How managers make go/no-go choices on radical innovation projects when outcome probabilities cannot be credibly estimated remains a persistent puzzle for innovation research. Existing research explains project selection in terms of analytics, heuristics, and bias against novelty, but says less about the goals that guide choice when both data and learned cues become weak. We develop a theory of goal-shifting in radical innovation selection under high uncertainty. As organizational outcome criteria such as profitability, strategic fit, and feasibility become less diagnostic, managers experience a loss of task control and reweight their decisions toward detached personal process goals—such as learning, sensation-seeking, empire-building, or blame avoidance—that remain attainable regardless of project success. This reweighting is amplified by need for cognitive closure. We extend the argument to teams by showing how members’ detached personal goals can point toward the same choice, and how shared closure-seeking can intensify team-level goal-shifting, whereas divergence can buffer against it. Organizational cultures that converge members on defensive or risk-seeking goals, and decision-speed pressures that raise collective closure-seeking, further amplify these dynamics. The theory contributes to innovation research by shifting attention from how managers choose to what goals their choices serve when uncertainty is high. It also explains when uncertainty amplifies or attenuates bias against novelty and recasts rigor in radical innovation selection as organizationally accountable reasoning rather than accurate forecasting.

Despite growing evidence that family life spills over into the workplace, little is known about how family rituals relate to employee behaviors at work. Drawing on interaction ritual chains theory, we develop a dual pathway-moderated mediation model linking family rituals to employee change-oriented behaviors. We propose that family rituals are positively associated with employee change-oriented behaviors via the resource pathway (emotional resources and vigor at work) but negatively associated with them via the motivation pathway (family identity salience and family motivation). Additionally, employees' need for social inclusion strengthened both mediation pathways. Results from a multisource, time-lagged survey of 465 employees and 240 supervisors supported our model. We discussed theoretical implications for the literature on family rituals and change-oriented behaviors, as well as practical implications for organizations and managers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The core role of leadership is to mobilize and motivate members for pursuits that serve the organization's purpose, such as organizational strategy. The concept of meaning-based leadership, leader advocacy of the meaning organizational purpose gives to the work, was proposed in recognition of this role. We study the indirect influence of team leader meaning-based leadership on team strategy implementation (efforts to put organizational strategy into practice) as it is mediated by team value alignment - team similarity with top management in perceptions of organizational values. We propose that higher-level meaning-based leadership - the meaning-based leadership from the team leader's direct superior - moderates the influence of team leader meaning-based leadership: team leader meaning-based leadership is a stronger influence on team value alignment and, mediated by team value alignment, team strategy implementation with more higher-level meaning-based leadership. We found support for this research model in a survey of N = 421 teams from an energy company.

Relational demography research focuses on how status differences among dissimilar team members influence their interactions. Team diversity research focuses on the performance of diverse teams. We integrate these two bodies of work to change the way in which team diversity is conceptualized by explicitly considering the relative status of members of diverse teams as well as the attributes of the status hierarchy within those teams. Team members' social identity management strategies-their ways of dealing with status differences-affect the likelihood that team processes engender information elaboration, thus affecting team performance. We elucidate why status has an impact on team processes (a) due to the implications of the strategies team members use to gain and maintain status and (b) as a consequence of the proportion of lower and higher status members in the team. In conjunction with explicating our model, we discuss the efficacy of moderators of the relationship between team diversity and performance as well as implications for research on faultlines. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Vision communication is considered the primary tool of leaders to develop, shape, and activate collective selves in followers. Much is written about visions, less is studied, and even less is well-studied. In 2014, van Knippenberg and Stam conducted a first review of the literature on visionary leadership, concluding that much less was known of visionary leadership than had been assumed, and that major changes in methods and conceptualizations were necessary for the field to move forward. In this chapter, the authors take stock of work on visionary leadership since the publication of the 2014 review. They find that visionary leadership has become a very popular construct, traveling well beyond the realm of leadership and to the far corners of the world. Moreover, although much of the work on visionary leadership can still be considered as using weak methods, strong studies and theorizing are certainly on the rise. This provides a hopeful image of the future for a field that dedicates itself to studying just that.

Individual creativity is crucial for organizations, driving research into its determinants. Although studies have explored how individual traits and situational factors interact to influence creativity, our understanding of how situational variables themselves interact in moderating trait–creativity relationships is incomplete. Complementing research showing that situational variables can have mutually enhancing effects in moderating trait–creativity relationships, we argue that situational variables can also substitute for each other’s influence when they are functionally equivalent, such that the influence of the one on the trait–creativity relationship is weaker at higher levels of the other—a phenomenon we call situation substitution. Based on person-in-situation theory and the notion of functional equivalence, we examine how job autonomy and job information–processing requirements interact to moderate the proactive personality–creativity relationship. Results from a sample of 299 subordinate-supervisor dyads show that autonomy and information processing have similar trait-activating effects in the proactive personality–creativity relationships, such that they substitute for each other’s influence (i.e., the moderating effect of the one is weaker at higher levels of the other). Our study underscores the inter-connection of situational interactions and highlights the importance of understanding these dynamics for fostering creativity in organizations.

Leaders play a pivotal role in organizational functioning, underscoring the importance of understanding the factors that shape their behaviour. Yet prior research on boundary-crossing experiences has largely emphasized their harmful consequences for leader behaviour, resulting in a fragmented, harm-dominated understanding that overlooks positive, adaptive processes. Drawing on work-family border theory and the dual-pathway model, we integrate passive emotional and adaptive cognitive pathways, suggesting that after-hours work interruptions evoke both negative affect and task reflexivity, which in turn lead to dysfunctional (abusive supervision) and functional (initiating structure) leader behaviours the following day. Furthermore, we propose that two related individual differences-boundary flexibility-ability and boundary flexibility-willingness-strengthen the positive relationship between after-hours work interruptions and task reflexivity, while attenuating the relationship between after-hours work interruptions and negative affect. Across two experience-sampling studies, we found support for these hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our research for work interruptions experienced during off-work time and leader behaviours at work.

Scholars have proposed that visionary leadership can be a particularly effective tool to motivate follower innovation. However, while they have also long recognized that autonomy is essential for individuals engaged in innovative activities, the role of autonomy for those who aim to guide others toward innovation has thus far been overlooked. In this research, we draw on the respective literatures on visionary leadership and innovation to argue that the extent to which leaders can use visionary leadership to motivate innovation depends on the leader's decision-making autonomy—that is, the leader's latitude to make important decisions. In a three-wave, supervisor-employee field study and an experimental vignette study, we find support for our prediction that visionary leadership is positively related to follower extra effort and, in turn, innovation, but that these links are contingent on the leader's decision-making autonomy. Overall, our research identifies an important contingency factor for visionary leadership's ability to motivate follower innovation by showing that such leadership is more effective when leaders have higher, rather than lower, decision-making autonomy.

Voice, defined as employees' expression of ideas with an intention to improve team or organizational functioning, is often directed to their immediate leader. This makes the quality of the leader-member relationship-conceptualized as leader-member exchange (LMX)-a key predictor of voice. However, research has largely overlooked the fact that the influence of one's LMX is also shaped by the LMX relationships that others have with the same leader. Drawing on the social identity perspective, we propose two ways in which the LMX of others can shape the LMX-voice relationship: (a) LMX similarity (i.e., similar LMX quality between the focal employee and team members) emphasizes a shared collective identity, thereby motivating voice; and (b) LMX positive dissimilarity (i.e., having a better LMX relationship than others) highlights a unique relational identity with the leader, which may also motivate voice. We further argue that leader group prototypicality-the extent to which the leader is seen as embodying the team's collective identity-moderates which of these dynamics is more salient in predicting voice. These interactive effects are expected to be more pronounced for prohibitive voice (suggestions to discontinue a practice) than for promotive voice (suggestions to improve work practices), as the former entails greater social risk and thus depends more heavily on social identity considerations. Using multilevel polynomial regression and response surface analyses on field data of 321 leader-member dyads nested in 47 teams, we found support for most of our predictions.

The social identity theory of leadership is a unique perspective in leadership research that captures how responses to leadership are informed by perceptions of the leader as a group member as reflected in leader group prototypicality, the extent to which the leader is perceived to be similar to individuals’ mental representation of group identity. The author reviews the core of the theory—the role of leader group prototypicality and the roles of follower group identification and leader group-serving behavior as important moderating influences—and evidence from tests of the theory that establish it as a particularly well-supported theory within the leadership domain. The author also reviews how the theory is positioned vis-à-vis related follower-centric perspectives and vis-à-vis research on leader identity. In addition, he discusses two key developments that would be particularly defining for a research agenda to develop the theory and integration with other perspectives: the role of leader fairness and the role of uncertainty and change.

Servant leadership, despite its popularity among academics and practitioners and consistent research findings that demonstrate its benefits for multiple stakeholders, like other leadership approaches, has not been immune to criticism. In this essay, the views of a servant leadership researcher or “insider” are presented along with the criticism of an “outsider” who has not been involved in conducting servant leadership research. The outsider identifies lack of theory development necessary to explain the mechanisms through which servant leadership affects outcomes, lack of theoretical justification of servant leadership dimensions, and measurement issues as the key problems with servant leadership research. The insider then counters these criticisms with a discussion of scale development procedures backing servant leadership measurement along with supportive empirical findings. We conclude with recommendations agreed upon by both the insider and outsider for how servant leadership theory may be enhanced and measurement improved to benefit not only academic research on servant leadership, but also its implementation in practice.

The concept of meaning‐based leadership, leader advocacy of the meaning organizational purpose gives to the work, was proposed to capture the core role of leadership in organizations: motivating pursuits in the service of the organization's purpose. We study the influence of meaning‐based leadership on one such pursuit – strategy implementation. We argue that team leaders may motivate team strategy implementation efforts through meaning‐based leadership, because of this leadership's influence on team alignment around organizational values. We propose that this influence is contingent on team leader empowering leadership, such that meaning‐based leadership has a stronger influence on team value alignment, and thus indirectly on team strategy implementation, with higher empowering leadership. This research model was supported in a multi‐source survey of teams in an insurance company.

For teams developing products or services to meet customer needs, customer adoption of team deliverables is core to their success. When such teams focus on complex, tailored deliverables, customer adoption can be expected to benefit from team information elaboration-the exchange, discussion, and integration of team members' knowledge and perspectives-to develop solutions for customer needs. We aim to shed light on how teams can focus on the customer's perspective within the elaboration process to drive customer adoption. We propose that whereas engaging with the customer's perspective is key to customer adoption, teams may only do this to a modest degree unless they are stimulated to put the customer perspective center-stage. Extending information elaboration theory by drawing on the attention-based view, we propose that customer-oriented boundary spanning-engaging with the customer to champion the customer's perspective within the team-strengthens the shared objective of serving the customer to guide information elaboration and increase the quality of knowledge work. We argue that this effect is moderated by team functional background diversity: increased attention to the customer's perspective guides teams to better use their informational resources and this benefit is stronger with greater functional background diversity. These predictions were supported in a field experiment with a customer-oriented boundary spanning intervention (N = 144 teams). Shared objectives and information elaboration sequentially mediated the effect of customer-oriented boundary spanning and the indirect effect from customer-oriented boundary spanning to customer adoption was stronger with greater functional diversity.

Leader word‐action misalignment has important implications for employees' attitudes and behaviour, but we do not know how it affects leaders themselves. Adopting an actor‐centric perspective and integrating insights from research on moral emotions to further develop behavioural integrity theory, we investigate how leaders respond to their own word‐action misalignment and how locus of control moderates the relationship between leader word‐action misalignment and leader shame, to affect leader avoidance behaviour and task performance. We test the hypothesized relationships in three studies conducted using both experimental and time‐separated designs. Across the studies we found that leader word‐action misalignment was positively related to leader shame and that locus of control moderated the relationship such that the relationship between leader word‐action misalignment and leader shame was stronger for leaders with lower internal locus of control. We also found support for the hypothesized conditional indirect effect of word‐action misalignment on leader avoidance and task performance: word‐action misalignment was associated with more leader avoidance behaviour and lower leader performance, mediated by leader shame, and more strongly so for leaders with lower internal locus of control. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of taking an actor‐centric perspective in the study of leader word‐action misalignment.

Complementing theory and evidence for the positive effects of paradoxical leadership, we argue that paradoxical leadership can also result in tensions from the awareness it raises of conflicting paradoxical demands and the expectation that subordinates strive to maximize on these demands even when they are conflicting. Such tensions may result in counterproductive behavior. This gives rise to the question of how these negative effects of paradoxical leadership may be attenuated. Addressing this issue, we argue that higher consistency of paradoxical leadership reduces uncertainty and thus attenuates experienced tensions and counterproductive behavior following from these tensions, and more so for male subordinates who, on average, have less experience dealing with work-related conflicting demands than female subordinates. We found support for this moderated mediation model in a repeated-measures survey ( N = 107 individuals; N = 1027 weekly observations). We discuss implications of our findings for theory and practice.

Ethnic dissimilarity to coworkers puts individuals' social embeddedness at work under pressure. We consider this issue from the perspective of a moderating influence of climate for inclusion in the relationship between ethnic dissimilarity and organizational embeddedness. We argue that, whereas it may seem straightforward that climate for inclusion would be associated with a weaker negative influence between ethnic dissimilarity and organizational embeddedness, team climate for inclusion is a double-edged sword. Taking the status associated with ethnic groups into account, we propose that the status equality implied by climate for inclusion has differential effects for members of high ethnic status and low ethnic status groups, such that team climate for inclusion attenuates the negative relationship of ethnic dissimilarity and organizational embeddedness for low ethnic status members but enhances it for high ethnic status members. We test this idea in Malaysia, a national context where ethnic group status is not conflated with numerical representation in both work and in society, unlike in the West. Multilevel survey data from 280 members in 82 teams largely supported our prediction.

Whereas knowledge heterogeneity has been extensively studied in relation to innovation, the inequality dimension of knowledge diversity has been largely unexplored. We propose that these two dimensions should be considered in conjunction, given that heterogeneity‐based knowledge diversity – member differences in knowledge domain – can invite the elaboration of diverse information and perspectives that can foster team innovativeness, but inequality‐based knowledge diversity – member differences in recognized knowledge level – can disrupt the positive effect of heterogeneity‐based knowledge diversity by stifling the recognition and integration of these diverse perspectives. Our longitudinal analysis of drug patents supported our prediction that inequality‐based knowledge diversity weakened the positive effect of heterogeneity‐based knowledge diversity on knowledge team innovativeness. These findings suggest a fundamental reset in the study of team knowledge diversity: theory and research need to conceptualize team member knowledge differences as based on both heterogeneity and status inequality, and investigate their joint impact on team performance.

This paper integrates research on positive psychology and effectuation, a concept representative of the entrepreneurial mind. We review the current development of effectuation research and emphasize the importance and uniqueness of each effectuation principle. Drawing on hedonic theory, desire theory, and eudaimonic account, we posit that three positive factors within positive psychology, positive affect, positive evaluation, and positive functioning, when considered collectively, might have significant differential effects on the levels of the four principles of effectuation individuals adopt. We test our hypotheses using survey data from a sample of CEOs in China, and the findings indicate that positive functioning is the only dimension of positive psychology that is positively related to all four effectual logics and could be an indispensable cause of effectuation. Positive affect was found to be negatively related to the affordable loss principle only, and positive evaluation was just negatively related to the lemonade or leveraging-surprise principle. Theoretical and managerial implications of our study are discussed in the end.