Search results

Purpose – This study is intended to extend scholarship on the management of organizations by examining the long-term performance of orphaned products.

Design/methodology/approach – This study uses the historical context of the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression to examine the long-run appeal (performance) of orphaned products – products from start-ups that fail soon after production. I use this setting to determine how factors within the purview of management, as well as the role of changing tastes, affect the appeal of music from short-lived start-ups founded in 1929 and 1933.

Findings/originality/value – I find that while the evolution of tastes has a substantial effect beyond the control of a firm's managers, a start-up's decision-makers were able to positively influence the long-run appeal of music when they (a) recorded tunes with new artists and (b) were able to create an early big hit with the tune. These results demonstrate how and why, even with cultural producers in one of the greatest economic disasters in U.S. history, managerial decisions were meaningful for product performance. Finally, I show that the effect of being a start-up on the long-run appeal of a tune is time-varying such that being a start-up in 1929 or 1933 does not harm a tune's appeal until after World War II. These final analyses point to further ways in which strategy, history, and sociology might combine to further scholarship on the management of organizations.

We explore how the long-run success of cultural products is affected by the identities of the product's originators and early adopters. Using U.S. jazz recordings from 1920 to 1929, we found that songs were more likely to be later covered from 1944 to 2004 if they followed a pattern of having black originators and white early adopters. Moreover, we provide evidence that this pattern is independent of a song's commercial success, resources available to a song's originators, and group-level indicators such as size and experience. We conclude that late adopters (musicians after World War II (WWII)) were attracted to songs that followed a narrative of both “lowbrow” origins and early adoption by those considered “highbrow” with respect to jazz. The findings also support a new means for considering the role of identities as the building blocks of genres, in particular, and categories more generally.

We propose that the ambiguity of discourse around a category – rather than being problematic – improves the longevity of that category. This is especially true in the creative industries. Using methods and theories drawn from sociology and art history, we tested this thesis using swing as a case study. Based on three years of archival research we found 70 co-existing definitions of swing and 89 different uses of the term. These multiple meanings enabled various understandings to come in and out of focus over time, contributing to swing’s longevity. Our findings extend to other categories within the creative industries.

The “categorization as a theoretical tool” framework is delineated to clarify how innovation is possible even though candidates for exchange face a “categorical imperative” – pressure from their audience to adopt the conventional practices associated with existing categories. The key insight is that categorization is generally a useful tool for sorting and screening exchange opportunities. This insight is developed to suggest how the nature of the imperative varies with the audience’s objectives and the theory of value it espouses and how the strength of the imperative varies with the social challenges and opportunities for engaging in, and learning from, experiments with unconventionality.

This study investigates whether exposure to a previous client’s earnings management behavior will impact experienced auditors’ judgments of the risk that a current client’s financial statements are materially misstated. Contrast theory predicts the context of previous information can have a priming effect on a current judgment scenario, where the information for the current judgment is contrasted with the previous information. Guided by contrast theory, we exposed auditors to either positive or negative client ethical earnings management behavior. We found the existence of contrast effects, with the positive (negative) context of the previous client resulting in auditors judging a higher (lower) likelihood of material misstatement in the current client’s financial statements. The results have implications for the effectiveness and efficiency of auditors’ judgments as well as provide insight into auditor training efforts.

Power and domination once occupied center stage in organizational sociology. But as the field developed, the concept of power was marginalized and its overall significance for the drama of organization life neglected. Normative critiques of domination were recast as puzzles of obedience to authority, while scholars wishing to study the concrete workings of power regimes found themselves groping in the shadows. In this introduction, we advocate putting power and domination back on the agenda. Following the lead of classical theorists of power, we argue that organizations should be seen as scenes of struggles and as political projects to be constantly achieved and reconstructed. We critique structural and abstract perspectives that neglect the constant engagement of people in the negotiation of rules, meanings, and destinies. And we survey novel ideas that can help us to see power not as an abstract entity but as a pattern of interactions and social relationships that is instantiated in specific projects of domination and resistance. It is through this lens that power studies can be reinvigorated.