This research develops a theory of team adaptation to disruptive events (the extent to which an event transforms usual activities). Our theory is based on a comprehensive investigation of firefighting teams, documenting how disruptive team task changes (i.e., disruptive events) create a lack of correspondence between what team members expect to happen (preexisting task mental models or TMMs) and what is happening in the situation (emergent team situation mental models or TSMs) and the reactions that assist in their adaptation to these changes. We find that teams navigated the lack of correspondence by shifting from implicit to explicit coordination processes to effectively adapt. In Study 1, we gathered data from 350 firefighters in Chile composing 46 teams performing emergency missions. We find that the more disruptive the events experienced, the less the TMM-TSM corresponded; this relationship was influenced by procedural rigidity as highly rigid procedures impair sensitivity to situational modifications. When teams had low TMM-TSM correspondence, explicit coordination enabled them to save more property and lives. Study 2, employing a laboratory experiment, confirmed that, when low correspondence between TMMs and TSMs resulted in explicit coordination, simulated firefighting teams were better able to accomplish their missions. Across both field and experimental settings, our results extend theory and offer practical guidance to managers regarding how to support teams coping with disruptive events to avoid the dysfunctional consequences of overly rigid protocols. Funding: This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science [Grant PID2020-113394GB-I00] and the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences [Grant ARI W911NF-16-1-0545].

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) represent a novel organizational form enabling self-governed coordination based on blockchain technology. This study examines the prototypical Bitcoin DAO from an institutional perspective, focusing on how its core features—decentralization and autonomy—interact with the broader institutional framework in which it operates. Specifically, we study how regulative institutional environments (i.e., (il)legalization) shape the growth and development of DAOs while theorizing about the role of both petty and grand corruption (i.e., by higher-level officials) in influencing the effectiveness of these regulative institutions. Our empirical analysis focuses on the global rise of Bitcoin trading and platform establishment across 49 national contexts from 2011 to 2023. Utilizing a unique data set, we find that, although the number of Bitcoin exchange platforms in a country is positively associated with Bitcoin legalization, Bitcoin trading volume is positively associated with Bitcoin illegalization. In countries with higher levels of grand corruption, Bitcoin illegalization becomes even more strongly associated with trading. In contrast, grand corruption dampens the positive association between legalization and the number of Bitcoin exchange platforms. Further, the presence of petty corruption reduces the impact of grand corruption. Our study reveals that it is critical to distinguish between petty and grand corruption as an important factor that influences the interplay between the regulative environment and growth and development of the Bitcoin DAO and the related ecosystem of Bitcoin trading and platform founding.

Although prevalent network theories posit that job seekers are motivated to utilize networks for instrumental benefits, we argue that sociopsychological barriers can discourage network use even when access is readily available. We examine this overlooked dynamic by exploring how sociopsychological factors influence network activation among mothers reentering the workforce after child-related career breaks. Analyzing panel data from a representative sample of Korean job seekers, we find that these mothers are markedly less inclined to use network-based search methods than other groups of women. This inclination remains when we account for individual fixed effects, employment gap length, and potential network disturbances. To uncover the reasons behind this distinct job-search behavior, we conducted in-depth interviews with 60 mothers who experienced child-related employment breaks and 38 other individuals, including mothers without such breaks, nonmothers, and fathers. Whereas existing theories attribute limited network use to restricted access, our qualitative evidence reveals deeper sociopsychological hurdles: mothers often anticipate challenges in reciprocating job-related assistance and the potential revelation of their inferior status when seeking help. These multifaceted internal conflicts not only hamper mothers’ swift reintegration into the labor force but also nudge them toward roles for which they are overqualified. As we bridge these findings, we identify novel theoretical avenues for future research, underscoring how sociopsychological hurdles to network activation can produce gender inequalities in the labor market. Funding: Support from the Wharton Dean’s Research Fund and Wharton’s Center for Human Resources.

Free speech is a core principle in most democratic societies. However, the proliferation of prejudiced speech on social media has prompted intense debates about censorship. As a corollary in the workplace, and against the backdrop of online boundary blurring, we recruited a U.S. nationally representative sample to document that coworkers’ prejudiced social media posts concern Democrats whereas employer censorship of such posts concerns Republicans. To investigate this tension, we integrated boundary research into the psychological safety literature to theorize that organizational censorship on social media differentially affects liberals’ and conservatives’ individual-level psychological safety at work. We also theorized that psychological safety may be fostered—for all employees—by exploiting the tension between safeguards and free expression in organizational social media policies. Taking a multimethod approach, we first explored reactions to organizational censorship of prejudiced speech using open-ended responses (Study 1). Next, we demonstrated in preregistered observational and experimental surveys that such censorship increases Democrats’ psychological safety but decreases Republicans’ psychological safety (Studies 2–3). Finally, in a preregistered, conjoint survey experiment (Study 4), we examined moderators that could help manage this tension. We found that alignment between organizational values and censorship practices, as well as censorship of anti-Black speech, threatening speech, and references to one’s organization, can improve psychological safety for Democrats without undermining psychological safety for Republicans. As political polarization permeates societies worldwide, maintaining the social-relational fabric of organizations will require policies that balance ideological demands. We conclude by discussing implications for psychological safety, “free” speech, and organizational censorship. Funding: This project was funded by the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business and Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2024.19506 .

We draw from the social psychology literature to introduce an alternative conceptualization of executive narcissism—narcissistic admiration and rivalry. In the context of chief executive officers (CEOs) pitching to investors, we theorize how narcissistic CEOs may use distinct behavioral strategies to pursue status, thereby shaping investor sentiment and ultimately affecting investors’ funding decisions. Using Shark Tank data, we find evidence that narcissistic admiration and rivalry are associated with opposing patterns in new venture funding, as shaped by investor sentiment. Specifically, CEO narcissistic admiration is positively associated with new venture funding by increasing investor sentiment, whereas CEO narcissistic rivalry is negatively associated with new venture funding by decreasing investor sentiment. These results highlight the need to separate narcissistic admiration and rivalry in executive narcissism research and illustrate the underlying mechanisms through which executive narcissism shapes organizational outcomes. Overall, this study provides new insights into two pathways of executive narcissism and offers evidence consistent with the idea that executive narcissism matters in entrepreneurial contexts. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.17024 .

This study investigates how market actors legitimize new categories that challenge the foundational understandings of established ones while simultaneously seeking to compete in the same market space. We analyze the development of the U.S. plant-based meat category from 2012 to 2019, focusing on how plant-based meat producers positioned their products as legitimate competitors within the meat category despite their nonanimal origins. We identify three key legitimation strategies used by entrepreneurs: reconfiguring the category basis by reframing the core attributes of meat from animal origin to shared biochemical components; creating experiential congruence by replicating the sensory qualities and social practices associated with traditional meat; and instilling value superiority by emphasizing health, environmental, and ethical benefits along with forward-thinking innovation. Our observations also lead us to theorize what we term category transmutation—a construct for understanding how the successful legitimation of a new category might reshape the meaning and boundaries of an existing one. We envision category transmutation as a process through which an existing category evolves to incorporate both traditional and new subcategories, thereby vertically modifying the category structure. This study advances our understanding of category dynamics and extends the role of cultural entrepreneurship beyond gaining legitimacy to reshaping category systems and market structures, with the potential to drive positive societal changes.

This paper shows that high-skilled immigrants strategically increase their workplace efforts in response to identity-based career concerns that intensify following national conflicts between their countries of origin and host countries. Leveraging the rapid escalation of the U.S.–China conflict following the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the difference-in-differences framework, we show that Chinese-descent inventors in the United States significantly increased their workplace efforts compared with their Korean- and Japanese-descent counterparts. Consistent with our theory, this effect is more pronounced among Chinese-descent inventors more vulnerable to identity-based career concerns, including midcareer migrants, those with ethnically distinctive first names, corporate inventors more dependent on immigration sponsorship than academic counterparts, and those residing in counties with higher levels of Trump support. Furthermore, using a nationally representative survey, we find that Chinese-descent college-educated workers in the United States reported working significantly more hours than their Korean and Japanese counterparts following the conflict. This study contributes to our understanding of how high-skilled immigrants adjust their workplace efforts in response to geopolitical tensions. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2024.19031 .

Investors look to the language a firm uses for information that may not be available otherwise, especially in entrepreneurial settings. One aspect of language that is garnering greater attention in the management and other business literatures is vagueness. Vague language is often viewed negatively by audiences because of its association with greater uncertainty and potential to obscure negative information. However, some work in linguistics implies that the use of vague language can have positive impacts if the speaker understands the needs of the audience. This study explores the use of vague language and its relationship with investor interest as well as how it interacts with the skills of the entrepreneurial founding team. We hypothesize that, in general, investors are less interested in firms that use vague language, but the positive impacts of vague language become apparent when firm founders have human capital endowments associated with the effective use of language. Analyses based on data from a major start-up pitch competition provide evidence to support these hypotheses. Post hoc analyses explore potential mechanisms. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16367 .

Firms strategically establish political connections in the hopes of obtaining access to resources and opportunities controlled by the state. However, little is known about benefits that may accrue to firms from ties with politician shareholders. We explore potential spillover benefits of such ties in the context of financially motivated shareholder activism (“financial activism”). Specifically, we examine whether financial activists are deterred from targeting firms owned by Democratic politicians, who tend to adopt a more interventionist and stakeholder-oriented stance toward economic regulation than Republicans. Based upon an analysis of S&P 1500 firms over a 15-year period, we find that the number of Democratic politician shareholders is negatively associated with a firm’s likelihood of being targeted by a financial activist. This relationship is stronger when Democratic politician shareholders are more publicly prominent and when firms have more Democratic-leaning boards. Our study shows that the benefits firms derive from politician shareholders spill over beyond the business-government interface into the domain of corporate governance. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.17495 .

We investigate the impact that social movements have on firm innovation through private politics. We argue that firms strategically respond to private politics by investing in new technologies that address movement-advocated issues material to firms’ performance. Although both contentious private politics—when activists contentiously target firms—and cooperative private politics—when activists and firms collaborate—catalyze innovation, they do so in different ways. Contentious private politics increases the amount of innovation that firms undertake by drawing managerial attention to movement-advocated issues material to the firm, prompting search for solutions to those issues. Conversely, cooperative private politics provides firms access to new knowledge that encourages firms to search for solutions in areas more distant from their existing knowledge and in so doing, increase innovation involving distant recombination on material issues. We find support for our arguments in a matched sample of firms contentiously targeted and with activist collaborations on climate change issues and firms that were not targets of private politics on those issues but had otherwise similar histories of climate-related innovation and relationships with climate movements and other environmental movements. Supplementary analyses corroborate the mechanisms that undergird our theoretical predictions; contentious private politics is associated with more innovation closer to a firm’s expertise, whereas cooperative private politics is associated with innovations that draw on more distant knowledge. We also find that when collaboration follows contention, their respective impacts on innovation are reduced, which may result from firms seeking collaborations for their legitimacy-granting benefits after contention rather than the learning opportunities they offer. Funding: Funding for this research was provided by the Strategic Management Society Strategy Research Foundation [dissertation grant] and Wharton’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.17497 .