Public organizations facing emergencies often coordinate with other local public and non-profit organizations for assistance. Yet we know little about the contractual relationships public organizations build with external organizations for emergency responses. Drawing from organizational theories, we explore organizational factors behind public organization decisions to contract for responses to extreme weather events. Using agency-level data merged from three national sources, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between organizational uncertainty about extreme weather events and contracting for immediate emergency responses: contracting is most likely at a moderate level of uncertainty and least likely at a very high level. Greater reliance on contracting for daily services is associated with increased contracting for long-term emergency planning, while receipt of dedicated financial resources is associated with increased contracting for both immediate emergency responses and long-term emergency planning. We connect findings with the contracting and emergency management literatures and discuss implications for practice.

As universities are increasingly subject to complex regulatory and administrative environment, concerns have been raised that rules and administrative procedures impose significant administrative burden on academic scientists. However, previous research suggests that rules and procedures, albeit burdensome, do not always have negative impacts on individual outcomes. This study makes hypotheses on the relationship between administrative burden and academic scientists’ research productivity, with a focus on its perceived rule extensiveness and reasonableness, as well as the moderating effects of both perceived rule reasonableness and perceived importance of professional help. Using survey and bibliometric data from a representative sample of academic scientists in life sciences from US universities, we find that perceived rule reasonableness and perceived importance of professional help jointly moderate the relationship between perceived rule extensiveness and research productivity. Specifically, when rules are perceived as very reasonable, the simultaneous presence of professional support and extensive rules introduces redundancy, whereby their combined effect may diminish rather than enhance research productivity. In contrast, when rules are perceived as unreasonable, professional support can buffer the negative impact of extensive rules and contribute to productivity gains. Our findings add to empirical evidence on the heterogeneous effects of administrative burden on research performance, underscoring the moderating role of rule reasonableness and professional help. Findings also offer practical implications for university administrators on how to optimize organizational support for researchers.

The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events require organizations to effectively manage the threats these phenomena pose. To respond to these challenges, public agencies often turn to their organizational memories for guidance. Organizational memories support information processing capacity, facilitate sensemaking, and legitimize and speed up decision-making processes. While memories influence different aspects of organizational life, little is known about their antecedents and the mechanisms behind the retrieval of past events. This study contributes to the broader literature on organizational memory by investigating the elements shaping public agencies' retrieval of extreme weather events. Integrating weather data from the National Center for Environmental Information's (NCEI) Storm Event Database with a national survey of the 300 largest transit agencies in the US, we find that public agency memories are influenced not only by the nature of the events experienced, but also by the processes that govern organizational attention, storage, and information processing.

Survey research is a primary method used to investigate the opinions, perceptions and behaviors of academic scientists. However, little is known about the most successful appeal strategies for eliciting survey participation from these busy, highly educated professionals. Drawing on leverage-salience theory, this study examines the impacts of two sets of invitation appeals-information and representation appeals-on survey response rates among academic scientists in four STEM fields employed at U.S. R1 universities. Findings from six randomized experiments show that the effectiveness of both sets of invitation appeals is mixed and context-dependent, varying based on the polarization and relevance of survey topics, STEM academic scientists' career stage, and their prior interactions with survey administrators. Specifically, self-representation appeals are most effective for polarized topics when recipients have low community affiliation. Less detailed information appeals are more successful when asking about low relevance topics, particularly for recipients with greater demands on their time, while more detailed information is effective for highly relevant and polarized topics. Additionally, invitations containing more detailed information are effective for first-time recipients in survey panels. This complexity reinforces the importance of designing effective outreach strategies to account for survey topics and recipient characteristics.

Planned adaptation programs and projects typically span organizational levels. Adaptation resources are channeled through networks of actor relations, spanning macro-level policy and finance actors to micro-level communities and households. Although undertheorized and rarely the focus of adaptation research, a plethora of organizational actors operate between and across the macro- and micro-levels, playing instrumental roles in the design, implementation, and evaluation of adaptation investments. As pressure mounts for adaptation policy and investment to address emergent risks as well as underlying vulnerability drivers, these “meso-level” organizations are instrumental in meeting more transformative goals. We conceptualize meso-level organizations and their relations as a sub-system in planned climate adaptation investment, operations, and governance that challenges pre-conceived notions of linear top-down/bottom-up flows of adaptation resources and capacities. Synthesizing insights from organization studies, climate adaptation, and sustainability science literatures, we advance a framework to describe and theorize how organizations, by themselves and in groups, contribute to transformative adaptation. The framework structures organizational processes and inter-organizational dynamics in three dimensions—knowledge synthesis, institutional ambition, and power—and nine subdimensions that depict potential targets for macro-level investment and policy to build meso-level transformational capacity, and for meso-level self-assessment and reflection for strategic improvement. This article is categorized under:

How public organizations respond strategically to natural hazards is relevant for maintaining functionality and protecting citizens. An essential component of strategic response is coordinating with multiple organizations in ways that provide resources and mutual support. Drawing from resource dependence and cognitive behavior theories, we investigate how different contextual factors predict coordination strategy. We focus on transit agencies in the US and develop hypotheses about how the experience of natural hazards, the transit infrastructure conditions, and public managers’ risk perceptions determine their coordination as responses to immediate and future extreme weather events. This study aims to contribute to the strategic management of natural hazards literature. In particular, we expect that the findings will illuminate how transit agencies consider service area vulnerabilities as part of their strategic coordination efforts. Further, the study will provide insights to managers who are facing the need to balance organizational capacity, risk, and equity.

This paper aims to better understand how information strategies matter for the management of extreme weather events in public transit agencies. It examines how past extreme weather events and the availability of information on extreme weather impacts influence risk-related cognitions, which influence planning for future extreme events and eventually lead to investment in Information Technology (IT) systems as a protective measure. The theoretical framework integrates prior work on perceived risk, protection motivation theory (PMT), and theory of planned behavior (TPB) to develop hypotheses, which are tested using structural equation modeling with data from national surveys of transit agencies conducted at two points in time, 2019 and 2023, merged with other institutional data. The paper demonstrates how access to critical information about the impacts of past extreme weather events influences threat and coping appraisal, planning, and future investment in information technology systems. Findings show support that organization experience with extreme weather, risk perception and capacity are associated with more extensive planning for extreme weather in 2019, and that greater emphasis on planning leads to more investment in IT systems in 2023. The paper contributes to the broader discourse on the role of information and planning in strengthening organizational preparedness and adaptive capacity in the face of increasing climate challenges.

Public agencies are increasingly required to respond to multiple and evolving threats. Perceptions of risk are important triggers of organizational responses and motivate adaptive strategies. Integrating administrative data with a survey of public managers employed across the 300 largest transit agencies in the US, we examine how outsourcing decisions and reliance on scientific and professional sources of information influence public agencies' perceptions of extreme weather events' risks. Results show that reliance on scientific and professional sources of information is positively associated with perceived risk of extreme weather events. The effect of contracting on risk perceptions depends on agencies' outsourcing strategies.

This article develops and tests a set of hypotheses examining how contracting out of public services affects intra-organizational communication in public agencies (i.e., the principal organization). We draw from two competing perspectives: contracting scholarship argues that outsourcing reduces an organization's structural complexity and enhances intra-organizational communication, while organizational communication studies suggest that outsourcing might lead to fragmented communication pathways and a loss of information. In order to reconcile these perspectives, we examine how different characteristics of an organization's contracting network affect both the internal gathering and dissemination of information. Using survey and contractual relationship data from approximately 200 US transit agencies, we find that contracting out a large portion of services improves intra-organizational communication but this positive effect decreases as the number of contractors grows. Long and stable relationships with contractors negatively affect intra-organizational communication, especially when occurring with private—as compared to public—contractors. Our results suggest the need to further investigate intra-organizational communication in contracting networks and better understand how it may affect organizational performance and contract management.

United States (US) immigration policies have increasingly focused on national security resulting in universities experiencing declines in international student applications, constraints on international scholar employment, and complications facilitating international research collaborations. The COVID-19 pandemic brought additional travel restrictions, embassy closures, and health and safety concerns that exacerbated these challenges. Science mobility is critical for science education, training, competitiveness, and innovation. Using a representative sample of US and foreign-born scientists in three STEM fields, we explore how recent visa and immigration policies have shaped research collaborations, work with students and postdoctoral scholars, and intentions to leave. We use descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and logistic regression and find academic scientists report disruptions from visa and immigration policies; negative impacts of immigration policies on US higher education; negative effects on recruitment and retention of international trainees; and increased intentions to leave the US driven by negative perceptions of immigration policy.

This paper examines possible causes, consequences, and potential solutions for addressing vaccine hesitancy in the United States, focusing on the perspectives of academic scientists. By examining the experiences of scientists, who are arguably a critical community in US society, we gain deeper insights into how they understand the complexities of vaccine hesitancy and whether their insights and opinions converge with or diverge from the current literature. We present findings from a national survey of a representative sample of academic scientists from the fields of biology and public health regarding vaccine hesitancy and related topics. Empirical analysis using descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses covers multiple topics, including vaccine controversy, trust in science, causes of vaccine hesitancy, preferred policy and regulatory approaches, risk perceptions, and scientists' ethics and perceived communication roles. The results highlight a diversity of opinions within the scientific community regarding how to improve science-society communication in regard to vaccines, including the need to be transparent and candid to the public about the risk of vaccines and their research.

Purpose - This study extends the concept of managerial efficacy to include managerial means efficacy (MME) attributed to the utility and quality of means external to managers for performing a task. Focusing on its antecedents, the authors theorize and empirically test MME sourced from the organization (MMEO) and situate the examination under extreme events. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses a 2016 national survey of 892 top managers in 273 US largest transit agencies covering 82% of the entire population. Participants report their confidence for their organization to perform effectively under various extreme events. The survey data are matched with data from various institutional data sources to capture organizational characteristics, operations and experience with extreme events. Findings - Findings suggest that organizational-level factors influence MMEO. Specifically, organizational slack and relationship management of key jurisdictional stakeholders positively predict MMEO, whereas political fragmentation is negatively associated with MMEO. Practical implications - Organizations can bolster MMEO, hence, managerial efficacy through developing organizational slack and engaging in relationships building with jurisdictional stakeholders. Those initiatives have particular importance for those with boundary-spanning service areas. Originality/value - The study advances understanding of managerial efficacy by directing attention to means external to managers' self. It also brings clarity to the notion of "confident managers" or "managerial confidence" broadly applied in previous studies. Findings provide insights about capacity-building interventions to build managerial efficacy through improving external means, circumventing the need to alter self-efficacy that is typically stable and resistant to change.

Cyber-incidents threaten the confidentiality, efficiency, and integrity of digital information systems, causing privacy risks, economic losses, and reputational damages, and exposing managerial limitations. Although these phenomena are becoming more frequent in public agencies, research to date has mainly focused on private sector organizations and individuals. In this study, we contribute to the broader literature on cyber-incidents by exploring the drivers of both security breaches and unauthorized data disclosures in public organizations. Drawing from routine activity theory, we develop hypotheses on the determinants of cyber-incidents in departments in small and medium-sized US cities and test them using data from a national survey of public managers. Our findings suggest that both environmental and organizational factors are key determinants of cyber-incidents in city government. The results demonstrate the application of routine activity theory to public sector organizations and identify external and internal elements related to cyber-incidents in city government departments.

Climate change can bring about large-scale irreversible physical impacts and systemic changes in the operating environment of public organizations. Research on preconditions for organizational adaptation to climate change has produced two parallel lines of inquiry, one focusing on macro-level norms, rules, and expectations and the other on meso-level culture, design, and structure within the organization. Drawing on the meta-theory of institutional logics, this study proposes a configurational approach to link institutionally aware top managers with the combination and reconciliation of macro- and meso-level logics. We identify government authority, professionalism, and market as macro-level institutional logics, and risk-based logic and capacity-based logic as critical meso-level institutional logics. Our theory proposes that (1) the macro- and meso-level institutional logics co-exist in systematic ways as to produce identifiable configurations, (2) the configurations are differentially associated with climate adaptation, and (3) the effects of each logic differ across the configurations. Using a 2019 national survey on approximately 1000 top managers in the largest U.S. transit agencies, we apply latent profile analysis to identify three distinct clusters: forerunner, complacent, and market-oriented. Only the forerunner cluster is adaptive to climate change, whereas the two others are maladaptive. Findings from the multigroup structural equation model also demonstrate varied effects of each institutional logic on adaptation across the clusters, confirming institutional work at play to reconcile and integrate co-existing and potential contradictory logics.

Inclusion in the workplace is defined as the extent to which individuals perceive that they are part of significant processes in organizations. This article explores the determinants of workplace inclusion by asking: How does the demographic composition of social networks inside and outside of the workplace affect perceived inclusion in the workplace? We apply literature on social identity theory and social network theory to develop and test hypotheses on professional sub-network demographic composition using the linear regression analysis on data from the 2011 National Science Foundation-funded national survey of academic faculty on work environment and careers in US universities. Among other results, we find that perceived inclusion is explained by the interactions between race, gender, and demographic composition of professional networks. Findings provide new insights for the management of diversity in the workplace.

This study expands the scope of research on academic entrepreneurship to include academic inventors who actively engage in late-stage commercialization. It investigates post-patent involvement of academic scientists in the development of products based on their patented inventions. Using data from a 2010 national survey of 798 academic inventors listed on patents assigned to universities in 2006, our analysis shows that only 27% of the inventors were working with a company to further develop their invention for commercial use. Additionally, academic inventors who reported stronger entrepreneurial orientation, higher commercial significance of the patent, lower reliance of the patent on scientific literature, and stronger entrepreneurial disposition of their university were more likely to engage in post-patent commercial development. Our work contributes to the literature on the entrepreneurial behavior of academic scientists by further exploring a critical but relatively understudied post-invention stage of commercialization.

Stay-at-home-orders, online learning, and work from home policies are some of the responses governments, universities, and other institutions adopted to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, research shows these measures have increased pre-existing gender disparities in the workplace. The working conditions for women during the pandemic worsened due to increased family care responsibilities and unequal distribution of domestic labor. In the academy, working from home has resulted in reduced research time and increased teaching and family care responsibilities, with a larger proportion of that burden falling to women. We investigate the persistence of gender inequity among academic scientists resulting from university COVID-19 responses over time. We draw on two surveys administered in May 2020 and May 2021 to university-based biologists, biochemists, and civil and environmental engineers, to analyze how the pandemic response has disproportionately impacted women in academia and the endurance of those inequities. Results show significantly greater negative impacts from the pandemic on women's research activities and work-life balance, compared to men. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results, and the need for the academy to better predict and adjust to the gender disparities its policies create.

Inclusion in the workplace is defined as the extent to which individuals perceive that they are part of significant processes in organizations. This article explores the determinants of workplace inclusion by asking: How does the demographic composition of social networks inside and outside of the workplace affect perceived inclusion in the workplace? We apply literature on social identity theory and social network theory to develop and test hypotheses on professional sub-network demographic composition using the linear regression analysis on data from the 2011 National Science Foundation–funded national survey of academic faculty on work environment and careers in US universities. Among other results, we find that perceived inclusion is explained by the interactions between race, gender, and demographic composition of professional networks. Findings provide new insights for the management of diversity in the workplace.

Workplace surveillance is a classic management activity in public and private organizations. Employers have long used various surveillance methods in different forms to ensure workplace safety and product/service quality, enhance process efficiency, reduce transactional cost, training and safeguarding organizational interests. Technology advances have generally facilitated surveillance and created new opportunities for electronic monitoring in government. But it has also intensified the surveillance context of the work environment, which can have negative impacts on employee satisfaction, motivation, and job performance. This chapter examines advances in digital surveillance as well as the research on the ethics and implications of digital workplace surveillance for employees' privacy, motivation, and performance. Special attention is given to how innovative surveillance techniques that are changing the workplace environment. Based on this review, the chapter suggests future research.