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From the start, organizational socialization has been all about learning. In fact, most definitions of organizational socialization are very explicit about this and the general notion that socialization involves learning “the ropes” of a particular organizational role (Fisher, 1986). Socialization has been described as a sense-making and learning process in which newcomers acquire a variety of types of information and knowledge to become effective members of the organization (Klein & Weaver, 2000).

In this study, the construct validity and effectiveness of a newly identified influence tactic, organizational appeal, is tested. Utilizing a sample of practicing professional accountants, study results show that organizational appeal is distinct from other influence tactics, is perceived to be used frequently by supervisors, and is effective at influencing subordinates. The organizational appeal influence tactic could be particularly useful in situations where accounting supervisors and managers use proactive tactics to influence others to complete tasks or make decisions; to influence outsiders (e.g., suppliers, clients, government agents) over whom they have little authority; and where other influence tactics are not effective or appropriate.

This chapter summarizes our current knowledge regarding use of managerial influence tactics in international settings, and reports the findings of a twelve-nation study on the relative effectiveness of different influence tactics in business organizations. Rational persuasion, consultation, collaboration and apprising were identified as effective tactics in all the countries. Giving gifts, socializing with the target, exerting pressure, and making influence attempts informally were rated low in effectiveness in all of the countries. Discriminant analysis confirmed that patterns of perceived effectiveness for the influence tactics can distinguish countries in a manner consistent with their known cultural values.

We examine how a firm’s market-oriented capabilities (in areas such as R&D or marketing) and consumer focus (business-to-business or business-to-consumer) foster its effectiveness in pursuing corporate political activities. We then explore the sustainability of any advantage that firms may gain from their political activities. We develop a conceptual framework to propose that a firm’s political capabilities to implement different political tactics, such as information provision and constituency building, are a product of how related these tactics are to different market-oriented capabilities and to the skills needed to serve different types of customers. Finally, we propose that the integration of market strategies and political strategies provides new insight into the sustainability of the advantages that a firm might gain through political activities.

The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.

This research aims at explaining the phenomenon of the “black children” (heihaizi), a very little-known generation who lived with concealment under the one-child policy in China. The one-child policy was officially introduced to nationwide at the end of 1979 by permitting per couple to have one child only, later modified to a second child allowed if the first was a girl in rural China in 1984. It was officially replaced by a nation-wide two-child policy and most existing research focused on the parents’ sufferings and policy changes. The term “black children” has been mainly used to describe their absence from their family hukou registration and education. However, this research aims at expanding the meaning of being “black” to explain the children who were concealed more than at the level of family formal registration, but also physical freedom and emotional bond. What we do not yet know are the details of their lived experiences from a day-to-day base: where did they live? How were they raised up? Who were involved? Who benefited from it and who did not? In this way, this research challenges the existing scholarship on the one-child policy and repositions the “black children” as primary victims, and reveals the family as a key figure in co-producing their diminished status with the support of state power. It is very important to understand these children’s loss of citizenship and human freedom from the inside of the family because they were concealed in so many ways away from public view and interventions. This research focuses on illustrating how their lack of access to continued, stabilized, and reciprocally recognized family interactions framed their very idea of self-worth and identity.

The current crisis in the mortgage securitization industry highlights significant failures in our models of how markets work and our political will, organizational capability, and ideological desire to intervene in markets. This article shows that one of the main sources of failure has been the lack of a coherent understanding of how these markets came into existence, how tactics and strategies of the principal firms in these markets have evolved over time, and how we ended up with the economic collapse of the main firms. It seeks to provide some insight into these processes by compiling both historical and quantitative data on the emergence and spread of these tactics across the largest investment banks and their principal competitors from the mortgage origination industry. It ends by offering some policy proscriptions based on the analysis.

The purpose of this cross-cultural study was to investigate whether the embraced national culture was a distinguishing factor of preferred downward influence tactics and targeted goals by principals of different countries. The participants of the study were the public school principals in Turkey and the United States, two culturally distinct countries. The conceptual framework for the study incorporated the Cultural Dimensions (CDs) of Hofstede and the Profiles of Organizational Influence Strategies (POIS) of Kipnis and Schmidt; two pioneers in their respective fields. The findings of the study supported Hofstede's framework for three of the four dimensions for both countries. By employing a pseudoetic cross-cultural research methodology and a relational causal-comparative research design, the study first tested the reliability and construct validity of POIS (Form S) influence tactics scale, both in the Turkish context and in the public education contexts of the two countries. The findings partially supported the applicability of POIS in both countries by yielding a three-factor model for the Turkish context and a four-factor model for the public education context. The multivariate analyses strongly supported literature in regards to the culture-specific nature of leadership influence practices, and it identified national culture as a significantly distinguishing factor of both Turkish and American principals in their preferred influence tactics. Similarly, national culture was also a significantly distinguishing factor of groups in principals' targeted educational goals.