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Professional Services Firms (PSFs) are an important form of knowledge-intensive organization with an educated and professionalised workforce and a partnership model of governance. This article repo...

There is increasing recognition among scholars that entrepreneurs use framing to legitimize their ventures and the broader fields within which they operate. Yet, there is no unifying framework to bring together existing theoretical perspectives on entrepreneurial framing and to make sense of their underlying mechanisms. Based on an integrative review of prior studies, we propose a conceptual framework for organizing this important literature. Our review also suggests directions for future research on entrepreneurial framing.

In this study, we build on the foundational observations of Selznick and Stinchcombe that organizations bear the lasting imprint of their founding context and explore how characteristics shaped during founding are coherently carried forward through time. To do so, we draw on an ethnography of a social venture where the entrepreneurs left soon after founding. In examining how an initial organizational imprint evolves beyond a venture’s founding phase, we focus on the actions and interactions of organizational members, the founders’ imprint, the venture’s new leadership, and the external environment. The process model we develop shows how the organizational imprint evolves as a consequence of the interplay between top-down and bottom-up forces. We first find that the initial imprint is transmitted through a bottom-up mechanism of imprint reinforcement, and second, that the venture is reimprinted after the founding period through two processes which we call imprint reforming and imprint coupling. The result of this is the formation of a sedimented imprint. Our findings further illuminate that, although the initial imprint sticks, its function and manifestation changes over time.

Given its extremely negative impact, it is not surprising that there is extensive literature focused on understanding and reducing corruption. However, the existing academic work focuses largely on...

PurposeThis paper aims to analyse the valuation of cultural products and explores what this process means for organizations involved in their production and marketing.Design/methodology/approachThe authors develop the arguments using a number of mini-cases and industry examples.FindingsThe main thesis is that the meaningfulness and value ambiguity of cultural products shift the focus of valuation away from the products themselves towards how certain agents in the socio-cultural environment identify and certify these products. This paper discuss how valuation takes place via selection systems and how the nature of cultural products drives the dominance of one selection system over others.Research limitations/implicationsTheories on value creation needs to take consideration of the critical role played by the selection system instead of just the firms that produce these products.Practical implicationsOrganizations engaged in producing highly symbolic products need to manage selection systems and related industry dynamics to establish an enduring competitive advantage.Social implicationsValue creation is a collective social efforts. Every member of the society can play a central role in this process. Better engaging various member of the society to enable them actively participate in the value creation process is what organizations today need to consider, instead of just treating individuals in the society as a “customer” who only passively consume. This research calls for the true empowerment of every member of the society to facilitate collective creativity and participation in the value creation endeavour that benefits the entire society as a whole.Originality/valueIt is the first paper that has created a conceptual link between the type of selection system and product categories. In other words, it takes existing literature on value creation and selection system one step further by creating the alignment or match between types of selection system and types of product categories. Therefore, it offers academics and practitioners a much detailed understanding on how value creation is conducted across different product categories.

Technological frames provide an interpretive mechanism for individuals to evaluate new product innovations. These frames therefore play an important role in product market evolution. But how are technological frames themselves shaped? Prior research has demonstrated how technological frames are influenced by consumers’ direct experience with new products and how they are informed by traditional media evaluations. More recently, however, the emergence of social media has resulted in the development of new arenas where consumers, producers, and other actors discuss and debate forthcoming product innovations by exchanging rumors and propositions. Integrating insights from the sociology of rumor and the affordances of social media, we propose a model of how online product rumor communities shape technological frames in a way not accounted for by prior models of innovation and product market evolution. Online product rumor communities influence product market evolution not only when products are released but also in the “prehistory” of product markets.

Research on new venture creation in Africa is growing rapidly. This increasing interest reflects both the potential for entrepreneurship to contribute to the economic and social development of Africa, as well as the potential for this research to provide new insights that challenge and extend theories developed primarily from studies of North American and European new ventures. In this editorial essay, we argue for an expansion of this important research stream to include a focus on how technology ventures scale in Africa. We identify seven topics that offer interesting opportunities for research on scaling in Africa: (1) the effect of venture location on scaling; (2) the effect of founding team diversity on scaling; (3) the effect of entrepreneurial strategies on scaling; (4) the effect of nascent ecosystems on scaling; (5) the effect of the institutional environment on scaling; (6) the effect of nascent financial markets on scaling; and (7) the societal effects of scaling. We discuss each of these topics, their potential to contribute to the existing literature, and provide examples of African technology firms that have scaled to illustrate each topic. We conclude with a discussion of how African social, political, and regulatory change, combined with rapidly developing entrepreneurial ecosystems, are creating a context where the successful scaling of technology ventures is becoming increasingly common, and research is therefore increasingly valuable.

Insulin replacement therapy is lifesaving for insulin-dependent diabetic patients, but it comes with an ever-present threat of hypoglycemia, which can eventually cause ischemic events, arrhythmias, neurological damage, coma, or even death. Consequently, the risk of hypoglycemia remains the most significant obstacle that prevents insulin-dependent patients from attaining adequate metabolic control. One approach to solve this issue involves the co-injection of insulin and glucagon at a fixed ratio, which has been shown to improve glycemic control with prevention of hypoglycemia. The co-administration of both hormones is based on two known physiological processes: first, insulin is a potent inhibitor of glucagon activity, especially under hyperglycemic conditions, and second, glucagon overpowers insulin and stimulates hepatic glucose production under hypoglycemic circumstances. In this work, we took this concept further into developing an insulin/glucagon fusion protein that will provide glycemic control (by the insulin portion) while preventing hypoglycemia (through the glucagon portion). Because both hormones are known to be unstable and form amyloid-like fibrils, our approach consists of using a fibrillation-resistant single-chain insulin (SCI) analog fused to a novel fibrillation-resistant glucagon analog. These molecules were independently synthesized by Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS) and linked together from the C-Terminus of the glucagon analog to the N-Terminus of the SCI analog by trypsin-mediated ligation. By themselves or when fused, these ultra-stable analogs didn't form fibrils after one month of agitation at 37°C in PBS (pH 7.4). By contrast, native insulin started fibrillation at 12.14 ± 3.65 hours, and native glucagon at time 0. The glucagon analog was designed to be less potent than the native molecule to allow unopposed insulin activity while in hyperglycemia but maintaining full agonism to prevent hypoglycemia. The in vitro glucagon activity was measured by cAMP production in HEK293 expressing the glucagon receptor. The glucagon analog was determined to be a full agonist with an EC50 of 125.7 nM, a ∼58-fold potency difference to the native molecule (2.175 nM). The fusion protein was tested in vitro and in vivo to determine the activities of both moieties when fused. The in vitro insulin activity of the fusion protein measured by traditional and in-cell western blot was comparable to the SCI alone. The in vitro glucagon activity of the fusion protein was also similar to the glucagon analog alone (EC50 151.2 nM), therefore validating our fusion approach. The in vivo insulin and glucagon activities are currently being tested by subcutaneous injection in diabetic (STZ) and normal rats. So far, both insulin and glucagon moieties have shown to be fully active, and hypoglycemia has not been observed in rats. Increasing doses studies are underway. We believe that this approach will allow the design of next-generation insulin treatments protected against hypoglycemia, ultra-stable, and amenable for multiplatform delivery. Presentation: Saturday, June 11, 2022 1:54 p.m. - 1:59 p.m., Sunday, June 12, 2022 12:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

In this essay, we argue that entrepreneurship and innovation researchers should pay more attention to experimentation as an approach to innovation and corporate entrepreneurship in established firms. While there is a growing body of research examining experimentation in start-ups, there is no corresponding literature investigating the role of experiments in the innovation and corporate entrepreneurship activities of established firms despite the increasing interest in experimentation among managers and the growing practitioner literature urging established firms to adopt experimentation. We discuss this trend and point to a number of research areas that we believe deserve systematic research.

In assembly of short responses, noted scholars—including former presidents of the Academy of Management (AOM)—share their perspectives on the events related to AOM leadership following EO13769. The pieces are reflections on the micro-level aspects of leadership and the ethical and moral choices therein.

Healthy organisations have a strong provision of the vital elements required for long-term sustainable success and proponents of organisational health concern themselves with the recognition and me...

Previous work on institutional complexity has discussed two solutions that organizations internally deploy when externally engaging with multiple institutional logics: blended hybrids, in which logics are combined throughout the organization, and structural hybrids, in which different logics dominate in different compartments within the organization. While blended hybrids have been extensively investigated, few studies have examined how structural hybrids are constructed and maintained. We address this imbalance by studying university–industry research centers as instances of distinct organizational spaces used to engage with a minority logic. We found that these spaces require three kinds of work: (a) leveraging, where dominant logic practices are drawn on to achieve minority logic objectives; (b) hybridizing, where the practices inside the space are modified to allow engagement with the minority logic; and (c) bolstering, where the space is shielded against excessive minority logic influence and anchored back into the organization. Furthermore, contrary to the existing literature, we found that the spaces were hybrid, rather than being dominated by a single logic. Our finding is likely generalizable across many instances of structural hybrids given the integration problems that organizations with pure single logic spaces would face, combined with the usefulness of hybrid spaces. Our study is novel in revealing the work needed to sustain hybrid spaces and questioning the previously held conceptualization of structural hybrids as made up of single-logic compartments. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1228 .

Interstitial spaces are informal settings where interactions among actors from different organizational fields are more likely to succeed despite the institutional complexity that they face. Individuals acting as “catalysts” have been identified as being particularly important in the dynamics of these interstitial spaces. However, the focus to date has been on individuals interacting in interstitial spaces that have developed informally, and we know little about how formal organizations might purposefully create and manage interstitial spaces to initiate cross-field interaction. Using data from a study of six organizations involved in technology transfer activities between universities and industry in Italy, we explore how formal organizations use interstitial spaces to encourage cross-field collaboration and identify the set of formal and informal activities employed by catalysts to manage the complexity that arises. In addition, our analysis identifies two activities implemented at the organizational and field level by the formal organizations to support the interstitial spaces. Based on these results, we develop a model of the management of interstitial spaces by formal organizations.

In this paper, we explore how actors benefit from bringing together incompatible institutional logics – an activity we call institutional arbitrage – and discuss why they do so despite the challenges it creates. We develop a taxonomy of four basic tactics of institutional arbitrage that are rooted in differences between logics in terms of resource valuation, purpose, practices and legitimacy. These tactics enable actors to create benefits by engaging with actors from fields adhering to different logics or integrating practices from other fields. We also discuss some of the factors that enable actors to deploy these tactics in particular institutional settings. We conclude with a discussion of some of the potential consequences of institutional arbitrage for actors, organizations and the broader organizational field within which arbitrage occurs.

In this essay, we discuss how collective identity shapes and constrains innovation in organizations and argue that this phenomenon deserves more attention from innovation scholars. Drawing on the existing literature, we distinguish three mechanisms through which a collective identity affects innovation – top management team cognition and emotion, organizational member resistance, and external stakeholder resistance – and illustrate these mechanisms by drawing on the example of symphony orchestras. Orchestras have faced shrinking audiences and significant declines in revenue for decades, yet their ability to innovate in response has been constrained by the very traditional collective identity of the “symphony orchestra”. We go on to argue that innovation researchers need to pay more attention to the mechanisms through which collective identity limits and shapes innovation, to investigate potential strategies that organizations can use to manage the tension between collective identity and innovation, and to better understand how collective identity can be used as a resource in innovation.

In this special issue introduction, we briefly describe a variety of research paths researchers have followed to study the multifaceted phenomenon of corruption. Furthermore, we classify the papers included in this special issue according to their contribution to these research paths and briefly preview them. Finally, drawing on these four research paths and the papers included in this special issue, we propose a six-item agenda for future research on corruption.

We investigate how established professionals manage their identities in the face of identity threats from a contested shift in the professional logic that characterizes their field. To do so, we draw on interviews with 113 physicians from five European transition countries who faced pressure for change in their professional identities due to a shift in the logic of healthcare from a logic of “narrow specialism” in primary care that characterized the Soviet health system to a new logic of “generalism” that characterizes primary care in the West. We found three important forms of professional identity threats experienced by physicians during this period – professional values conflict, status loss, and social identity conflict. In addition, we identified three forms of identity work – authenticating, reframing, and cultural repositioning – that the professionals who successfully transitioned to the new identity performed in order to reconstruct their professional identities so that they were aligned with the new logic. Based on these findings, we present a model of how established professionals change their professional identities as a result of a contested shift in the professional logic of their field and discuss the underlying mechanisms through which this occurs.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are an important form of hybrid organization that may, if properly designed and managed, generate innovative solutions to complex problems by combining different institutional logics. Using data from a comparative case study of the creation of two PPPs in the Italian healthcare sector, we draw on ideas from business model design and organizational hybridity to explore how complexity can be managed inside PPPs and how this drives the creation of value for stakeholders. We link the literature on hybrid organizations with the one on business models by looking at the organizational mechanisms and processes that are implemented in PPP project governance, assets and processes. We go on to develop a theoretical model showing how effective business model design can help to bridge different logics and create value for stakeholders in the creation and operation of PPPs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Welcome to the first issue of Innovation: Organization & Management (IOM). In this editorial, we will explain the focus of the journal and also provide some context for why we believe the time is r...

Drawing on a case study of the adoption of an American organizational form – the “Academic Health Science Centre” (or “AHSC”) – in English healthcare, the authors develop a model of the “translation work” required to translate an organizational form from one organizational field to another. The findings contribute to the literature on translation and shed light on the microfoundations of institutions by examining the complex relationship among agency, meaning, institutions, and temporality that underpin the translation of a contested organizational form. The authors also show the important, but limited, role of agency when translation occurs at the broad field level and argue that the translation of organization forms can, in at least some situations, best be understood as a “garbage can” rather than the linear and agentic view usually described in the translation literature.

Organization work represents the purposeful, reflexive efforts of individuals, collective actors, and networks of actors to shape organizations as social-symbolic objects. This chapter begins the exploration of organization work by examining the history of the organization as a social-symbolic object, and how that history has shaped organization work. Organizations as social-symbolic objects changed dramatically over time, and so the chapter explores the history of the organization, focusing on its transformation in modernity, and then its reformulation in postmodernity. It then conceptualizes organization work: beginning by exploring its discursive, relational, and material dimensions, and then discussing the kinds of actors who might engage in organization work.

This chapter develops the arguments that underpin the rest of the book and introduces the three forms of social-symbolic work explored in greater detail in subsequent chapters. It begins by exploring how the possibility of social-symbolic work is rooted in the historical changes associated with the transitions to modernity and postmodernity. It then develops the concept of social-symbolic work, explaining its roots in studies of social structure and agency, identifying its three key dimensions—discursive, relational, and material—and introducing three key forms of social-symbolic work (self work, organization work, institutional work). Finally, it presents a process model of social-symbolic work that guides the analysis of the different forms of social-symbolic work.

Institutional work involves actors purposefully engaging with their institutional contexts in order to create, modify, or disrupt institutions. In this chapter, we review the history of institutions as social-symbolic objects. We then conceptualize institutional work as a form of social-symbolic work, focusing on identifying the key dimensions of institutional work, and exploring the variety of actors engaged in institutional work.

Self work represents the purposeful, reflexive efforts of individuals, collective actors, and networks of individual and collective actors to shape their own selves and those of others. This chapter begins by examining the history of the self as a social-symbolic object, and how that history has shaped self work. The availability and meaning of a self as a social-symbolic object has changed dramatically over time, and so the chapter explores the history of the self, focusing on its transformation in modernity, and then its reformulation in postmodernity. It then conceptualizes self work: it begins by exploring its discursive, relational, and material dimensions, and then discusses the kinds actors who might engage in self work.

Across the social sciences, scholars are showing how people “work” on facets of social life that were once thought to be beyond human intervention. Facets of social life once considered to be embedded in human nature, dictated by God, or shaped by macro‐level social forces beyond human control, are now widely understood as socially constructed – made and given meaning by people through social interaction, and consequently the focus of efforts to change them. Studies of these efforts have explored new forms of work including emotion work, identity work, boundary work, strategy work, institutional work, and a host of other kinds of work. Missing in these conversations, however, is a recognition that these forms work are all part of a broader phenomenon driven by historical shifts that began with modernity and dramatically accelerated through the twentieth century. This book explores that broader phenomenon: we propose a perspective that integrates diverse streams of research to examine how people purposefully work to construct organizational life. We refer to these efforts as social‐symbolic work and introduce three forms – self work, organization work, and institutional work – that are particularly useful in understanding how actors construct organizational life. The social‐symbolic work perspective highlights the purposeful, reflexive efforts of individuals, collective actors, and networks of actors to construct the social world, and focuses attention on the motivations, practices, resources, and effects of those efforts. Thus, the social-symbolic work perspective brings actors back into explanations of the social world, and balances approaches that emphasize social structure at the expense of action or describe social processes without explaining the role of actors.

This chapter explores the methodological challenges and choices associated with the study of social-symbolic work. To do so, we focus on a set of issues that we believe are key to successful research on social-symbolic work: developing productive research questions, identifying appropriate research contexts, collecting data on social-symbolic work and social-symbolic objects, and analysing the data collected.

This book has introduced the social-symbolic work perspective, which revolves around the relationship between social-symbolic work and social-symbolic objects. To explore this relationship, it examined three broad forms of social-symbolic work—self work, organization work, institutional work—and prominent streams of management and organizational research associated with each. This concluding chapter moves on to a broader set of questions concerning the potential importance of a social-symbolic work perspective for different communities. In particular, it explores the implications of the social-symbolic work perspective for scholars analyzing the social world, change-makers trying to make it better, and citizens trying to understand and cope with its roaring currents of change.

Although the study of institutional work developed relatively recently it has inspired a significant body of research investigating how agents purposefully engage with their institutional context in order to create, modify, or disrupting institutions. The focus of that research has, however, remained relatively narrow—oriented around practices and the discursive dimension of institutional work. This chapter examines two types of institutional work. First, it explores practice work as a form of institutional work, the study of which represents a core focus in management and organizational research. Second, it examines category work, the study of which is only emerging in management and organizational research.

This chapter builds on the discussions in previous chapters that focused on specific forms of social-symbolic work to explore two main sets of theoretical opportunities that arise from the social-symbolic work perspective. First, opportunities arise to explore how different forms of social-symbolic work are combined in concrete situations—how actors might, for example, engage simultaneously in institutional work and organization work, and the dynamics and consequences of such a combination. Second, opportunities emerge from the connections between social-symbolic objects, and the efforts of actors to shape those connections. Before exploring those two opportunities, this chapter first reviews the forms of social-symbolic work explored in Chapters 3–8.

Recently, there have emerged in management and organizational research streams of research that are based on a view of organizations compatible with a social-symbolic work perspective and which focus on forms of organization work as defined in this book. This chapter reviews three literatures on organization work in management and organizational research. For each, it introduces the type of organization work, reviews its development in management and organizational research, and explores the implications of studying it as a type of organization work. First it explores strategy work as a form of organization work, the study of which has emerged primarily within management and organizational research. Second, it examines boundary work as a form of organization work, the study of which has emerged primarily in disciplines outside of management and organizational research. Third, it examines technology work as a form of organization work, the study of which is recently emerging in both management and organizational research and other disciplines.

The study of self work is one of the oldest and most developed areas of management and organizational research that focuses on social-symbolic work. This chapter reviews three literatures on self work in management and organization research. For each, it introduces the type of self work, reviews its development in management and organizational research, and explores the implications of studying it as a type of self work. First, the chapter explores how the concept of self work can help organize an extensive and well-developed literature through a discussion of emotion work. Second, it explores how the concept of self work can extend an existing research area by using the example of identity work. Third, it explores how a social-symbolic work perspective can motivate a new stream of literature by examining career work as a form of self work that remains largely unresearched.

This chapter develops the arguments that underpin the rest of the book, and introduces the three forms of social-symbolic work explored in greater detail in subsequent chapters. It begins by exploring the possibility of social-symbolic work that is rooted in the historical changes associated with the transitions to modernity and postmodernity. It then develops the concept of social-symbolic work, explaining its roots in studies of social structure and agency, identifying its three key dimensions—discursive, relational, and material—and introducing three key forms of social-symbolic work (self work, organization work, institutional work). Finally, it presents a process model of social-symbolic work that guides the analysis of the different forms of social-symbolic work.