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Focusing on the individual unit of analysis, we explore how workplace identification can explain why individuals engage in unethical behavior that benefits an organization (unethical pro-organizational behavior; UPB). Social identity theory (SIT) stipulates that we want membership within high status organizations and, at extreme levels, may put the organization’s needs above all else. In taking a holistic approach to identification, we investigated how a strong occupational identification can mitigate this desire to unethically help an organization; occupations are a separate identity source and contain codes of conduct that guide ethical behavior. Utilizing a sample of 236 accountants and financial professionals, results indicated that organizational identification and occupational identification alone did not significantly predict UPB, however, the interaction of these identities did. More specifically, organizational identification significantly positively predicted UPB only when occupational identification was extremely low in strength. This effect was found after controlling for relevant personality and cognitive mechanisms related to unethical behavior. Implications for a multidimensional identification view of unethical behavior are discussed.

This second chapter provides a useful backdrop for understanding innovation beyond the conventional focus on mainstream technology and science by detailing the conceptual underpinnings of cultural innovation. First, the challenges of objectively assessing the worth of novel work in the various fields of art and architecture are explored through the philosophical views of beauty. Second, the strategies and models deployed over time by artists, patrons, and experts to characterize the merits of novelty in the creative fields are reviewed. Third, the economic principles that have been used to frame the value propositions associated with cultural innovations as articulated by cultural economists are explored.

The scientific literature on career counseling has been amassing, over more than 100 years, a vast collection of theories, models and approaches to career design, construction, and development. However, neither theories, nor research or practice concerning career issues, have consistently produced scientifically valid, socially just, or individually adjusted responses. This is especially salient when it comes to migration cases, which are by nature complex and diversified, and even more so when applied to refugees whose integration depends on models and strategies that are culturally sensitive. This chapter pursues a comprehensive review of existing models of career guidance and their supporting research and applies them to the specific needs of refugees. It also provides suggestions for intervention that address this issue in a culturally sensitive manner. In this vein, the authors present an example of the international project Live2Work, aimed at increasing the chances for successful integration of people in situations of professional vulnerability.

We discuss recent methodological advances in the NK modeling in the Strategy literature and analyze issues related to its current use including different implementation algorithms, relative versus absolute performance, establishing significance of simulation results and long- versus short-term performance measurements. To facilitate cross-pollination of ideas, we point to advances and extensions of the model developed in other fields that could be effectively utilized to answer Strategy-related questions. These include modeling the strength of interaction, varying the importance of decision elements, utilizing alternative functional forms, incorporating endogeneity in N and K parameters and embedding the NK model in a broader dynamic framework.

While recent research has referred to a cognitive view on “business modelling,” it remains unclear in specifying the cognitive foundations of how such modelling happens. This paper proposes building on heuristics as models of individual cognition, which have proved effective foundations of adaptive individual and managerial behaviors. By also drawing on gestalt theory to specify principles of modelling as rule-based form giving, we propose business modelling as a managerial cognitive process of configuring heuristics. The paper makes three contributions. First, we introduce heuristics to the business modelling literature and so provide an established theory of adaptive individual behavior that strengthens the cognitive foundations of business modelling. Second, we conceptualize and theorize on the cognitive activity of business modelling as an iterative process of configuring heuristics by applying gestalt principles. Although the literature on business models has referred to the theories of configurations and gestalt, it has been left to this work to make the theoretical linkages between heuristics, gestalt theory and business modelling explicit. Third, our work contributes to the micro-foundations of the cognitive processes underlying business modelling and thus to broader accounts of adaptive managerial behaviors.

This chapter analyzes the extent to which more experienced employers, arbitrators, and attorneys fare better in securities industry arbitration. Although studies into experience have identified a so-called repeat-player effect on outcomes, I argue that more nuanced considerations of experience are required.

I empirically analyze all employment arbitration awards from the securities system’s inception through 2008. I separate experience into two categories (between- and within-group effects) and run hybrid random- and fixed-effects regressions modeling increasing employer, attorney, and arbitrator experience on arbitration outcomes.

I find that between-group experience affects awards but that within-group experience is nonsignificant, except in civil rights cases. This implies that so-called repeat players gain an advantage over inexperienced players due to their entity-specific characteristics, not necessarily by learning to use the system to their advantage. I conclude that, although the securities arbitration system suffers from power imbalances, there is little evidence of systemic exploitation by firms.

Prior studies into employment arbitration are limited both by their definitions of experience and by their methodological approaches. I overcome these issues by employing a novel methodological approach to measure between- and within-entity experience, which adds a more multifaceted and nuanced framework to the literature than the common repeat-player versus single-player dichotomy.

This research presents a comprehensive explanation of unethical pro-organisational behaviour (UPB), an emerging phenomenon in organisational behaviour and especially in moral behaviour research. The authors tested the fit of Culture-Identification-Ideology-UPB moral behaviour model. The results indicate that individuals having strong organisational identification and high relativism ethical ideology may indulge in the practice of UPB. Interestingly, our study also reveals that strong ethical organisational culture may not restrain, rather may facilitate UPB. The authors concluded with suggestions for the practitioners and future scope of research.

The way organizations cope with uncertainty in strategic decision making is prominently discussed. Concepts such as heuristics and simple rules are gaining increasing attention in strategic management research. However, despite their importance, little is known how heuristics and simple rules operate. Our qualitative study reveals that, first, strategic decisions consist of three basic elements: single rules, rule patterns, and emotional handling. Second, we find that firms develop generalizable rule patterns which follow a sequential order of inter-linked rules. Based on the findings we introduce the concept of organizational heuristics as inter-linked rule patterns drawing on organizational experience.