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Muzafer and Carolyn Wood Sherif are among the founders of social psychology. Their theoretical and empirical findings made important contributions to the management literature. This paper aims to attempt to underline these contributions and highlights the Sherifs’ interdisciplinary work and their impact on management research specifically.

Using a citation content analysis, the influence of the Sherifs on management research is detailed by examining how their work has contributed to research published in top management journals.

The Sherifs’ work has influenced numerous research streams related to organisational groups, social norms, assimilation contrast theory and a combination of various other topics. Additionally, these works helped originate team and workgroup research in organisation theory.

This is the first manuscript of its type to examine the influence of the Sherifs on management research. Their story is a testament to the impact that social psychology researchers have had in developing modern thought about organisational issues. This work also addresses potential areas for future research building on the Sherifs’ work.

The purpose of this paper is to explore relationships between proactive personality and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Moderators between these constructs are proposed in order to explain varying levels of dispositional impact on work behavior. These relationships were also tested to see whether proactive personality should be considered a strong or weak trait. Trait activation theory and social exchange theory are used to develop hypotheses.

Data collected via a targeted sampling strategy from 178 supervisor-subordinate dyads spanning multiple industries and organizations were used. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical linear regression.

Results indicate a positive relationship exists between proactive personality and organizationally directed citizenship behaviors, and that this relationship is moderated by both job autonomy and job meaning.

The paper is one of the first to explore the relationship between proactive personality and citizenship behaviors directed at the organization. It also bolsters the strong trait argument by demonstrating that, even in conditions of low autonomy and meaning, highly proactive individuals will still perform OCBs.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the instrumental role of physician Caroline Hedger during the first half of the twentieth century, with her emphasis on worker health, which influenced American society and helped to improve working and living conditions of people across the USA.

Drawing on archival newspaper clippings, original journal articles and books written by the subject, historical manuscripts and other labor history resources, this manuscript pulls together information on this topic in a unique way to give a broad view of the impact of Hedger and her important role not only for the city of Chicago, but the nation as a whole.

This research concludes that Hedger was an instrumental force and tireless advocate for the improvement of public health and social change. She was a constant driver for the creation of better living and working conditions of poor laborers, especially immigrants and women, desired the enhancement of child welfare, and was also helpful in supporting the labor movement and educating those involved in the process.

This is the first manuscript to explore the role played by Caroline Hedger in relation to her impact on the importance of the health of workers and their families. Her story is a testament to the powerful effect of a single person in a dynamic world, and demonstrates how understanding a worker's health contributes to greater insights about management history.

The purpose of this study is to systematically examine and classify the multitude of personality traits that have emerged in the literature beyond the Big Five (Five Factor Model) since the turn of the 21st century. The authors argue that this represents a new phase of personality research that is characterized both by construct proliferation and a movement away from the Big Five and demonstrates how personality as a construct has substantially evolved in the 21st century.

The authors conducted a comprehensive, systematic review of personality research from 2000 to 2020 across 17 management and psychology journals. This search yielded 1,901 articles, of which 440 were relevant and subsequently coded for this review.

The review presented in this study uncovers 155 traits, beyond the Big Five, that have been explored, which the authors organize and analyze into 10 distinct categories. Each category comprises a definition, lists the included traits and highlights an exemplar construct. The authors also specify the significant research outcomes associated with each trait category.

This review categorizes the 155 personality traits that have emerged in the management and psychology literature that describe personality beyond the Big Five. Based on these findings, this study proposes new avenues for future research and offers insights into the future of the field as the concept of personality has shifted in the 21st century.

The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the value of the MBA – a Master in Business Administration, considered the flagship of business and management education. The author aims to bridge the gap in the understanding of the possible added value of the MBA.

This conceptual paper is enriched by findings from secondary data, surveys with managers in the UK, and interviews with human resource managers of leading US firms.

The MBA can generate significant tangible and intangible inputs to graduates' careers and their employing organizations. Having an MBA contributes considerably to graduates' human capital. Employers may profit from such contributions, while an indirect positive effect is implied at the national level.

The knowledge of MBA impact should be based on rigor studies rather than unsupported assertions.

The MBA is the closest thing to a qualification to manage. It generates positive outcomes and lead to good management. For individuals, embarking on MBA is a major career decision, carrying certain risks, but offer high potential for return on investment.

This contribution is of special importance amid the recent criticism of the MBA by prominent management scholars.

This paper aims to explore the true sources of innovation that revolutionized two sports industries – skiing and tennis, tracking the flow of ideas and power of technology brokering through the eyes of the innovator, Howard Head.

Using a focal innovation action-set framework, the authors unite heretofore-disparate pieces of information to paint a more complete picture of the innovation and technology brokering process. Primary source material from Head’s patents, personal memoirs and journals and documented correspondence between him, his brother and his colleagues are augmented with secondary source material from periodicals, media excerpts and the academic literature.

Head stands as an exemplar example of a technology broker, both through his serial practice of recombinant innovation and his savvy exploitation of resources. Results discredit the Great Man Theory of Innovation, while emphasizing the importance of exploiting social capital to realize opportunities.

This paper is the first to offer detailed insight into the technology brokering and innovation processes that revolutionized the tennis and skiing industries. It is novel in that it is one of very few papers to challenge the Great Man Theory of Innovation propagated by many textbooks and mass media, explores the process of technology brokering from the broker’s perspective rather than organizationally and uses focal innovation action-set methodology to complement a historical biographical sketch of innovativeness relative to sports equipment and machines.

This study aims to present and test a model of small business owners’ adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lenses of the resource-based view of the firm, upper echelon theory (UET) and positive psychology. Specifically, it examined the relationships between personal characteristics and strategic pivot behavior in a sample of small business owners during a peak period of the crisis in Israel.

A sample (N = 202) of small business owners provided information on their business and demographics, and responded to questionnaires assessing their personality (Big Five personality traits), emotional intelligence (EI) and reported the extent to which they implemented strategic changes during the pandemic. These changes were categorized as “positive” (e.g. shifting to new markets, adding partners or investors) or “negative’ (e.g. letting employees go).

The results partially support an association between personality traits and “positive” strategic change behavior, mediated by EI.

The results suggest that business owners' personality traits, and chief among them – EI may play a key role in enabling flexibility when dealing with a long-term crisis or threat. However, market and legislative differences between markets may limit the generalizability to other sectors or countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to address small businesses’ COVID-19-related challenges from a personal-resource perspective by applying a theoretical lens integrating the RBV of the firm, UET and positive psychology. The findings provide a better understanding of the ways in which business owners’ personal resources account for business pivot behavior in times of crisis.