Administrative Science Quarterly Table of Contents Alert, June 2023: Vol. 68, No. 2
I'm pleased to share our latest issue, which features several papers that deepen our understanding of creativity and the creative process (and several on creative industries). If creativity is not your thing, we also have a fascinating cross-national look at venture capital syndicates. Then there are the unintended benefits of the latest issue. If you are managing to catch the Taylor Swift tour, like me, this issue of ASQ will provide some conversational nuggets. You'll be ready for American football season in a few months. You can feel good about having a calling for your work. And don't forget the bumper crop of book reviews for some ideas for your summer reading list.
A Change of Tune: The Democratization of Market Mediation and Crossover Production in the U.S. Commercial Music Industry
Yuan Shi
Country music sounds much different than it used to, and crossover artists like Taylor Swift exemplify this transition. A 2012 change to Billboard chart calculations helps explains why. When digital streaming was added in the country genre rankings (rather than just radio play), crossover songs (combining country with elements of rock, pop, and hip-hop) had instant success. The results show reducing the power of intermediaries allowed producers to engage in boundary-spanning work that appealed to consumers more successfully.
When Do Collaborative First Moves Diminish Nationality-Based Homophilic Preferences? An Examination of Chinese Venture Capital Investment Syndicates
Wei Xia, H. Kevin Steensma, and Xiaoou Bai
Studying VC investment syndicates in China, the authors show that Chinese and U.S. firms both generally prefer compatriot firms. However, when a Chinese firm initiates collaboration with a U.S. firm, that move eliminates the U.S. firm's homophilic preferences; familiarity triggers impartiality. The same is not true in reverse: Chinese firms' nationalist preferences are resilient to collaborations initiated by U.S. firm. Results suggest that homophilic preferences may be stronger in countries with collectivist values.
Organization-as-Platform Activism: Theory and Evidence from the National Football League "Take a Knee" Movement
Alexandra Rheinhardt, Forrest Briscoe, and Aparna Joshi
As more workers are bringing their non-work identities and beliefs to the workplace, we increasingly see them use their organizations to promote change. Rather than acting as citizens (targeting societal institutions) or targeting their organization (as with employee activism), employees use the organization to communicate with external stakeholders to drive societal change. This type of platform activism among employees is more likely when the organization and local communities are more receptive to the topic of the protest.
Blog post is here.
Cultural Breadth and Embeddedness: The Individual Adoption of Organizational Culture as a Determinant of Creativity
Yoonjin Choi, Paul Ingram, and Sang Won Han
Creative ideas are both novel and useful. Our cultural breadth-adopting a broad range of values, beliefs, and norms that span our organization's culture-contributes to novelty. Our cultural embeddedness-adopting core values, beliefs, and norms entrenched in the organization's culture-helps us generate ideas that others view as useful. The authors show that "integrated cultural brokers" with both high cultural breadth and depth are most likely to generate novel and useful creative ideas in both the US and South Korea.
Ideas in the Space Between: Stockpiling and Processes for Managing Ideas in Developing a Creative Portfolio
Poornika Ananth and Sarah Harvey
What makes creative people creative? They have a creative portfolio. This study finds that creators stockpile and store ideas across creative projects, and this stockpile of ideas can be transformed into resources to be mobilized in new projects. Thus creators have portfolios of ideas that are strategically used as resources in new creative products, and creators transform ideas into representations that can symbolize their creative voice and identity and be used to create new meanings in new projects.
Blog post is here.
Calling and the Good Life: A Meta-Analysis and Theoretical Extension
Shoshana R. Dobrow, Hannah Weisman, Daniel Heller, and Jennifer Tosti-Kharas
Does having a calling lead to the good life? It seems so, especially at work. This meta-analysis of 201 studies shows that callings are more closely tied to work outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, work meaningfulness) than measures of well-being. They show that the strength of these outcomes varies based on whether a calling is internally (self-) focused or externally (other-) focused. Internally focused calling is strongly associated with job satisfaction; an externally focused calling is associated with meaningful work.
"If I Could Turn Back Time": Occupational Dynamics, Technology Trajectories, and the Reemergence of the Analog Music Synthesizer
Andrew Nelson, Callen Anthony, and Mary Tripsas
We know that technologies are replaced, but what leads to the re-emergence of an old technology? Tracing music synthesizer technology from analog to digital and back to analog, this study answers that question. Although initially embraced for their ease of use, digital synthesizers undermined musicians' occupational goals. Artists turned back to the analog technology to regain control over sounds (facilitating creativity and utilizing their expertise), as well as to have an embodied connection with their tools.
Blog post is here.
Book Reviews
Giacomo Negro and Michael T. Hannan with Susan Olzak. Wine Markets: Genres and Identities
Olga M. Khessina
Book Review Essay: The Beauty of Competition?
David Stark (ed). The Performance Complex: Competition and Competitions in Social Life. Stefan Arora-Jonsson, Nils Brunsson, Raimund Hasse, and Katarina Langerström (eds). Competition: What It Is and Why It Happens
Mark J. Zbaracki
Gal Beckerman. The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas
Jake B. Grandy
Irene M. Duhaime, Michael Hitt, and Marjorie A. Lyles, eds. Strategic Management: State of the Field and Its Future
Mary Benner
Thomas J. Roulet. The Power of Being Divisive: Understanding Negative Social Evaluations
Kimberly D. Elsbach
Many of our articles 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
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Christine Beckman
University of Southern California
Los Angeles CA
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