Liminality in Management and Organization Studies: Process,Position and Place

This paper explores liminality, a concept receiving increased attention in management and organization studies and gaining prominence because of its capacity to capture the interstitial and temporary elements of organizing and work. The authors present a systematic review of the literature on liminality, covering 61 published papers, and undertake a critical analysis of how the concept of liminality has been used in prior research. This review reveals associations with three main themes: process; position; and place. For each theme, the authors identify the central research questions posed, while comparing individual and collective levels of analysis. During this process, the authors revisit several ideas central to the original, anthropological research on liminality, a perspective from which they suggest a rejuvenation of liminality research in management and organization studies. This paper argues for a greater focus on the liminal experience itself – especially its ritual and temporal dimensions – and for improving the comparative analysis of liminality following the three themes identified in this paper. The authors suggest that revising the agenda for liminality research along these lines could facilitate more informed responses to the challenges of an increasingly temporary and dynamic work life.     

The study of followers in leadership research: A systematic and critical review

Despite the significant amount of existing research examining the relationship of follower-related factors with leadership outcomes, there is no systematic, critical review that integrates and helps leadership scholars make sense of this rapidly growing body of research. To address this gap in the literature, we first briefly discuss the leading perspectives explaining the role of followers in leadership. Next, we identify and discuss the most frequently studied theoretical narratives explaining the relationship between follower-related predictors and leadership outcomes. Because theoretical arguments generally make causal claims, we identify and examine how methodological concerns including power analysis, multicollinearity, and endogeneity might prevent researchers from supporting those claims. We further explore how these concerns, when relevant and unaddressed, might affect the reported effect sizes. We provide recommendations to help meaningfully structure the field and seed conversations for theoretical and methodological advancements in research on the role of followers in leadership.     

Sales force automation: review,critique, research agenda

We review and critique the research literature on sales force automation (SFA). SFA involves the application of information technology to support the sales function. SFA software provides functionality that helps companies manage sales pipelines, track contacts and configure products, inter alia. The paper is organized into four main sections. First, we review the SFA environment, identifying definitions, vendor classifications and software attributes. We then move to a review and classification of the academic research that has been published on SFA. We find that the entire body of SFA knowledge attempts to answer just four questions: Why do organizations adopt SFA? What are the organizational impacts of SFA? What accounts for the success or failure of SFA projects? What accounts for variance in salesperson adoption of SFA? We then critique this body of knowledge on a number of theoretical and methodological grounds, and finally propose a research agenda for the future.     

Leader-follower transgressions,relationship repair strategies and outcomes: A state-of-the-science review and a way forward

A growing body of literature has focused on transgressions in the workplace and more recently, with respect to leader-follower relationships. Despite the important implications of leader and follower transgressions and relationship repair for work outcomes, there has not been a systematic review that examines the broad spectrum of leader and follower transgressions and most importantly adopts a dynamic relational process perspective. We view transgressions as key events in leader-follower relationships that trigger re-evaluation of the relationship, relationship repair processes and influence work outcomes. The purpose of this review is threefold. First, to provide a state-of-the-science review of the growing literature. Second, to offer a critical analysis of leader and follower transgressions in terms of conceptualization, methodological issues and theoretical underpinnings. Third, to outline a research agenda addressing leader-follower transgressions, relationship repair processes and outcomes based on relationship science.     

Small Business Social Responsibility: A Critical Multilevel Review,Synthesis and Research Agenda

Small‐business social responsibility (SBSR) related research is rapidly increasing in quantity, but is found in divergent literatures and disciplines. It is time to offer a comprehensive review that identifies, synthesizes and integrates previous research, and highlights the knowledge gaps and the way forward. This methodical search of the literature helped to identify 115 multidisciplinary peer‐reviewed academic articles appearing in high‐quality journals over the 1970–2016 period. Using a systematic and in‐depth content analysis technique, the authors reviewed the articles and identified the theories used, the national contextual focus and the methodological orientations in these articles. They also identified the predictors, outcomes, mediators and moderators of SBSR at the institutional, organizational and individual levels of analysis. This review helps to identify significant knowledge gaps in terms of the theoretical orientation, the national contextual focus, the core content under study, and the methods used. The authors offer numerous suggestions across these topics to help address the knowledge gaps and raise important questions for future research. The primary contributions of this paper are: delineating and summarizing a multilevel analysis of an emerging literature on SBSR; integrating contributions from a wide range of management disciplines and geographical contexts; extracting the potential theoretical contributions in this field; and informing directions for future research. The authors propose a research agenda that is theoretically relevant and innovative, and call for context‐ and size‐aware research on SBSR, using small‐business‐specific methodologies and measurements.     

Crisis Management: Informing a New Leadership Research Agenda

As the business community becomes more complex, crisis events are likely to increase in both prevalence and severity. Whether management scholarship has kept pace with this new reality is debatable. Moreover, much of the existing crisis research—perhaps understandably—stems from a negative frame: crises are threats or problems to be overcome. Such research has produced relevant insight into crisis handling, has helped categorize the plethora of crisis events, and has connected crisis events to relevant management strategies. We argue here that this framing fundamentally limits the types of questions asked and the methodological approaches used to answer those questions. Perhaps worse, given the important role that leadership plays in crisis handling, this negative frame can hinder the possibilities for the practice and study of leadership. In this article, we review an array of crisis research and explore two theoretical domains—issue framing and deviance—and their potential role for influencing leadership theory. We discuss the challenges of conducting crisis research, and offer suggestions for new methodological approaches and new research questions that are consistent with a more positive leadership approach.     

Working with Language: A Refocused Research Agenda for Cultural Leadership Studies

This paper critically reviews existing contributions from the field of cultural leadership studies with a view to highlighting the conceptual and methodological limitations of the dominant etic, cross‐cultural approach in leadership studies and illuminating implications of the relative dominance and unreflective use of the English language as the academic and business lingua franca within this field. It subsequently outlines the negative implications of overlooking cultural and linguistic multiplicity for an understanding of culturally sensitive leadership practices. In drawing on lessons from this critical review and the emergent fields of emic, non‐positivist cultural leadership studies, this analysis argues that the field of cultural leadership studies requires an alternative research agenda focused on language multiplicity, which enables the field to move towards emic, qualitative research that helps to empower individual cultural voices and explore cultural intra‐ and interrelationships, tensions and paradoxes embedded in leadership processes. The paper concludes by offering suggestions on methodological approaches for emic cultural leadership studies that are centred on the exploration of language as a cultural voice.     

Putting the individual and context back into national human resource development research: A systematic review and research agenda

Conceptualization of national human resource development (NHRD) emphasizes that it is an ongoing development process of the individual that is shaped by context. However, the extant literature has focused primarily on describing and evaluating NHRD policies and interventions in different countries with limited consideration of NHRD across the lifespan and the interaction of life stage with context. Using ecological systems theory (EST) and a lifespan development perspective (LDP), we present a systematic review of the NHRD literature based on 310 sources. We identify key themes and gaps in research across the lifespan and at distinct levels of the ecological system. We build on this review to suggest future research informed by both EST and an LDP. We propose a future research agenda focused on several key areas, including: the developing individual as the primary focus of NHRD; the dynamic relationship between NHRD microsystems and how this evolves over time; the exosystem and macrosystem, which provide the context of the NHRD development experience for the individual over their lifespan; and the imperatives of directing research attention to top-down and bottom-up influences within the ecological system. We also propose three methodological innovations to address many of the questions raised by our review, drawing on national archive databases, the use of historical methods and a focus on longitudinal data analysis. Finally, we highlight the practical implications of our analysis for ecosystem and microsystem NHRD actors.     

A Dynamic Perspective on Diverse Teams: Moving from the Dual-Process Model to a Dynamic Coordination-based Model of Diverse Team Performance

The existing literature on diverse teams suggests that diversity is both helpful to teams in making more information available and encouraging creativity and damaging to teams in reducing cohesion and information sharing. Thus the extant literature suggests that diversity within teams is a double-edged sword that leads to both positive and negative effects simultaneously. This literature has not, however, fully embraced the increasing calls in the broader groups literature to take account of time in understanding how groups function [e.g. Cronin, M. A., Weingart, L. R., &; Todorova, G. (2011). Dynamics in groups: Are we there yet? The Academy of Management Annals, 5, 571–612]. We review the literature on diverse teams employing this lens to develop a dynamic perspective that takes account of the timing and flow of diversity's effects. Our review suggests that diversity in groups has different short-term and long-term effects in ways that are not fully captured by the currently dominant double-edged sword metaphor. We identify an emerging perspective that suggests a tropical depression metaphor—that has the potential, over time, to develop either into a dangerous hurricane or diffuse into a rainstorm that gives way to sunshine, as more apt to capture the dynamic effects of diversity in teams. We conclude by outlining an agenda for redirecting future research on diverse teams using this more dynamic perspective.     

Work and nonwork influences on health: a research agenda using inability to leave as a critical variable

A basic path analytic model of stressor-health relationships is formulated from a multidisciplinary literature base. Work, nonwork, and individual difference variables act as exogenous stressors influencing endogenous job and life satisfaction variables, which are then posited to influence health variables. Inability to leave is added to the model as a means of more completely integrating a research framework investigating work and nonwork influences on health.     

The healthcare supply network: current state of the literature and research opportunities

Abstract

This literature review maps recent studies addressing supply chain management (SCM) in the healthcare sector through a systematic approach that synthesises 74 empirical studies (2006–2016). Our approach adopts a network lens to map the literature and offers key contributions to the field. First, we show that there is a lack of network level studies. Second, there is an imbalance of research attention regarding the various types of supply, namely health services, medicines, medical supplies and blood supply. Third, we underline the advantages of the network lens, indicating network actors and flows between those actors that need further research. Fourth, we show an alarming lack of theoretical lens in healthcare SCM studies and draw attention to the fact that even when explicitly adopting a theory, some studies show inconsistencies between theoretical lens and level of analysis. Ultimately, we offer a map of future research for healthcare SCM through a network lens in order to improve the understanding the complexities of the healthcare sector.     

Past,Present and Future Research on Multiple Identities: Toward an Intrapersonal Network Approach

Abstract

Psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers have long recognized that people have multiple identities—based on attributes such as organizational membership, profession, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and family role(s)—and that these multiple identities shape people's actions in organizations. The current organizational literature on multiple identities, however, is sparse and scattered and has yet to fully capture this foundational idea. I review and organize the literature on multiple identities into five different theoretical perspectives: social psychological; microsociological; psychodynamic and developmental; critical; and intersectional. I then propose a way to take research on multiple identities forward using an intrapersonal identity network approach. Moving to an identity network approach offers two advantages: first, it enables scholars to consider more than two identities simultaneously, and second, it helps scholars examine relationships among identities in greater detail. This is important because preliminary evidence suggests that multiple identities shape important outcomes in organizations, such as individual stress and well-being, intergroup conflict, performance, and change. By providing a way to investigate patterns of relationships among multiple identities, the identity network approach can help scholars deepen their understanding of the consequences of multiple identities in organizations and spark novel research questions in the organizational literature.     

Followership theory: A review and research agenda

While theory and research on leaders and leadership abound, followers and followership theory have been given short shrift. It is accepted wisdom that there is no leadership without followers, yet followers are very often left out of the leadership research equation. Fortunately this problem is being addressed in recent research, with more attention being paid to the role of followership in the leadership process. The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic review of the followership literature, and from this review, introduce a broad theory of followership into leadership research. Based on our review, we identify two theoretical frameworks for the study of followership, one from a role-based approach (“reversing the lens”) and one from a constructionist approach (“the leadership process”). These frameworks are used to outline directions for future research. We conclude with a discussion of conceptual and methodological issues in the study of followership theory.     

Work–Life Balance and Parenthood: A Comparative Review of Definitions,Equity and Enrichment*

This review investigates the problems of definition and inequity with which the literature on parenthood and work–life balance is beset. It analyses research trajectories first within the established disciplines of organizational psychology and the sociologies of work and family practices, and then within the newer field of management studies. Gender, class and difference are singled out as troubling themes, especially in relation to fathers and impoverished parents. A tendency towards mono‐disciplinarity is observed within organizational psychology and sociologies of work and family practices. The review offers explanations for the historic but narrow definition within organizational psychology and sociologies of work and family practices of work–life balance as affecting mainly heterosexual dual‐career parent couples. The authors show how this narrow definition has led to inequities within research. They further identify as limiting the definition of work–life balance to be always ‘problematic’, rather than enriching, among employed parents. Consequently, a three‐factor framework is recommended, through which future studies may address the problems of definition and equity in work–life balance literature, including: a broader definition of work–life balance to include marginalized parents; the defining of parenting and employment as potentially life‐enriching; and a commendation of the transdisciplinary approach within management studies as poised to move debate forward.     

Do executives’ aesthetic attributes matter to career and organizational outcomes? A critical review and theoretical integration

How do top executives’ aesthetic attributes, such as their physical (e.g., attractiveness) and vocal (e.g., voice pitch) features, shape their firms and their own careers? Whereas strategic leadership scholars mostly have focused on top executives’ cognitive, psychological, and affective attributes, researchers increasingly have focused on this research question as well. As a result, a substantial body of research has emerged, as evidenced by the sixty-five empirical studies we located. Our review of the literature indicates that aesthetic attributes are related to executives’ careers and organizational outcomes in important ways, including executive selection and firm strategy. There also appear to be important contingencies, such as other individual differences and cultural factors, that shape these relationships. However, we conclude that there are important theoretical and methodological shortcomings in this literature and that addressing these issues is critical to validating extant findings, establishing more legitimacy, and moving this literature forward.     

Maternity Management in SMEs: A Transdisciplinary Review and Research Agenda

This paper provides a transdisciplinary critical review of the literature on maternity management in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), embedded within the wider literatures on maternity in the workplace. The key objectives are to describe what is known about the relations that shape maternity management in smaller workplaces and to identify research directions to enhance this knowledge. The review is guided by theory of organizational gendering and small business management, conceptualizing adaptions to maternity as a process of mutual adjustment and dynamic capability within smaller firms’ informally negotiated order, resource endowments and wider labour and product/service markets. A context‐sensitive lens is also applied. The review highlights the complex range of processes involved in SME maternity management and identifies major research gaps in relation to pregnancy, maternity leave and the return to work (family‐friendly working and breastfeeding) in these contexts. This blind spot is surprising, as SMEs employ the majority of women worldwide. A detailed agenda for future research is outlined, building on the gaps identified by the review and founded on renewed theoretical direction.     

OFDI performance of EMNEs: A review and recommendations for future research

Outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) is an increasingly significant global economic phenomenon. A growing and extensive body of research has examined the OFDI performance outcomes of EMNEs. Our systematic review seeks to capture the diverse theoretical lenses adopted and advanced in this stream of research, synthesize empirical findings, identify methodological challenges, and recommend directions for future research. Following a comprehensive and rigorous literature review, we identified 175 relevant studies published from 2001 to 2020. Our review suggests that a wide range of theories across disciplinary boundaries have been applied, and in some cases extended, to understand the performance outcomes of the OFDI of EMNEs. Empirically, previous studies have focused on different performance dimensions when assessing the OFDI outcomes of EMNEs, and investigated antecedents and contingencies across micro, meso, and macro levels. Based on our review findings, we propose a number of future research directions to move this research stream forward.     

Top Management Team Diversity: A Review of Theories and Methodologies

This paper reviews empirical research on top management team (TMT) diversity. A number of scholars have concluded that upper echelons findings, in particular in terms of the consequences of TMT heterogeneity, have been inconclusive. This review conducts an in‐depth analysis of conceptual and methodological issues related to upper echelons diversity studies and offers some directions for future research. Sixty journal articles, published in ten top international journals over a 22‐year period (1984–2005), were analyzed. The results suggest that upper echelons research is increasingly multidisciplinary in nature; however, in‐depth inquiries into the antecedents of TMT composition and the multilevel contextual influences on the implications of TMT heterogeneity are still needed. This review finds that clarity about level of analysis, both theoretically and empirically, remains an important issue in the field and thus a multilevel approach is strongly encouraged. Moreover, the complexity of diversity as a theoretical construct needs to be acknowledged and operationalized accordingly in upper echelons studies.