Social enterprises, as hybrid organizations with a dual-mission focus and diversity of primary stakeholders, have unique communication and governance challenges when compared to other social mission organizations, such as nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations. To address a gap in the social enterprise literature, we offer a comprehensive framework to illustrate how the application of context-specific ‘accountability mechanisms’ (Ebrahim, 2003) can strengthen organizational legitimacy perceptions and, in doing so, strengthen performance perceptions and stakeholder ties. Given multiple principal stakeholders in the plural institutional environments in which such hybrid organizations operate, our premise is that social enterprises bolster such perceptions by applying relevant accountability tools and processes in each of Ingram and Clay’s (2000) four institutional contexts. Importantly, our framework applies to both strategic and institutional social enterprise legitimacy. As an illustration, we performed a qualitative examination of three established social enterprises, each in a different industry. Findings revealed each of these social enterprises had adopted accountability mechanisms in all four institutional contexts, suggesting that practitioner application of, and future research on, our framework may prove fruitful.

AbstractGiven its positive relationship with valued organizational outcomes, worker-related engagement has become a prominent issue for practitioners and for scholars. While recent research has begun to validate various engagement antecedents and outcomes, little is known about the effects that work orientation and supportive leadership have on engagement, particularly among millennial workers, the soon to be dominant generational work group globally. To explore these gaps, we studied a particular form of work orientation – those indicating having a ‘calling’ – along with perceptions of how supportive leadership is for study subjects’ current work. Specifically, we posited positive worker engagement relationships for both worker calling and perceptions of leadership support, as well as for their interaction. Drawing upon a United States-based sample of 297 millennial workers, we found a positive relationship for each hypothesis. This study contributes to the expanding literature on the value of understanding how work orientation and leadership perceptions impact important organizational outcomes.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore product adoption beliefs and actions of a large retail food organization with both corporate-owned stores and privately held franchise stores. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used a case study approach involving survey data collection from 190 corporate-owned and licensed retail outlets that were members of a large, single organization. Ordinary least squares regression and mean differences ( t -tests) were used to test the data. Findings were elaborated upon based upon structured interviews. Findings – Corporate-owned retail outlets invested heavily in food safety innovation, while franchised retail outlets pursued minimal investment to retain product flexibility. The level of adoption is contingent upon ownership structure, as well as institutional forces emanating from the corporate environment, the customer, and peer organizations. Research limitations/implications – The findings offer greater insight into methodological issues associated with measurement of new product adoption in particular. The authors have shown that it is critical for researchers to clarify the level of analysis of the study. Quantitative survey analysis revealed both safety and economic motivations to be desirable issues in product adoption considerations. However, when quantitative and qualitative results were combined, very different outcomes were realized as ownership structure differences appear to dominate product adoption decisions. Therefore, when conducting plural organizational form research, the data gathering efforts must be carefully undertaken to ensure that critical drivers of phenomena explored are not overlooked. Practical implications – Adoption of new product adoption involves the complex interplay between ownership structure/control, economic cost/benefit, managerial choice, and societal norms. Often, organizational research relating to adoption of new processes and innovations collects individual-level data. However, this study shows that adoption decisions occur at multiple levels and that the ownership/structural context must be considered. Social implications – The study has implications from social innovation/responsibility perspectives. Recent press regarding food safety has put pressure on food processing establishments to consider methods of reducing food safety breaches. No doubt, this has alerted the consumer to potential risks in food processing and influenced their preferences in favor of food safety innovations. Nonetheless, perceptions of the importance of “safety” can be interpreted in a variety of ways, leading to differing courses of action. Interviews with corporate-level executives revealed that they preferred both corporate-owned and franchised retail outlets adopt case ready (CR) meats to stem safety concerns. Yet, this aspiration diffused throughout the organization differently. Originality/value – Multiple organizational structure forms operating within the same organizational entity, or “plural form” organizations, offer unique opportunities for examination. Applying various theoretical lenses, including agency theory, the resource-based theory, and institutional theory, the authors offer rationale for why different structural types within the same corporate entity may differ in their beliefs and actions concerning product safety, cost, and adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to: (a) offer rationale for the importance of an increasingly important organizational management topic - the wisdom of top managers - what we call executive wisdom; (b) develop a theoretical framework for the construct, including core components and outcomes, and (c) provide implications for practice. The research in several related literatures is reviewed and synthesized to provide the foundation for the development of this theoretical framework. Applying the extant literature on wisdom to the specific context of a top-level business manager, we argue that there are four foundational characteristics of executive wisdom: (1) Knowledge, developed by prior learning and experience, (2) moral maturity, (3) reflective strategic decision-making, and (4) ability to manage uncertainty. Executives possessing such characteristics are: (a) able to make enlightened strategic judgments that are (b) implemented as principled actions. The effectiveness of such implementation is contingent upon, among other moderators, the executive's leadership skills. We view each of the characteristics as necessary but not sufficient to possess and benefit from executive wisdom. The principled actions undertaken by those possessing executive wisdom will, when compared to other executives, have a greater likelihood of leading to valued outcomes indicative of organizational effectiveness, including enhanced stakeholder trust and loyalty, reputational capital, and stronger financial and social performance. We believe that the main arguments developed in this paper will help improve managers' understanding of how to become a wise executive and to realize the benefits of doing so. From a theory perspective, this paper adds to the growing body of literature in a new and increasingly valued area of research.

As described throughout this book, the growing spiritual revival in today’s society (see Ali 2001; Gunther 2001; Woodward 2001) is having profound effects in many organizational settings. Whether it be lunchtime meetings of executives discussing how to “listen to their hearts,” CEOs who have dedicated their businesses to serving a higher power, or business school conferences organized to debate the role of God in the workplace, the sentiments embodied in the still timely comments of television writer and producer Norman Lear and popular author Stephen Covey above are apparently widespread and reflect how many of us feel about the current state of organizational life. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that the needs for connectedness, purpose, and meaning are so pervasive and so deeply felt that the actions taken by individuals at every organizational level to address these needs are changing how we think about the ways we work, do business, and lead the organizations we create.

Four predictors were posited to affect business student attitudes about the social responsibilities of business, also known as corporate social responsibility (CSR). Applying Forsyth’s ( 1980 , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39 , 175–184, 1992 , Journal of Business Ethics 11 , 461–470) personal moral philosophy model, we found that ethical idealism had a positive relationship with CSR attitudes, and ethical relativism a negative relationship. We also found materialism to be negatively related to CSR attitudes. Spirituality among business students did not significantly predict CSR attitudes. Understanding the relationship between CSR attitudes and the significant predictors has important implications for researchers and teachers in particular.

Spiritual values in the workplace, increasingly discussed and applied in the business ethics literature, can be viewed from an individual, organizational, or interactive perspective. The following study examined previously unexplored workplace spirituality outcomes. Using data collected from five samples consisting of full-time workers taking graduate coursework, results indicated that perceptions of organizational-level spirituality (“organizational spirituality”) appear to matter most to attitudinal and attachment-related outcomes. Specifically, organizational spirituality was found to be positively related to job involvement, organizational identification, and work rewards satisfaction, and negatively related to organizational frustration. Personal spirituality was positively related to intrinsic, extrinsic, and total work rewards satisfaction. The interaction of personal spirituality and organizational spirituality was found related to total work rewards satisfaction. Future workplace spirituality research directions are discussed.

The relationship between individuals’ creativity and their ethical ideologies appears to be complex. Applying Forsyth’s (1980, 1992) personal moral philosophy model which consists of two independent ethical ideology dimensions, idealism and relativism, we hypothesized and found support for a positive relationship between creativity and relativism. It appears that creative people are less likely than non-creative people to follow universal rules in their moral decision making. However, contrary to our hypothesis and the general stereotype that creative people are less caring about others, we found a positive relationship between creativity and idealism. These findings indicate that highly creative people are likely to be what Forsyth called “situationists,” individuals with both an ethic of caring and a pragmatic moral decision-making style. The finding that creative individuals tend to be situationists, and particularly that they tend to be high in idealism, appears to refute the line of reasoning that argues for a “creative personality” characterized in part by social insensitivity. Understanding the relationship between creativity and ethical ideologies has important implications for researchers, managers and teachers.

Organizational researchers during the past few decades have increasingly focused on the role of subjective work issues and their impact on important worker-related outcomes. One of the most prominently studied factors, perceptions of organizational politics, has received much recent conceptual and empirical attention. In an effort to better understand the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and key outcomes, we apply meta-analysis on 79 independent samples from 59 published and unpublished studies involving 25,059 individual participants. Results indicate strong negative relationships between POP and job satisfaction and between POP and organizational commitment, moderately positive relationships between POP and the outcomes of job stress and turnover intentions, and a non-significant relationship between POP and in-role job performance. Moderator tests show that age, work setting (i.e., public sector or private sector), and cultural differences (i.e., domestic sample or international sample), have contingent effects on certain POP relationships.

The present study tested portions of an expanded Ferris and Judge ( 1991) framework regarding influence processes in human resources decisions and actions. In particular, the roles of political skill and a particularly efficacious influence tactic, rationality, were examined with respect to their interactive effects on supervisor perceptions and evaluations. Online questionnaires were used to collect data from full-time, non-faculty employees of a large south-eastern US public university. To avoid problems associated with common method variance resulting from same source data, supervisors rated subordinates on outcome measures and subordinates supplied data on predictors. The final sample was comprised of a matched dyadic data set of 291 subordinates and their supervisors. Results indicated support for the hypotheses. Specifically, political skill was found to directly relate to the use of rationality and moderate the positive relationship between rationality and two supervisory perceptions known to affect supervisor ratings of job performance, notably supervisor liking of subordinates and perceived similarity to subordinates. Further, perceptions of liking and similarity were positively related to supervisor ratings of both task performance and two important contextual job performance components. Implications of the results, strengths and limitations of the research, and directions for future research are discussed.

This study tests the relationship between a chief executive’s intuitive decision style and financial measures of nonprofit organization performance. Providing additional support for earlier theories that emphasized top managers’ ability to influence change in their organizations, executive intuition was found to be significantly associated with three of the six financial performance outcomes examined in this study. Executive intuition was a significant and positive predictor of both fiscal performance measures and one of two public support measures. Implications and future research ideas are offered.

The present research was developed to examine the conceptualization and measurement of the political skill construct and to provide validation evidence for the Political Skill Inventory (PSI). The results of three investigations, involving seven samples, are reported that demonstrate consistency of the factor structure across studies, construct validity, and criterion-related validity of the PSI. As hypothesized, political skill was positively related to self-monitoring, political savvy, and emotional intelligence; negatively related to trait anxiety; and not correlated with general mental ability. Also, the PSI predicted performance ratings of managers in two samples. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are provided.

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The current investigation examined the form and magnitude of the relationship between political skill and two intrapersonal worker reactions—job satisfaction and job tension. Political skill was hypothesized to demonstrate an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship with job satisfaction and a U-shaped relationship with job tension. Data from three separate studies supported the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, moderate levels of political skill were associated with higher levels of job satisfaction (Studies 1–3) and lower levels of job tension (Studies 1 and 2). Conversely, in comparison to more moderate levels, higher and lower levels of political skill were adversely related to these outcomes. Implications, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.