Nonprofit organizations increasingly face surprising and disruptive shocks, beyond financial setbacks, that challenge an organization's operations, long-term survival, and success. To continue to execute their mission, nonprofits must be resilient. Despite the importance of resilience in nonprofits, more research is needed to understand the factors that build organizational resilience and how leaders can help promote resilience. We conducted a qualitative case study, consisting of 23 interviews with organizational members and key partners, fieldwork, and archival information, of a documented resilient nonprofit organization. Our findings suggest that leaders can enhance resilience by gaining access to resources through collaboration, which is in line with previous theorizing. Our results add to previous research by providing a more nuanced understanding of how collaboration can facilitate resilience. Specifically, our findings suggest that resilience may be enhanced when organizational humility drives leaders to strategically constrain their network primarily to partners that share a common mission. Our research contributes predominantly to the organizational resilience literature, while offering more auxiliary contributions to the organizational humility literature. Further, our research offers practical guidance for how leaders of nonprofits can develop resilience in their organizations.

Temporal tensions abound for those involved in temporary interorganizational collaborations (IOCs). Participating members must navigate working within their home organization and the temporary IOC simultaneously. These tensions undermine efforts toward two important outcomes in temporary organizing contexts: temporal synchronization and ambitemporality. To be effective, leaders need a keen awareness of the temporal tensions present and an ability to manage these tensions through the enactment of additional temporal tensions. We identify temporal adaptive capacity (TAC) as a crucial competency needed by leaders to effectively manage the multi-level temporal tensions present when participating in temporary IOCs. Finally, we offer practical implications and a research agenda through the introduction of propositions related to TAC.

Consider the massive recovery response that included over 25,000 professionals and volunteers representing more than 120 organizations tasked with locating both human remains and vehicle debris following the Columbia Space Shuttle tragedy. Despite the daunting scope of the initial search area – 2.28 million acres of land – participating members were successful in their efforts to achieve the collective's goals. We contend that the response effort was effective because relatively disparate organizations and governmental agencies came together and ultimately exemplified the hallmarks of high reliability organizing (HRO). Our study explores how the transition in boundaries made this possible. Using interview and secondary data from our case study, we explore how individuals engaged in boundary work that facilitated boundary transformation. Specifically, we document how individuals interacted with a data visualization system to temper the physical, social, temporal, and scope boundary tensions initially present following the disaster. Amidst an emergent, messy, and complex setting, the interaction with a boundary object allowed for unity in diversity of participating organizations, a common language through mapping, a form of trichordal temporal and rapid sensemaking, and a foundation for dynamic decision making. Therefore, our study yields critical insights into how organizational members engage in boundary work to aid HRO collaborations.

The diffusion of disinformation via social media has become a pressing societal concern for business leaders and policy makers. In recent years, online disinformation has been implicated as a source of field-level institutional change across a variety of societal contexts. To better understand how online disinformation changes institutional issue fields, we explore how digital materiality affords users opportunities to create and propagate disinformation. We introduce and define three social media material features: modular content, content flow, and manifold network structures. From these digital materiality elements, we articulate three disinformation affordances: crafting, amplifying, and partitioning. We rely on several vignettes – far-right political conspiracy group, QAnon, anti-vaccination (i.e., anti-Vaxxers), and flat Earth beliefs – to illustrate how social media users exploit digital materiality and enact disinformation affordances. Our theoretical development also contributes to our understanding of how online disinformation disrupts institutional issue fields. In particular, we highlight several potential changes to institutional issue fields regarding power centralization, subfield structures, and institutional infrastructure. We conclude by offering recommendations for future research and social media policy.

The diffusion of disinformation via social media has become a pressing societal concern for business leaders and policy makers. In recent years, disinformation has been implicated as a possible source of institutional change across a variety of societal contexts, including political contests, medical legitimacy, and scientific education. To better understand the disinformation phenomenon and how it changes institutions, we view disinformation through the lens of institutional work. From this perspective, the intentional propagation of false information represents a form of institutional work whereby actors seek to disrupt dominant institutional structures. We first focus on social media materiality or the material features of social media platforms that users interact with and the opportunities for disinformation actions that certain features afford actors. We introduce and define three social media material features: modular content, network velocity, and manifold network structures, and illustrate how they relate to three social media affordances for disinformation: crafting, amplifying, and partitioning. We then discuss a potential outcome of disinformation – institutional fracturing – as a form of institutional change. We conclude by offering recommendations for future researchers and policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new leadership development framework that is focused on the leader’s ability to manage and understand the role of complexity in organizational systems. We refer to this ability to manage complexity within systems as leadership complexity capacity (LCC). The LCC development approach considers how the leadership process can serve as tension and enact tensions within a system. In doing so, leader and leadership development is examined through a complexity leadership theoretical perspective. As a result, the leadership function is positioned as a paradox of serving as either a stabilizing or destabilizing tension on the system that enables the system to reach and remain in a region of effective organizing while avoiding the anchor points of dysfunctional equilibrium and chaos. The premise is that developing leaders to know when and how to serve as an intentional tension on a system is important in organizational effectiveness. This paper contributes a different perspective of leadership development by demonstrating how the leadership process can be enacted and engaged for the purposes of creating complexity capacity. The perspective proposed considers the development of the leader and the leadership process as both are necessary for effective leadership functioning and reinforce each other to maintain a system in the region of effective organizing.

Information sharing is examined to determine if the willingness to share information relates to the willingness to collaborate in interorganizational actions used to address cybersecurity threats. This study employs ANOVA by placing 85 organizational representatives that participated in a cyber terrorism training exercise into two categories: higher versus lower willingness to share information. The dependent measures in this study are proxies for collaboration measured by willingness to seek assistance from other organizations and willingness to offer assistance to other organizations. There is a significant statistical difference between the two categorizations of organizational representatives. The category that had a lower tendency to share information also had a lower willingness to collaborate with other organizations. This research shows that sharing information is critical when collaborative interorganizational action is required to face cybersecurity threats. Managers of organizations that respond to cybersecurity threats should promote the tendency to share information with other organizations that have the resources to aid in addressing the threat. Organizations involved in cybersecurity threats that are willing to share information are more willing to participate in integrative interorganizational efforts. This study includes a sample of actual decision makers of organizations that would handle cybersecurity attacks in their community. In this study, we demonstrate the role of information sharing for enhancing integrative, collaborative action in a time where promoting this type of action is imperative to cybersecurity initiatives.

Financial Penalties Imposed on Large Pharmaceutical Firms for Illegal Activities Some pharmaceutical companies have received criticism for engaging in illegal activities, such as providing kickbacks and bribes, knowingly shipping adulterated or contaminated drugs to pharmacies, and marketing drugs for unapproved uses. This study examined financial penalties for illegal activities among large pharmaceutical firms in relation to annual revenues.

The use of information technology (IT) by organizational members during interorganizational collaboration can either disrupt the collaborative system or provide cohesion to the system. The outcome of IT use depends on the initial starting point of the collaboration system and the interaction of the collaboration system with IT use (i.e., technology in practice). IT use disrupts interorganizational collaborations by facilitating communication among diverse and numerous organizational actors. From this perspective, IT disrupts rigid social structures among collaboration partners, permitting interactions that give rise to emergent phenomenon. In contrast, IT use alternatively provides cohesion to interorganizational collaborations by facilitating sensemaking through IT’s information processing capabilities. In either case, the use of IT introduces tensions that dynamically shift a collaborative system along the complexity continuum. As IT transforms an interorganizational collaboration, the use of IT by organizational members also changes. We use details from two case examples to illustrate how IT can serve as either a stabilizing or destabilizing tension, and how this tension may facilitate transition in organizational form. We also consider the role of information technology in helping decision makers gather relevant intelligence on the degree of complexity within collaboration systems.

We investigate how family relationship conflict and family and firm name congruence influence subjective firm valuations by family firm owner-managers. Drawing on the socioemotional wealth perspective, behavioral agency theory and mixed gamble reasonings, we hypothesize and find a U-shaped association between relationship conflict inside the family firm and subjective firm valuation. While we do not find a direct effect between name congruence and subjective firm valuation, we show that name congruence interacts with relationship conflict to affect valuations in a complex fashion. Implications and contributions of our findings are discussed.

The majority of large firms within the pharmaceutical industry have engaged in systematic and widespread misconduct that harms patient welfare. Given that all firms in the industry espouse patient welfare as a core value, what institutional factors contribute to the presence or absence of organizational integrity? We explore this question using a binomial random effects panel analysis. More specifically, we consider what characteristics of executive leadership, board of director structure and composition, and organizational character, contribute to a firm’s commitment to organizational integrity. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and future research.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to propose a taxonomy of meeting purpose. Meetings are a workplace activity that deserves increased attention from researchers and practitioners. Previous researchers attempted to develop typologies of meeting purpose with limited success. Through a comparison of classification methodologies, the authors consider a taxonomy as the appropriate classification scheme for meeting purpose. The authors then utilize the developed taxonomy to investigate the frequency with which a representative sample of working adults engaged in meetings of these varying purposes. Their proposed taxonomy provides relevant classifications for future research on meetings as well and serves as a useful tool for managers seeking to use and evaluate the effectiveness of meetings within their organizations.Design/methodology/approach - This study employs an inductive methodology using discourse analysis of qualitative meeting descriptions to develop a taxonomy of meeting purpose. The authors discourse analysis utilizes open-ended survey responses from a sample of working adults (n = 491).Findings - The authors categorical analysis of open-ended questions resulted in a 16-category taxonomy of meeting purpose. The two most prevalent meeting purpose categories in this sample were "to discuss ongoing projects" at 11.6 per cent and "to routinely discuss the state of the business" at 10.8 per cent. The two least common meeting purpose categories in this sample were "to brainstorm for ideas or solutions" at 3.3 per cent and "to discuss productivity and efficiencies" at 3.7 per cent. The taxonomy was analyzed across organizational type and employee job level to identify differences between those important organizational and employee characteristics.Research limitations/implications - The data suggested that meetings were institutionalized in organizations, making them useful at identifying differences between organizations as well as differences in employees in terms of scope of responsibility. Researchers and managers should consider the purposes for which they call meetings and how that manifests their overarching organizational focus, structure and goals.Originality/value - This is the first study to overtly attempt to categorize the various purposes for which meetings are held. Further, this study develops a taxonomy of meeting purposes that will prove useful for investigating the different types of meeting purposes in a broad range of organizational types and structures.

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to propose a taxonomy of meeting purpose. Meetings are a workplace activity that deserves increased attention from researchers and practitioners. Previous researchers attempted to develop typologies of meeting purpose with limited success. Through a comparison of classification methodologies, the authors consider a taxonomy as the appropriate classification scheme for meeting purpose. The authors then utilize the developed taxonomy to investigate the frequency with which a representative sample of working adults engaged in meetings of these varying purposes. Their proposed taxonomy provides relevant classifications for future research on meetings as well and serves as a useful tool for managers seeking to use and evaluate the effectiveness of meetings within their organizations.Design/methodology/approach– This study employs an inductive methodology using discourse analysis of qualitative meeting descriptions to develop a taxonomy of meeting purpose. The authors discourse analysis utilizes open-ended survey responses from a sample of working adults (n= 491).Findings– The authors categorical analysis of open-ended questions resulted in a 16-category taxonomy of meeting purpose. The two most prevalent meeting purpose categories in this sample were “to discuss ongoing projects” at 11.6 per cent and “to routinely discuss the state of the business” at 10.8 per cent. The two least common meeting purpose categories in this sample were “to brainstorm for ideas or solutions” at 3.3 per cent and “to discuss productivity and efficiencies” at 3.7 per cent. The taxonomy was analyzed across organizational type and employee job level to identify differences between those important organizational and employee characteristics.Research limitations/implications– The data suggested that meetings were institutionalized in organizations, making them useful at identifying differences between organizations as well as differences in employees in terms of scope of responsibility. Researchers and managers should consider the purposes for which they call meetings and how that manifests their overarching organizational focus, structure and goals.Originality/value– This is the first study to overtly attempt to categorize the various purposes for which meetings are held. Further, this study develops a taxonomy of meeting purposes that will prove useful for investigating the different types of meeting purposes in a broad range of organizational types and structures.

ABSTRACT Acts of cyberterrorism represent potential, significant negative effects to property, infrastructure systems, security, and an overall way of life. These disruptions garner significant attention from government and the public. Managers concerned by threats of cyberterrorism should understand the components that enhance organizational competence so that doubt and fear do not overtake organizational members when faced with such extreme events. Although organizational competence is important in everyday organizational behaviors, the presence of confidence in organizational abilities is especially critical when operating in the midst of the ambiguity and destructive disruptions associated with cyberterrorist threats. We empirically assess three factors associated with competence for organizations facing simulated cyberterror attacks. Our results support the relationship between two of these factors—organizational identification and deference to expertise—with organizational competence. These findings contribute to research concerning the antecedents critical to organizational competence and also add to the growing research on cyberterrorism.

Organizations face the reality of needing to work with other organizations to share resources and responsibilities in pursuit of common goals. However, there is limited research regarding the complex nature of meta-organizations. Our purpose is to identify how a meta-organization team operates. We define a meta-organization team and rely on complexity theory to explain the dynamics within the meta-organization team we observed. Based on our analysis, this team was exposed to competing tensions that forced the team into a far-from-equilibrium state and allowed the team to be effective. We propose two types of tensions on complex systems: destabilizing and stabilizing. These tensions keep a system between the boundaries of equilibrium and chaos. As a result of this study, we provide details of key findings and implications of these tensions.

In an inductive case study of the Columbia space shuttle disaster response effort, we use observations, archival records, and in-depth interviews with representatives from several responding agencies to explore factors that facilitated this interorganizational collaboration. The Columbia response effort defies conventional theories of collaboration. Relative strangers from dissimilar agencies, without a designated leader or existing structure, quickly collaborated across organizational boundaries on an unprecedented and complex undertaking. We explain how four organizing actions enabled self-organizing and the two-staged development of trust and identity, ultimately leading to a successful unplanned collaboration. We rely on tenets of complexity theory to orient our case study and to propose a grounded theory of temporary, emergent interorganizational collaboration.

Purpose The theoretical and practical criticality of self‐talk for leader success receives extensive multidisciplinary discussion, without a great deal of empirical research given the challenge of assessing actual self‐talk. The purpose of this paper is to advance research and theory on self‐leadership by examining leader self‐talk and its relationship to effectiveness and strain. Design/methodology/approach In total, 189 senior executives' self‐addressed, future‐oriented letters were collected. The executives wrote these letters to themselves for their own personal development; thus, the language used represented a form of naturally occurring self‐talk. Two types of self‐talk were coded: constructive and dysfunctional. Supervisor and direct report ratings of leadership of others and creativity and self‐ratings of job strain were collected. Findings Extensive variability among leaders in constructive self‐talk was found. Exemplars of constructive and dysfunctional self‐talk are presented. Constructive self‐talk positively related to effective leadership of others and creativity/originality as evaluated by subordinates and superiors and was negatively related to job strain. Dysfunctional self‐talk related negatively to creativity/originality. Originality/value In addition to illustrating the types of self‐talk used by leaders, research is extended by providing some of the first empirical evidence of how leaders' free‐flowing thoughts are related to their effectiveness and their overall well‐being, lending direct support to a principal proposition from the self‐leadership framework.