Search results

Coalitions are informal and interdependent groups of actors operating within organizations, yet their effects in organizations are not widely understood. In this paper, we develop a model of coalition formation and functioning inside organizations. By extrapolating the behavioral intentions (i.e., altruistic or antagonistic) and compositional differences (i.e., supplementary or complementary) among these informal group structures, we classify coalitions into four forms (i.e., lobby, cartel, circle, and alliance), theorizing how each coalition form affects work role innovation, resource allocations, and work performance. Our conceptualization helps clarify previous theoretical inconsistencies and establish an agenda for the study of coalitions at work. Furthermore, this paper provides insights into the ways that coalitions support or impede the organization’s objectives.

Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers who capably steer organizations toward opportunities and away from threats. Accordingly, leadership development has never been more critical. In this chapter, the authors propose that leader development is an inherently dyadic process initiated to communicate formal and informal expectations. The authors focus on the informal component, in the form of organizational politics, as an element of leadership that is critical to employee and company success. The authors advocate that superiors represent the most salient information source for leader development, especially as it relates to political dynamics embedded in work systems. The authors discuss research associated with our conceptualization of dyadic political leader development (DPLD). Specifically, the authors develop DPLD by exploring its conceptual underpinnings as they relate to sensemaking, identity, and social learning theories. Once established, the authors provide a refined discussion of the construct, illustrating its scholarly mechanisms that better explain leader development processes and outcomes. The authors then expand research in the areas of political skill, political will, political knowledge, and political phronesis by embedding our conceptualization of DPLD into a political leadership model. The authors conclude by discussing methodological issues and avenues of future research stemming from the development of DPLD.

This chapter analyzes the ways that individuals develop person-to-group ties. The chapter reviews the development and evidentiary basis of the theory of relational cohesion, the affect theory of social exchange, and the theory of social commitments.

We survey twenty-five years of published literature on these theories, and review unpublished theoretical tests and extensions that are currently in progress.

The research program has grown substantially over the past twenty-five years to encompass more varied and diverse phenomena. The findings indicate that structural interdependencies, repeated exchanges, and a sense of shared responsibility are key conditions for people to develop affective ties to groups, organizations, and even nation-states.

The research implies that if people are engaged in joint tasks, they attribute positive or negative feelings from those tasks to their local groups (teams, departments) and/or to larger organizations (companies, communities). To date, empirical tests have focused on microlevel processes.

Our work has practical implications for how managers or supervisors organize tasks and work routines in a way to maximize group or organizational commitment.

This research helps to understand problems of fragmentation that are faced by decentralized organizations and also how these can be overcome.

The chapter represents the most complete and comprehensive review of the theory of relational cohesion, the affect theory of social exchange, and the theory of social commitments to date.

Purpose: As biomedicine grants technology and quantification privileged roles in our cultural constructions of health, media and technology play an increasingly important role in mediating our everyday experiences of our bodies and may contribute to the reproduction of gendered norms.

Design: This study draws from a broad variety of disciplines to contextualize and interpret contemporary trends in self-quantification, focusing on metrics for health and fitness. I will also draw from psychology and feminist scholarship on objectification and body-surveillance.

Findings: I interpret body-tracking tools as biomedical technologies of self-surveillance that facilitate and encourage control of human bodies, while solidifying demands for standardization around neoliberal values of enhancement and optimization. I also argue that body-tracking devices reinforce and normalize the scrutiny of human bodies in ways that may reproduce and advance longstanding gender disparities in detriment of women.

Implications: A responsible conceptualization, design, implementation, and usage of health-tracking technologies requires us to recognize and better understand how technologies with widely touted benefits also have the potential to reinforce and extend inequalities, alter subjective experiences and produce damaging outcomes, especially among certain groups. I conclude by proposing some alternatives for devising technologies or encouraging practices that are sensitive to these differences and acknowledge the validity of alternative values.

This chapter draws on developmental intergroup theory, parental ethnic-racial socialization literature, anti-bias curricula, and prejudice intervention studies to address the appropriateness of discussing race and racism in early childhood settings. Existing literature about teacher discussions surrounding race and racism is reviewed, best practices are shared, and the need for more research in this area is highlighted. The construct of parental ethnic-racial socialization is mapped onto early childhood anti-bias classroom practices. The chapter also outlines racial ideologies of teachers, specifically anti-bias and colorblind attitudes, and discusses how these ideologies may manifest in classroom practices surrounding race and racism. Colorblind ideology is problematized and dissected to show that colorblind practices may harm children. Young children’s interpretations of race and racism, in light of children’s cognitive developmental level, are discussed. Additionally, findings from racial prejudice intervention studies are applied to teaching. Early literacy practices surrounding race and racism are outlined with practical suggestions for teachers and teacher educators. Moreover, implications of teacher practices surrounding race and racism for children’s development, professional development, and teacher education are discussed.

The potential advantage of extreme value theory in modeling management phenomena is the central theme of this paper. The statistics of extremes have played only a very limited role in management studies despite the disproportionate emphasis on unusual events in the world of managers. An overview of this theory and related statistical models is presented, and illustrative empirical examples provided.

This chapter revisits and extends the multiple-source, multiple-object theory of legitimacy in organizations. It introduces the idea of legitimized regimes and uses it to extend the theory’s range beyond the usual focus on power and domination. The theory describes mechanisms that: (1) establish the legitimacy of new or contested regimes; and (2) facilitate the spread of legitimacy to structures and processes that lie outside organizational boundaries. The chapter uses current affirmative action debates to illustrate the mechanisms under study. The work concludes with a summary that includes discussion of prospects for research on extensions of the multiple-source, multiple-object theory.

In this paper, I show how a consideration of legitimacy processes is of theoretical use in addressing two current issues in status research. First, I investigate under what conditions the contrast between the sex composition of a work group and the sex composition of an organization’s authority structure may trigger the salience of gender status in task groups. I argue that this contrast will make gender status salient when an evaluation from an authority figure outside the group creates inconsistency and uncertainty in the current status structure within the group. Delegitimation of a superior is one such process that produces this inconsistency and uncertainty. Second, I examine under what conditions status position compared to identity will more likely stimulate behavior among work group members. I argue that the legitimation of the superior and the group’s status order reduce the likelihood that group members will pursue status inconsistent, identity behaviors. Delegitimation, however, increases opportunities for acting in identity consistent ways and reduces the costs for doing so, thus enhancing the likelihood of identity-based behaviors.

Purpose: This chapter problematizes the philosophical origins of direct funding models in a normative conception of independence that ignores and obscures the fundamentally relational nature of care work.

Approach: The study adopts a reflexive ethnographic methodological approach. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 19 participants variously involved with direct-funded attendant services (disabled “self-managers,” “attendant” employees, other members of self-managers’ support networks, and program staff). Additional data sources included the author's reflexive journaling and publicly available policy and program materials. The present analysis interrogated the impact of systemic constraints (i.e., limited funding) on the organization and management of attendant services.

Findings: The data illuminate how systemic constraints draw the interests of self-managers and attendants into tension, despite the affective relationality of the work they do together. The findings present four strategies self-managers adopt to maximize support hours, including: splitting shifts, strategic hiring, dynamic resource management, and supplementing remuneration. These findings suggest it is not vulnerability to each other that represents an ongoing concern for self-managers and attendants, so much as exploitation by a system that capitalizes on the oppression of both groups.

Implication/ Value: Disabled people and care workers have been and continue to be constructed as opposing interest groups. However, there is great potential in disabled people and care workers joining a united front to lobby for their common, often interrelated interests. Direct funding models are an important evolution of support services, but where they fail to attend to the relational nature of care work, we must continue to pursue more inclusive solutions.