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Book part
Publication date: 23 September 2024

Bruno Luiz Americo, Stewart Clegg and Fagner Carniel

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…

Abstract

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.

Details

Sociological Thinking in Contemporary Organizational Scholarship
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83549-588-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 26 September 2024

Zanthippie Macrae and John E. Baur

The personalities of leaders have been shown to impact the culture of their organizations and are also expected to have a more distal impact on the firm’s financial performance…

Abstract

The personalities of leaders have been shown to impact the culture of their organizations and are also expected to have a more distal impact on the firm’s financial performance. However, the authors also expect that leader gender is an important intervening variable such that exhibiting various personality dimensions may result in unique cultural and performance-based outcomes for women and men leaders. Thus, the authors seek to examine first the impact of leader personality on organizational performance, as driven through organizational culture as a mediating mechanism. In doing so, the authors propose the expected impact of specific personality dimensions on certain types of organizational cultures, and those cultures’ subsequent impact on the organization’s performance. The authors then extend to consider the moderating effects of leader gender on the relationship between leader personality and organization. To support their propositions, the authors draw from upper echelons and implicit leadership theories. The authors encourage researchers to consider the proposition within a sample of the largest publicly traded US companies (i.e., Fortune 500) at an important era in history such that for the first time, 10% of these companies are led by women. In doing so, the authors hope to understand the leadership dynamics at the highest echelons of corporate governance and provide actionable insights for companies aiming to optimize their leadership composition and drive sustainable performance.

Details

Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-889-2

Keywords

Case study
Publication date: 24 April 2024

Jared D. Harris, Samuel L. Slover, Bradley R. Agle, George W. Romney, Jenny Mead and Jimmy Scoville

In early 2014, recent Stanford University graduate Tyler Shultz was in a quandary. He had been working at Theranos, a blood-diagnostic company founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a…

Abstract

In early 2014, recent Stanford University graduate Tyler Shultz was in a quandary. He had been working at Theranos, a blood-diagnostic company founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford-dropout wunderkind, for almost a year. Shultz had learned enough about the company to realize that its practices and the efficacy of its much-touted finger-prick blood-testing technology were questionable and that the company was going to great lengths to hide this fact from the public and from regulators.

Theranos and Holmes were Silicon Valley darlings, enjoying positive press and lavish attention from potential investors and technology titans alike. Just as companies like PayPal had revolutionized the stagnant payments industry and Uber had upended the for-hire transportation sector, Theranos had been positioned as the latest technology firm to substantially disrupt yet another mature sector: the medical laboratory business. By the start of 2014, the company had raised more than $400 million in funding, and had an estimated market valuation of $9 billion.

Shultz's situation was exacerbated by the fact that his grandfather, the highly respected former US Secretary of State George Shultz, was on the Theranos board and was one of Elizabeth Holmes's biggest supporters.

But Tyler Shultz worried about the customers he was convinced were receiving highly unreliable and often inaccurate blood-test results. With so much at stake, Shultz wondered how he should proceed. Should he raise his concerns with the firm's investors? Blow the whistle externally? Report to industry regulators? Go away quietly?

This case and its subsequent four brief follow-up cases are based largely on interviews with Tyler Shultz, and outline the dilemma he faced and the various steps he would take both to extricate himself from his unsavory position and let the public know the full extent of the deception at Theranos.

Five optional handouts are available to instructors to further discussion after the case has been debriefed. The handouts serve as additional decision points for the students if your class time permits.

Book part
Publication date: 24 June 2024

Ronald Paul Hill and Girish Ramani

There are multiple threats that cause consumers to be vulnerable in the marketplace, with poverty being a leading cause. Impoverishment often negatively impacts access to multiple…

Abstract

There are multiple threats that cause consumers to be vulnerable in the marketplace, with poverty being a leading cause. Impoverishment often negatively impacts access to multiple categories of goods and services that consumers require to experience a reasonable quality of life. While there is research that explores the underlying factors that lead to resource deficits and marketplace restrictions, as well as their physical and emotional outcomes, an understanding of what is necessary to survive and thrive across societies is more elusive. To this end, our chapter carefully examines the concept of consumption adequacy (CA), which historically captures consumer needs for food and potable water, socially acceptable clothing adapted to weather conditions, safe housing that provides for privacy needs of occupants, preventative and remedial health care, and opportunities to grow and advance through education and training. After briefly summarizing the extant literature, each is described in turn, and ways of empirically investigating them across societies are advanced. This chapter closes with both marketer and public policy implications.

Abstract

Details

Fractal Leadership
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-108-4

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