Search results

This paper seeks to understand how a new elite, known as the cork aristocracy, emerged in the Bordeaux wine field, France, between 1850 and 1929 as wine merchants replaced aristocrats. Classic class and status perspectives, and their distinctive social closure dynamics, are mobilized to illuminate the individual and organizational transformations that affected elite wineries grouped in an emerging classification of the Bordeaux best wines. We build on a wealth of archives and historical ethnography techniques to surface complex status and organizational dynamics that reveal how financiers and industrialists intermediated this transition and how organizations are deeply interwoven into social change.

Goffman’s (1961) work on total institutions has been relatively neglected in the fields of organizational research. This paper compares the conceptions of obedience to authority in two different types of voluntary total institutions and how such conceptions affect interaction contrary to the aims of the organizations. Consequently, by addressing how conceptions of authority and constructions of the obedient self shape conditions for underlife, the analysis provides knowledge about the variety of ways in which total institutional authority works and contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms of organizational underlife.

Sociologists have long thought of the integration of people in communities – social integration – and hierarchical social systems – systemic integration – as contradictory goals. What strategies allow organizations to reconcile social and systemic integration? We examine this question through 40 in-depth, longitudinal interviews with leaders of nonprofit organizations that engage in the dual pursuit of social and systemic integration. Two processes reveal how the internal structure of organizations often mirrors the ways in which organizations are embedded in their local environments. When organizations engage in loose demographic coupling, relegating those who “match” the community to the work of social integration, they produce internal inequalities and justify them by claiming community building as sacred work. When engaging in community anchoring, organizations challenge internal and external inequalities simultaneously, but this process comes with costs. Our findings contribute to a constructivist understanding of community, the mechanisms by which organizations produce inequalities, and a place-based conception of organizations as embedded in community.

Despite being conjointly stronger in their synergies in the past, there is still a significant gap between management and organization studies and sociology. The temporal lag is also, on occasion, a substantive lag. The emergent sociological concept of emotional reflexivity has recently been used in organizational studies. The question that animates this contribution concerns the nature of this translation, reception, and extension; thus, we ask how organization studies have been using the sociological concept of emotional reflexivity? We will examine recent seminal sociological studies on emotional reflexivity to answer this inquiry and consider some organizational studies citing these. We describe the reception of sociological ideas of emotional reflexivity in management and organization studies literature. By analyzing the differences and disconnections produced within this discourse, it will be possible to understand that emotional reflexivity is rarely addressed in emotional encounters between people and other modes of being in modern organizations. We introduce narrative fiction as a method; the narrative focuses on the relationships between humans and other beings in the workplace dynamics of a vocational school. The story tells how Charlie, a deaf student, changed his life after entering the vocational school and becoming involved with different pedagogical teaching-learning strategies. Adopting two deaf dogs, which had both suffered from past unsuccessful adoption experiences, produced life-enhancing emotional reflexivity. We conclude with a research agenda scoping further directions.

Competitiveness is an important personality trait that has been studied in various disciplines and has been shown to predict critical work outcomes at the individual level. Despite this, the role of competitiveness in groups and teams has received scant attention amongst organizational researchers. Aiming to promote future research on the role of competitiveness as both an adaptive and maladaptive trait – particularly in the context of work – the authors review competitiveness and its effects on individual and team stress and Well-Being, giving special attention to the processes of cohesion and conflict and situational moderators. The authors illustrate a dynamic multilevel model of individual and team difference factors, competitive processes, and individual and team outcomes to highlight competitiveness as a consequential occupational stressor. Furthermore, the authors discuss the feedback loops that inform the different factors, highlight important avenues for future research, and offer practical solutions for managers to reduce unhealthy competition.

Organizations increasingly use knowledge arbitrage to stimulate innovation and achieve competitive advantage. However, in knowledge management its use in startups is yet unexplored. This study aims to examine the utilization of knowledge arbitrage by startups, specifically during COVID-19.

This study employed an open-ended essay methodology to explore the drivers and barriers that startups face in utilizing knowledge arbitrage. We collected data from 40 participants to understand the role of knowledge arbitrage in startups’ knowledge management practices.

This study’s findings highlight the significance of knowledge arbitrage for startups. The benefits identified include organizational benefits such as building networks, innovating new products and achieving competitive advantage and financial benefits such as cost reduction and sales growth. The study also identifies several technological and organizational drivers and barriers that startups confront during knowledge arbitrage.

This study contributes to the existing literature on knowledge management by extending our understanding of knowledge arbitrage’s role in startups. Additionally, it sheds light on the importance of knowledge arbitrage for startups and the challenges they face, particularly in a disrupted environment reared by COVID-19. The study provides insights for the scholars and practitioners interested in effective knowledge management in startups.

This study aims to investigate the impact of green marketing strategy (GMS) and firms’ decision to invest in or divest from green marketing activities during a crisis on business performance.

The study collected survey data from 245 Greek firms during the 2015 Eurozone crisis to investigate the impact of GMS and green marketing investments on firm resilience during crisis. Time-lagged, objective performance data for a subset of these firms helped examine the impact of GMS on postcrisis financial performance.

Pursuing a GMS builds resilience, especially for companies that decided not to reduce resources allocated to green marketing activities during a recession. Beyond resilience, firms investing in GMS during the crisis experienced improved financial performance in the long run. Finally, this research proposes a typology of GMS responses during a crisis.

This study does not specify which types of green marketing activities lead to more investment or divestment during a crisis.

The study offers insights for allocating resources to green marketing during recessions. Supporting GMSs during unpredictable times is important to successfully navigate performance both during and after a crisis. Six crisis response profiles are offered: green-nonbelievers, dis-investors, reluctants and cautious-, opportunistic- and strategic-green investors.

The study proposes a balanced approach to environmental sustainability, marketing strategy and firm performance during a crisis.

The study argues that GMSs enable firms to survive a crisis and recover from financial shocks.

Status distinctions matter among heterogeneous organizations within a socio-environmental field. This is exemplified in the food waste field, where six types of organizations employ different excess strategies to address the issue. Theoretically, we propose that status is constructed internally through advice relationships and externally through evaluations. We posit that organizations conducting evaluations and advocating legitimate principles based on expertise (i.e., Others) are status winners. Our mixed-method study confirms that Others hold privileged positions and identifies status inconsistencies. By critically illuminating these status dynamics, we contribute to a better understanding of the roles of organizations and status in tackling socio-environmental issues.