi-level theories and models.     

Internationalization,Innovation and Institutions: The 3 I's Underpinning the Competitiveness of Emerging Market Firms

The past decade has seen an increase in the extent of research focused on and around emerging market firms (EMFs) and their rising levels of competitiveness in both their home markets and more importantly in the global market place. At the same time, the practitioner-oriented literature has been documenting a growing number of corporate success stories that originate in emerging market economies. We posit that the growing prominence of EMFs is a result of three interrelated phenomena: the fast-paced internationalization of EMFs into both developing and developed market economies; the rapidly increasing extent to which business enterprises in emerging economies are focusing on knowledge-intensive processes and innovation; and the continuous evolution of institutions in these markets, particularly in terms of economic liberalization.     

Averting the rise of the dark side of social media: The role of sensitization and regulation

Social media have fundamentally influenced the way we live. Thus far, research has mainly focused on the ‘bright side’ of social media and the many advantages these platforms bring. More and more, however, research is also beginning to address the ‘dark side’ of social media. Dark side phenomena include cyberbullying, manipulation of elections, fear of missing out, social media addiction and the distribution of fake news. In this editorial for the management focus section of the European Management Journal, we propose two strategies (sensitizing and regulating) to manage this dark side of social media. Additionally, this editorial introduces the four articles included in this management focus section. We hope that the featured articles will help to encourage further research in this area.