Publications

Addressing the Flexible Use of Cognitive Flexibility Constructs: Toward a Multifaceted Approach

Published in Academy of Management Annals, 2024

Many researchers have drawn on the term “cognitive flexibility” to denote the explanatory mechanism underlying a broad array of organizational theories. However, conceptualization (and operationalization) of this construct is inconsistent, and sometimes conflates with that of other constructs, thereby weakening our understanding of cognitive flexibility and muddling the theories that rest on it. To bring clarity, we conduct a comprehensive search of cognitive flexibility constructs, strip away their labels, and use text analysis and manual coding of their descriptions to distinguish among five fluid thought processes: (1) elaborating, (2) dimensionalizing, (3) integrating, (4) juxtaposing, and (5) matching. We further group these processes into three higher-order categories involving the reshaping, contending, and shifting of cognitive structures—and conduct a literature review of their consequences and antecedents. Our surveying demonstrates that these processes’ substance and implications differ markedly. As such, we argue that cognitive flexibility may be more appropriately viewed as a multifaceted, rather than monolithic, construct. We discuss how a multifaceted approach helps bring clarity to implicated organizational theories—and opens up exciting questions about the transferability, antagonism, and trainability of cognitive flexibility’s distinct facets.

Citation: Patil, S. V., Srinivas, S. B., Tussing, D. V., & Rhee, J. 2024. Addressing the Flexible Use of Cognitive Flexibility Constructs: Toward a Multifaceted Approach. Academy of Management Annals, annals.2023.0078.

How to break free: An orders-of-worth perspective on emancipatory entrepreneurship

Published in Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2022

The assumption of wealth creation as the dominant motive underlying entrepreneurial efforts has been challenged in recent work on entrepreneurship. Taking the perspective that entrepreneurship involves emancipatory efforts by social actors to escape ideological and material constraints in their environments (Rindova, Barry, & Ketchen, 2009), researchers have sought to explain a range of entrepreneurial activities in contexts that have traditionally been excluded from entrepreneurship research. We seek to extend this research by proposing that entrepreneurial acts toward emancipation can be guided by different notions of the common good underlying varying conceptions of worth, beyond those emphasized in the view of entrepreneurial activity as driven by economic wealth creation. These alternative conceptions of worth are associated with specific subjectivities of entrepreneurial self and relevant others, and distinct legitimate bases for actions and coordination, enabling emancipation by operating from alternative value system perspectives. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) work on multiple orders of worth (OOWs), we describe how emancipatory entrepreneurship is framed within – and limited by – the dominant view, which is rooted in a market OOW. As alternatives to this view, we theorize how the civic and inspired OOWs point to alternate emancipatory ends and means through which entrepreneurs break free from material and ideological constraints. We describe factors that enable and constrain emancipatory entrepreneurship efforts within each of these OOWs, and discuss the implications of our theoretical ideas for how entrepreneurs can choose among different OOWs as perspectives and for the competencies required for engaging with pluralistic value perspectives.

Citation: Rindova, V. P., Srinivas, S. B., & Martins, L. L. (2022). How to Break Free: An Orders-of-Worth Perspective on Emancipatory Entrepreneurship. In R. N. Eberhart, M. Lounsbury, & H. E. Aldrich (Eds.), Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives (Vol. 81, pp. 101–127). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20220000081006.

Click here to download the article

Shared leadership and relationship conflict in teams: The moderating role of team power base diversity

Published in Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2021

Shared leadership in teams is believed to be beneficial for team effectiveness. Yet recent empirical evidence shows that it may not always bring positive effects. On the one hand, the team leadership literature suggests that shared leadership allows for frequent interactions among members, improving intrateam harmony and reducing conflicts. On the other hand, the team power literature suggests that frequent influence interactions among multiple leaders can form an arena in which members fight over their power turfs, thereby triggering conflict. Drawing on dominance complementarity theory, we suggest that team power base diversity—the variety in power bases among team members from which they derive their informal influence—is an important contingency that moderates the impact of shared leadership on relationship conflict to influence team performance. In a sample of 70 project-based teams, we find support for the proposition that at high levels of team power base diversity, shared leadership has a positive downstream effect on team performance through reduced team relationship conflict. We discuss the contributions to knowledge about shared leadership and highlight practical implications for temporary teams with no formally designated leaders.

Citation: Sinha, R., Chiu, C.Y. (Chad), & Srinivas, S. B. (2021). Shared leadership and relationship conflict in teams: The moderating role of team power base diversity. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(5), 649–667. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2515.

The good, the bad, and the ugly of organizational rankings: A multidisciplinary review of the literature and directions for future research

Published in Journal of Management, 2018

A review of the literature on organizational rankings across management, sociology, education, and law reveals three perspectives on these complex evaluations—rankings are seen as a form of information intermediation, as comparative orderings, or as a means for surveillance and control. The information intermediation perspective views rankings as information products that address information asymmetries between the ranked organizations and their stakeholders; the comparative orderings perspective views them as representations of organizational status and reputation; and the surveillance and control perspective emphasizes their disciplining power that subjects ranked organizations to political and economic interests. For each perspective, we identify core contributions as well as additional questions that extend the current body of research. We also identify a new perspective—rankings entrepreneurship—which has been overlooked to date but presents significant opportunities to extend our understanding of the production and consumption of rankings.

Citation: Rindova, V. P., Martins, L. L., Srinivas, S. B., & Chandler, D. (2018). The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Organizational Rankings: A Multidisciplinary Review of the Literature and Directions for Future Research. Journal of Management, 44(6), 2175–2208. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206317741962.

Managing meaning—culture

Published in The Oxford Handbook of Management, 2017

Management of meaning, an activity central to mobilizing action both inside and outside organizations, has been studied in the analyses of organizational culture, identity, change, innovation, stakeholder management, and environmental enactment. This review of the conceptual and empirical work in these areas suggests that although meaning-making involves managing symbols, it is not concerned only with symbolic actions and their consequences. Meaning-making is central to the generation of substantive actions that affect organizations and their strategies in fundamental ways. Greater research attention to the importance of meaning management as a managerial and organizational capability, and the links between organizational cultures as systems of beliefs, and the societal culture as a toolkit, is recommended.

Citation: Rindova, V.P., & Srinivas, S.B. (2017). Managing Meaning—Culture. In A. Wilkinson, S. J. Armstrong, & M. Lounsbury (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Management (pp. 256–275). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198708612.013.14.