In this issue, I have the pleasure of announcing the winners of ASQ's two annual awards. Both winners examine inequality and may be of interest to GDO members.
For the article published five years ago that has had the greatest impact on our field, the ASQ Award for Scholarly Contribution goes to Sarah Thébaud for "Business as Plan B: Institutional Foundations of Gender Inequality in Entrepreneurship across 24 Industrialized Countries."
Showcasing our commitment to the work of young scholars, an amazing 14 of the 27 articles we published in 2020 were eligible for our ASQ Dissertation Award. The award winner is: Nathan Wilmers for "Job Turf or Variety: Task Structure as a Source of Organizational Inequality." And the runner-up is: Julia DiBenigno for "Rapid Relationality: How Peripheral Experts Build a Foundation for Influence with Line Managers"
We congratulate these scholars for their outstanding work!
Articles
Stepping out of the Shadows: Identity Exposure as a Remedy for Stigma Transfer Concerns in the Medical Marijuana Market
Olga M. Khessina, Samira Reis, and J. Cameron Verhaal
We know that stigma threatens firm performance, and many firms downplay their stigmatized identity even in legal markets. Yet when firms celebrate their identity and have customers who express support for the stigmatized organizations in public forums, audiences are less concerned with stigma transfer. Stigma can be reduced by such identity exposure.
Blog post is here
Developing Improvisation Skills: The Influence of Individual Orientations
Pier Vittorio Mannucci, Davide C. Orazi, and Kristine de Valck
This study of live action role-playing explores how individuals develop improvisational skills: imitating others, reacting to situational cues and eventually learning to create their own generative ideas. Individual trajectories of improvisation skill development are shaped by individual's competitive or collaborative orientation.
Blog post is here
An Interaction Ritual Theory of Social Resource Exchange: Evidence from a Silicon Valley Accelerator
Rekha Krishnan, Karen S. Cook, Rajiv Krishnan Kozhikode, and Oliver Schilke
Startup accelerators promise information sharing among peers. But how and when does generalized exchange emerge? This mixed method study demonstrates how interaction rituals within social events promote familiarity and eventually positive information sharing, whereas tournament structures that promote shows of strength hinder the development of such exchanges.
Blog post is here
The Unfolding of Control Mechanisms inside Organizations: Pathways of Customization and Transmutation
Jillian Chown
While management may hand down a new practice to their professional units, the adoption of practices that direct and control activities are necessarily joint management-employee negotiations. Chown traces the customization and transmutation of a meeting mandate within five units of a healthcare organization to solve local coordination and communication problems.
Blog post is here
Frame Restructuration: The Making of an Alternative Business Incubator amid Detroit's Crisis
Suntae Kim
Responding to a crisis requires tossing out established frames and creating new ones. This ethnography explores how a business incubator eschewed traditional notions of entrepreneurial growth and developed a new frame grounded in the metaphor of business as a living organism. The metaphor helped justify novel actions in a community-centered process.
Sustaining Meaningful Work in a Crisis: Adopting and Conveying a Situational Purpose
Winnie Yun Jiang
When work demands surge, particularly during times of crisis, it can be challenging to find meaning in our work. Studying a refugee-resettlement agency with a surge of new refugees, Jiang shows how employees navigate this emotional tension, adopt a situational purpose to find new meaning, and adjust their work practices to support their newly interpreted purpose.
Blog post is here
From Patañjali to the "Gospel of Sweat": Yoga's Remarkable Transformation from a Sacred Movement into a Thriving Global Market
Kamal Munir, Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari, and Deborah Brown
Do you practice yoga to seek religious enlightenment or killer abs? Over the last 40 years, yoga has been commodified and transformed into a large-scale global fitness market – a remarkable feat given its moral origins as anti-market and collectivist. This paper traces the fascinating process by which the sacred origins of yoga become syncretized with the market.
Book Reviews
Forgotten Values: The World Bank and Environmental Partnerships
Michael E. Cummings
These articles and many more are featured on Henrich Greve's blog site Organizational Musings. Our student-run ASQ Blog features interviews with ASQ authors that offer insights into the research and writing process. To stay informed, connect with ASQ on social media: follow us on Twitter (@ASQJournal) and LinkedIn.
Christine Beckman, University of Southern California
Editor, Administrative Science Quarterly
------------------------------
Christine Beckman
University of Southern California
Los Angeles CA
------------------------------