Reconciling Perspectives on Clusters: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

Although our understanding of clusters and their contribution to economic performance has improved over the last three decades, the literature has become host to a wide array of divergent empirical and theoretical claims. We systematically review cluster studies published in top journals, highlighting the lack of integration among prior work. We focus on the ways in which Porter's three cluster dimensions, namely geography, networks, and institutions, have been utilized. None of the studies reviewed fully captured their complex interrelationships, which we argue is an important cause of the key disagreements in the literature. Configurational theorizing and analysis are presented as means by which the different approaches to cluster studies could be reconciled. We discuss how the application of a configurational approach can help explore new scholarly directions that can deepen our understanding of clusters and their performance‐enhancing potential. In doing so, we can move beyond an understanding of independent effects to emphasizing combinations of attributes that can generate multiple pathways to cluster performance outcomes.     

The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

Over the last three decades, customer experience (CE) has developed from a burgeoning concept to a widely recognized phenomenon in terms of both research and practice. To account for the complexity of consumption decisions, the CE literature encompasses both the rational information processing approach to consumer decision‐making and the experiential approach, which includes emotions, feelings and sub‐consciousness. The authors classify and examine CE research on two levels. Studies on static CE analyze experiences during touchpoints at one point in time, while studies on dynamic CE assess how experiences evolve over time. Furthermore, both static and dynamic CE research take place from two distinct theoretical perspectives: the organization and the consumer. As both theoretical perspectives essentially deal with the same phenomenon – the organizational perspective with the creation of CEs and the consumer perspective with the perception of customer experiences – there is potential for a productive symbiosis between them. The authors propose that connecting insights from both perspectives can contribute to a better understanding of what constitutes a CE for consumers and how firms can effectively manage it. First, the authors discuss the development of CE and argue that it has evolved into a broad and fragmented ‘umbrella construct’. Second, after distinguishing and defining static and dynamic CE, they systematically evaluate the state of knowledge in both the organizational and consumer perspectives. Finally, they develop an agenda for future research that integrates the consumer perspective into organizational CE research.     

Employee Voice Behavior: Integration and Directions for Future Research

Within organizations, employees continually confront situations that put them face to face with the decision of whether to speak up (i.e., voice) or remain silent when they have potentially useful information or ideas. In recent years, there has been a rapidly growing body of conceptual and empirical research focused on better understanding the motives underlying voice, individual, and situational factors that increase employee voice behavior, and the implications of voice and silence for employees, work groups, and organizations. Yet this literature has notable gaps and unresolved issues, and it is not entirely clear where future scholarship should be directed. This article, therefore, is an attempt to review and integrate the existing literature on employee voice and also to provide some direction for future research.     

双元创新研究述评及开展中国情境化研究的建议

基于1991~2020年发表在Web of Science(WOS)核心数据库的双元创新学术论文,对双元创新研究进行了可视化计量分析和系统性内容梳理:①从文献产出趋势、合作网络、发表平台和关键节点文献等方面呈现双元创新研究概况;②总结双元创新的基本思想与逻辑,提炼分析双元创新的4种基本关系,构建基于“影响机制-作用过程-作用效果”的双元创新整合研究框架;③在对比中英文代表性文献的基础上,提出应基于跨学科、多层次与多因素交互、多研究方法、智能化和数字化驱动等视角开展中国情境下双元创新研究的建议。     

Product Design: a Review and Research Agenda for Management Studies

This paper reviews research on product design in the broad domain of business studies. It highlights established and emerging perspectives and lines of inquiry, and organizes them around three core areas, corresponding to different stages of the design process (design activities, design choices, design results). Avenues for further research at the intersection of these bodies of research are identified and discussed, and the authors argue that management scholars possess conceptual and methodological tools suited to enriching research on design and effectively pursuing lines of investigation only partially addressed by other communities, such as the construction and deployment of design capabilities, or the organizational and institutional context of design activities.     

Sourcing from Africa: A Systematic Review and a Research Agenda

The African continent is rapidly growing its global economic impact and becoming a more attractive sourcing context. However, very little is known about current purchasing practices, successes and challenges on this continent. The authors investigate the specific features that characterize supply management in Africa by conducting a systematic review of the literature on sourcing in and from Africa. Their aim is to help scholars direct their future research efforts. The authors take a thematic approach in their analysis of 57 articles, and identify key findings, research challenges and opportunities. They focus on four areas previously identified as distinguishing the sourcing context in Africa: African culture and ethics; the role of African countries and suppliers in global value chains; an increasing emphasis on sustainability; and the gradual development of professional procurement practices. It is found that research in the area of supply management in the African context is still scattered, with an evident need for more theoretically rich and methodologically rigorous inquiry. The authors propose a structured, theoretically grounded research agenda for each of the themes identified, and make general observations on potential future directions.     

变革型领导行为对员工建言行为的影响研究

主要研究变革型领导行为对员工建言行为的影响及其中介作用机制。在中介作用机制的探讨上,主要从心理认知和社会交换的理论视角出发,侧重于分析心理安全知觉和领导部属交换的中介作用。研究采用问卷调查研究的方法,研究对象是广州5家高科技电子制造企业中的213名员工及其对应的213名领导。通过数据分析发现:变革型领导行为对员工建言行为有显著的正向影响,领导部属交换与心理安全知觉在其中起着完全中介的作用。     

Job Search: A Multidisciplinary Review and Research Agenda

Scholarly interest in job search has grown significantly over the years and can be located in diverse research streams: namely, economics, sociology and industrial/organizational psychology. This paper reviews these bodies of literature and makes a case for integration by proposing a multidisciplinary approach to understanding job‐seeking behaviors. To this end, the paper categorizes the respective literatures on the basis of common themes located in a conceptual multidisciplinary model of job search behaviors and outcomes. This model provides a more focused understanding of the job search literature and how it has developed in the related disciplines. Based on the review and conceptual model presented, the paper draws attention to several key areas for future research to advance the field further.     

Expanding the Domain of Festival Research: A Review and Research Agenda

Festivals are an important sub‐field within event studies which, until recently, have not been studied as separate experiences. A systematic review of the emerging literature on festivals reveals several key characteristics. While festivals are diverse in nature and geographical location, scholarly interest focuses on five main themes: the motivations for organizing, funding and attending festivals; the experiences of festival attendees; the relationship between festivals and their local environments; the economic and sociocultural impacts of festivals; and the management of festivals. Despite growing interest in festivals as research sites, little attention has been afforded to investigating festival processes. In particular, considerations of how festivals are established, and which individuals are involved in their initiation and regular staging, offer opportunities for research. This paper highlights the significant role festivals play within their local communities, including their facilitation of social cohesion and regional identity. Our study reveals that the literature rarely discusses the development of festivals over time and the wider networks in which festivals are embedded. This critical review of festival research identifies various research gaps and directions for future research to develop theory and practical understanding of festivals.     

Resilience in Business and Management Research: A Review of Influential Publications and a Research Agenda

This paper identifies the development of and gaps in knowledge in business and management research on resilience, based on a systematic review of influential publications among 339 papers, books and book chapters published between 1977 and 2014. Analyzing these records shows that resilience research has developed into five research streams, or lines of enquiry, which view resilience as (1) organizational responses to external threats, (2) organizational reliability, (3) employee strengths, (4) the adaptability of business models or (5) design principles that reduce supply chain vulnerabilities and disruptions. A review of the five streams suggests three key findings: First, resilience has been conceptualized quite differently across studies, meaning that the different research streams have developed their own definitions, theories and understandings of resilience. Second, conceptual similarities and differences among these streams have not yet been explored, nor have insights been gleaned about any possible generalizable principles for developing resilience. Third, resilience has been operationalized quite differently, with few insights into the empirics for detecting resilience to future adversity (or the absence thereof). This paper outlines emerging research trends and pathways for future research, highlighting opportunities to integrate and expand on existing knowledge, as well as avenues for further investigation of resilience in business and management studies.     

Mechanisms for Managing Ambidexterity: A Review and Research Agenda

Ambidexterity is of central importance to the competitive advantage of the firm, yet to date there is limited understanding of how it is managed. The theorization of ambidexterity is inadequate for complex, practical realities and, in turn, this hinders the way in which it can aid the management of ambidexterity in practice. This paper asks: What are the mechanisms for achieving ambidexterity? The authors use a systematic review to develop a research framework which integrates intellectual capital resources (organizational, social and human capital) across various levels of analysis (organization, group and individual). This review extends understanding of the generic mechanisms (i.e. temporal, structural and contextual ambidexterity) that dominate the literature. This allows for a more fine‐grained understanding of how ambidexterity is achieved and enables avenues for further research to be identified.     

Corporate Political Activity: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

This paper reviews the diverse literature on corporate political activity (CPA) and develops a framework that details and integrates existing research in this field. A systematic analysis of extant CPA literatures is conducted to order them into domains that have implications for organizational performance. The paper is structured into three such domain emphases, which require further research investigation: resources and capabilities focus; institutional focus; and political environment focus. The contribution of each to an understanding of CPA in pursuit or defence of corporate competitive advantage is discussed. The authors also suggest that the internationalization of business, including the more recent emergence of developing country economies and companies, presents scholars with the challenge of understanding CPA in more varied institutional settings. CPA practices continue to expand as commerce goes increasingly global and, consequently, involves a wider array of political actors and institutions. The paper contributes by increasing the clarity of CPA classification, reflecting on the implications of a multi‐polar world for CPA research and advancing future agendas for scholars in this research community.     

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.     

Social Enterprises as Hybrid Organizations: A Review and Research Agenda

The impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008, the intractable problems of persistent poverty and environmental change have focused attention on organizations that combine enterprise with an embedded social purpose. Scholarly interest in social enterprise (SE) has progressed beyond the early focus on definitions and context to investigate their management and performance. From a review of the SE literature, the authors identify hybridity, the pursuit of the dual mission of financial sustainability and social purpose, as the defining characteristic of SEs. They assess the impact of hybridity on the management of the SE mission, financial resource acquisition and human resource mobilization, and present a framework for understanding the tensions and trade‐offs resulting from hybridity. By examining the influence of dual mission and conflicting institutional logics on SE management the authors suggest future research directions for theory development for SE and hybrid organizations more generally.     

Green Human Resource Management: A Review and Research Agenda*

The paper makes a case for the integration of the largely separate literatures of environmental management (EM) and human resource management (HRM) research. The paper categorizes the existing literature on the basis of Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) theory, revealing the role that Green human resource management (GHRM) processes play in people‐management practice. The contributions of the paper lie in drawing together the extant literature in the area, mapping the terrain of the field, identifying some gaps in the existing literature and suggesting some potentially fruitful future research agendas. The findings of the review suggest that understanding of how GHRM practices influence employee motivation to become involved in environmental activities lags behind that of how organizations develop Green abilities and provide employees with opportunities to be involved in EM organizational efforts. Organizations are not using the full range of GHRM practices, and this may limit their effectiveness in efforts to improve EM.     

Interorganizational Relationships in Marketing: A Critical Review and Research Agenda

Over recent decades, the area of marketing interorganizational relationships (IORs) has received increasing attention from both academics and practitioners, even if a comprehensive portrayal of past research is still lacking. Hence, the aim of the present paper is to review the literature on marketing IORs in order to develop a framework meant to organize the different contributions in this area and suggest new paths for future research. The analysis suggests that three main streams of research can be identified with regard to the type of relationship between variables investigated by each article. Moreover, taking into account the purpose of the IOR, common patterns within each stream may be identified. A critical analysis of articles grounded on both the streams and the purpose of marketing IORs suggests there are still substantial gaps in knowledge, which open new paths for future research regarding both methodological issues and hot topics.     

The Informal Sector: A Review and Agenda for Management Research

Despite its connotations of non‐compliance, illegality, social exploitation and marginality, the informal sector is a substantial contributor to economic life in developing countries and, increasingly, in more technologically advanced activities. Its prevalence in developed economies has also become more widely recognized. In light of its significance, this paper reviews research on the informal sector from a management and organization scholarship perspective, rather than from an entrepreneurship view, as has been the focus until now. It sets out the atypical management practices that are inherent in the sector, explores the under‐researched relationship between formal and informal firms, and highlights definitional, conceptual and other limitations in extant research. As a step in resolving these issues, the authors present a conceptual model of formality and informality in a three‐dimensional framework that highlights an organizational infrastructure dimension, a view of firms operating along a continuum, and a multi‐level analytical context. Building on this, the authors detail opportunities for enhanced appreciation of in situ management and organizational practices in the informal sector and outline tools for pursuing a management and organization scholarship agenda. Overall, the authors argue that management scholarship has great potential to improve understanding of the informal sector, and that the informal sector provides opportunities to advance management theory, research and practice.     

The Concept of International Opportunity in International Entrepreneurship: A Review and a Research Agenda

Recent research in the field of international entrepreneurship (IE) has emphasized the concept of international opportunity. The entrepreneurial behaviors focused on international opportunities have been found to be critical in IE. International opportunities, however, are often depicted in rather abstract and unspecified ways, and the research suffers from narrow theoretical discussion in relation to the concept of opportunity. To address these issues, the authors draw from entrepreneurship research and present alternative conceptualizations of opportunities as a basis for more in‐depth study of international opportunities in IE. To further articulate a future research agenda, the authors review the state of knowledge on opportunities in the IE field by content‐analyzing articles published between 1989 and 2012. All the analyzed articles incorporate the concept of opportunity into their studies. It is found that, although the IE research has investigated many relevant elements, it is rather limited in the articulation of the conceptual features of international opportunities and opportunity‐focused behaviors. Building on these observations, the authors propose a definition of international opportunity and research questions and strategies to advance IE research on international opportunities.     

Ubiquitous yet Ambiguous: An Integrative Review of Unpaid Work

The expansion of participation in unpaid work such as internships, volunteering and educationally focused work placements may constitute evidence of deleterious changes to labour markets increasingly characterized by competition, precarious work and prolonged transitions to secure employment. Unpaid work, although under‐researched, is increasingly relevant in times of ubiquitous unpaid internships and the use of volunteers in roles that would have been previously paid. Yet there remains a lack of clarity in terminology and focus across studies of unpaid work. This review article addresses this concern through two primary aims. First, we review the available literature around unpaid work setting out five themes: characterizations of unpaid work; the prevalence and underlying drivers of unpaid work; the apparent benefits of participation; the costs of participation; and regulatory and structural responses to unpaid work. Together, these themes set out a holistic interpretation of the accumulated state of knowledge in this area of inquiry including the implications for organizations, employers, higher education institutions, policy makers and unpaid workers. The second aim is to synthesise the current and emerging insights arising from the review as a matrix which delineates four distinct forms of unpaid work along two dimensions – purpose of participation and level of participatory discretion. The review and resulting matrix provides conceptual clarity around unpaid work practices that informs future research. It also raises pragmatic implications for institutional and managerial decision‐making which is cognisant of the range of risks, costs, benefits and ethical issues associated with unpaid work.