Contemporary organizational activities are increasingly intertwined with legal considerations. Research across multiple disciplines suggests that organizations do not merely comply with the law, but engage in ‘legal and regulatory entrepreneurship’, wherein they strategically exploit the law to secure advantages. Such organizational actions are significant because they impact not only firm-level outcomes but also the broader legal landscape by influencing legislation, legal precedents, or interpretations of compliance. Yet, existing research in this domain remains fragmented across diverse paradigms and disciplines, hindering systematic scholarly inquiry. In this review―drawing on 509 publications and working papers from management, sociology, law, economics, and political science―we identify ten primary organizational tactics of legal and regulatory entrepreneurship. We then describe how organizations use each tactic, and present the key conditions that enable their use. Next, we place these tactics within a framework of intended targets―legislative, regulatory, and judicial authorities―and articulate the specific responses they elicit. This emergent framework demonstrates how organizational legal and regulatory entrepreneurship can affect the acting organizations and ultimately reshape the law itself, thereby generating broader economic and legal consequences.
We review the literature (n 5 184) on "socially oriented informal organizational communication"-informal, discretionary, social communication that occurs outside formal organizational channels and that does not convey information core to purposeful action-to synthesize existing work and present an agenda for future research. Although informal social communication makes up about two-thirds of conversations and is the "social glue" of the workplace, it is often treated as a disruptive or negative force and is a taken-for-granted part of most work activities. This "backstage" category of workplace communication is ripe for a review and synthesis: we have witnessed a proliferation of various forms of informal communication from a diverse set of disciplines; informal communication has demonstrated significant, yet inconsistent and even competing, impacts on employee outcomes; and some of the most significant workplace trends and disruptions are affecting employees' "in between" interactions. This calls for taking stock of the conceptual landscape to differentiate forms, features, functions, and implications of informal communication for employees to help move the literature forward theoretically and methodologically. We discuss conceptualizations and dimensions of informal communication; present a framework to organize, unify, and advance the literature; and unpack how it influences inter- and intrapersonal mechanisms and production outcomes. We also extend this review and framework to guide directions for future research and practice.
Cultural entrepreneurship-that is, the cultural dynamics of entrepreneurship, innovation, and change-has attracted significant interest across business, sociology, and creative industries scholarship. However, these disciplines have evolved along separate trajectories, each establishing its own distinct research tradition. This fragmentation has hindered the development of an integrative understanding of how culture shapes, and is shaped by, entrepreneurial action. Drawing on 301 publications spanning over 40 years, we develop a framework that unites three distinct traditions of cultural entrepreneurship research focused on the mobilization, production, and expression of culture. We argue that these traditions, though developed separately, share a fundamental interest in the cultural means and processes that explain the becoming of new possibilities-that is, how novel ideas, products, and organizations come into being and gain recognition. By systematizing the outcomes that each tradition prioritizes and revealing their interconnections, we expose how entrepreneurial action draws on, transforms, and expresses culture. This integration offers a comprehensive understanding of culture as both the medium and outcome of entrepreneurial action, as actors work toward the realization of new possibilities.
Organizational structure is conceptualized as an enduring and persistent configuration of activities related to how work is divided and integrated within organizations. Yet, a growing body of research has investigated why and how organizational structures change. Initially, these questions were investigated using a macro-oriented approach and generated insights about organizational structure change in response to top-down initiatives designed to align the structure with changes in the environment or strategy. However, an increasing number of studies have investigated additional factors that prompt or inhibit structure change (e.g., founder imprinting, turnover) and the nuances of the change process (e.g., bottom-up effects of employee behavior). Thus, conversations about organizational structure change are shifting from alignment to adaptation, and from describing the nature of a change event to unpacking the change process. As these emergent insights expand and challenge understanding of why and how organizational structures change, it is necessary to take stock and construct a more comprehensive knowledge base for the domain. Accordingly, we synthesize the research on organizational structure change, uncover underlying and facilitating mechanisms, and advance a unifying framework. We also offer multiple avenues for future research to address unresolved areas and accelerate novel theoretical development by using a micro-oriented approach.
Institutions are central components of organizational and managerial life, and powerfully influence how individuals think, feel, and act toward one another in society. Because of their recognized importance, management and organizational scholars continue to wrestle with understanding core institutional trust dynamics. We review and extend past work on this issue by using a multi-disciplinary analysis of the institutional trust literature to focus on the important role that institutional logics play in institutional trust formation. Drawing on diverse disciplinary literatures, we identify four cognitive frames that stakeholders use to evaluate the trustworthiness of institutions. Building on this work, we distinguish three categories of mechanisms through which institutions engender trust. Following our review, we examine how the perspectives outlined here can be used to refine and extend research in this area by analyzing the impacts of contexts, multilevel influences, and competing logics on stakeholders' institutional trust evaluations.
Social information processing theory is a well-known perspective that is used across a variety of domains, including leadership, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, and more. Despite being formulated nearly 50 years ago, this perspective has gained momentum of late and is being applied with greater frequency in the management domain. However, the question remains as to how current applications and knowledge align with the original tenets of social information processing theory. In this paper, we seek to answer this question. Via a close reading of seminal articles and a review of the extant literature, we document three troubling trends: a historical drift in how the theory has been applied, theoretical imprecision when using the theory, and forgotten elements of the original theory. In response, we present a simplified model of social information processing theory, which restores the central focus of job attitudes as the primary outcome and emphasizes that the social context and past behaviors are key predictors. We also document how the field can apply this theory more effectively and outline future directions.
Nationalism impacts contemporary organizations in diverse ways that extend beyond global politics, international relations, or economics. Based on an integrative theoretical review of nationalism in management and organization research, we identify six approaches across three level of analysis. At the micro level, nationalism is reflected in individuals' (1) cultural (dis)association with one or several nations and (2) identity construction and identity work. At the meso level, nationalism can be found in (3) intraorganizational practices and norms and in (4) interorganizational relations and strategies. At the macro level, nationalism can be seen as part of (5) economic policies and structures and of (6) political rhetoric and media discourses. On this basis, we develop an integrative theoretical framework that illuminates the multifaceted and dynamic nature of nationalism across levels of analysis. We also propose an agenda for future research that focuses on blank spots in prior research and zooms in on connections between different levels. This includes research on varieties and constructions of nationalism, new forms and implications of nationalism in global organizations, populism and mediatization of nationalism, and epistemological and ethico-political issues in studying nationalism and contemporary organizations.
Systems perspectives portray social phenomena as dynamic wholes in which emergent outcomes arise from interdependent interactions among varied types of elements that span multiple levels of analysis. In doing so, they offer an alternative paradigm for understanding and studying core themes in organization and management research that challenges the linear approaches that have dominated our field. Our integrative review distinguishes three main types of systems perspectives (foundational, structural, and substantive) and shows how they can be used to conceptualize phenomena, empirically investigate or simulate them, and develop theoretical explanations for their dynamics and outcomes. To help organization and management research harness the full potential of systems perspectives, we highlight the value of shifting from ceremonial to meaningful use, identify phenomena for which systems perspectives are most relevant and needed, offer suggestions for navigating challenges in meaningful use of systems perspectives, and call for scholars to incorporate insights from other academic disciplines and outside Western science.
Temporal patterns-recurring sequences of events, activities, and behaviors in organizations that shape how time is organized and experienced-are fundamental to understanding organizational dynamics. Yet, their conceptualization in management studies remains fragmented, with diverse terminology and theoretical approaches hindering the integration of research findings. This review synthesizes the literature by identifying four distinct perspectives on temporal patterns: dictating, entraining, enacting, and reconceiving. Each perspective offers unique insights into how temporal patterns influence organizational dynamics. We unpack implicit theoretical tensions around agency, axiology, innovation, and ontology through what we term "temporal reflection." poral competence, and temporal (un)bridging. These convergent themes offer opportunities for theoretical integration and future research. Our review provides a holistic framework for understanding temporal patterns in management studies while identifying promising directions for cross-disciplinary dialogue and investigation.
Creativity and affect (moods and emotions) are inherently and intimately connected, and management research has broadly acknowledged that affective states influence creative outcomes. Despite increasing research attention, the field lacks a systematic understanding of the affect-creativity link. Moreover, although the literature increasingly views both affect and creativity as dynamic social processes, this view is not reflected in our current understanding of their relationship. Disciplinary research silos further complicate this issue. We aim to address these concerns and provide an integrative and multidisciplinary review of the affectcreativity link, moving scholarship toward a dynamic social process view of the link. We critically examine 294 empirical studies published since 2008 across various disciplines, including organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, marketing, and psychology. We review this work along four quadrants of a 2 3 2 framework (outcome-oriented vs. process-oriented research 3 within-creator vs. socially oriented research) to uncover the dynamic relations between affective states and creativity, along with their profoundly social nature. We subsequently integrate this work to propose our overarching dynamic social process framework of the affect-creativity link, the creativity and affect as social processes (CASP) framework. The CASP framework emphasizes that the influence of affect on creative outcomes is mediated by three complementary pathways and best understood as a function of both affective states and creative processes under consideration. Additionally, it highlights that social factors are critical in fully understanding the reciprocal and dynamic relationship between affect and creativity.
