The theory of platform envelopment rests on network effects as the key mechanism for value creation, which nonetheless receives mixed support for its efficacy in determining competitive outcomes. We argue that the value of network effects depends on matching quality, which is a function of platform-specific algorithm technology and market-level data-driven learning. In formalizing these conceptualizations, we analyze a model that demonstrates how an entrant with a superior algorithm technology may outcompete an incumbent possessing a user base advantage, a strategy we call “algorithm envelopment.” By considering specific characteristics of data-driven learning, our analysis leads to propositions regarding the entry barriers for the enveloper, illuminating how learning may overshadow or interact with network effects in impacting the enveloper’s market selection decisions. We also show that market selection may be contingent on whether algorithm envelopment is instituted through competition or mergers, suggesting an interdependence between “where to enter” and “how to enter.” Finally, we explore the welfare effects of algorithm envelopment. We extend the recent debate on “data network effects” and show how teasing apart network effects, data-driven learning, and algorithm technology in envelopment attacks can generate novel implications for incumbency advantages, yield insights into platform diversification, and inform antitrust policymaking.

We introduce novel theory to explain how and why some forms of work are particularly likely to foster work–home conflict. While all occupations have entrenched and prescriptively normative cognitive behavioral scripts that guide effective work task execution, we argue that some occupations’ scripts are predominantly oppositional in nature, and largely inappropriate outside of the work domain. We articulate four forms of oppositional thoughts and behaviors (physical, interpersonally hostile, authoritarian, and intellectual) that are learned and reinforced at work. We explain how performing these scripts can desensitize workers to enacting oppositional behaviors, and how these scripts can be inadvertently cued and enacted at home. We introduce moderators to consider for whom this process might be more or less likely. Our theory enhances understanding of how work can conflict with home through cognitive behavioral processes, beyond known temporal and affective mechanisms. We also contribute to boundary theory perspectives on work–home conflict to theorize a novel detractor to effective work–home role segmentation, beyond boundary flexibility and permeability: role cue similarity across work and home. We conclude with a discussion of how our theory can generate research across work–home conflict, boundary theory, and occupations literatures, as well as practical implications.

Periodization, or the division of perceived time, pervades organizational life. While scholars have explored many ways in which actors relate to the past, present, and future for various purposes, periodization as an expression of temporality is often taken for granted. With a fundamental capacity to inform cognition and action, periodization carries high stakes for involved actors and groups, which necessitates addressing this lacuna. Specifically, we investigate the intersubjective instances of periodization that foreground human agency, which lends itself to developing a critical perspective on periodization with emphasis on its relation to power and agency and theorizing its often-covert presence and use in organizational life. Periodization, we contend, centralizes some organizational actors or events while marginalizing others. This insight is amenable to two theoretical contributions. First, we offer a new lens for understanding, theorizing, and leveraging the power of temporality and the temporality of power. Second, we set the stage for examining periodization as an actionable yet often overlooked temporal tool at the disposition of organizational actors. By systematically unearthing and challenging the underlying assumptions of periodization, we invite scholars and practitioners to scrutinize and challenge why and how organizational actors can temporally interpret, frame, and contest the social reality.

Most business ethicists maintain that corporate actors are subject to a variety of moral obligations. However, there is a persistent and underappreciated concern that the competitive pressures of the market somehow provide corporate actors with a far-reaching excuse from meeting these obligations. Here, we assess this concern. Blending resources from the history of philosophy and strategic management, we demonstrate the assumptions required for and limits of this excuse. Applying the idea of "the state of nature" from Thomas Hobbes, we suggest that corporate actors would be excused from duties if complying with them threatened their vital interests. We show how this excuse is not available for most individuals within firms; instead, it is an excuse perhaps available to firms themselves, but only given substantive assumptions about corporate personhood. For those willing to make these assumptions, we apply the competitive advantage construct to delimit the scope of this excuse. We suggest that firms are excused from fulfilling an obligation when complying leads to a competitive disadvantage, as this imperils the firm's vital interests. After revealing why this excuse does not generalize, we conclude by considering when we should reform the market to avoid the legitimacy of this excuse.

As workers progress through early-, mid-, and late-career stages, their goals tend to shift. Scholarly perspectives typically emphasize such differences between members of different career stages. By contrast, I offer a PORTAL (Progression, Off-Loading, Relevance, Teachings, Advice, and Legacy) framework specifying overlooked synergies between these goals. For workers of all stages, engaging in these synergies with other-staged workers fulfills respective needs, spurring work engagement, reducing turnover, and ultimately enhancing organizational performance. PORTAL offers symbiotic considerations for related domains of age diversity and generational issues, which also tend to emphasize differences over complementarities. Pragmatically, to maximize worker engagement across all career stages, organizations should tailor practices toward utilizing these symbioses.

We remind readers that the abductive process consists of more than idea generation. The abductive process has four interrelated steps, all necessary for successful abductive theory generation, and ...

We develop a comprehensive framework of how history matters for organizations. We first decompose the past into two distinct stages: (a) junctures and (b) processual periods. “Junctures” are relatively short periods when organizations develop structures, routines, and cultures that then have a lasting influence. “Processual periods” are longer and more stable times when past influence may become strengthened, preserved, or weakened. Combining one juncture and one processual period, we develop a typology of six ideal types of historical influence encompassing cohort effect, imprinting, path dependence, inertial decay, path stability, and dissipation. Our integrative framework helps (a) advance existing and extend new theories of the past, (b) enable empirical research on historical processes to draw more convincing conclusions from data, and (c) better inform the practice of managing influences from the past. Our study sets the stage for more cumulative knowledge of how history enduringly matters for organizations.