Administrative Science Quarterly Online Table of Contents Alert
The September 2024 issue of Administrative Science Quarterly is available online:
Vol. 69, No. 3
The newest issue of ASQ is worth a deep read. In addition to eight splendid book reviews, the articles explain the slow response to the emergence of AIDs, the impact of training programs in urban slums in Brazil, the success of interorganizational collaborations in international development, the cost of joint appointments for underrepresented faculty, the problems of public scrutiny for 911 call-takers and emergency response time, and the implementation of radically decentralized authority. In this issue, I also announce the two award-winning articles that were recognized at the Academy of Management meetings in Chicago. Please also subscribe to our new substack for all the latest ASQ news.
Junkies, Queers, and Babies: Persistence and Updating of the Category AIDS Through Silencing and Puncturing of the Moral Boundary
Mia Chang-Zunino and Stine Grodal
What happens when a new understanding of a category clashes with how people initially understand a category’s moral meanings? Exploring this tension in the emergence of the category AIDs, the authors find that even as crucial new information about the causes of the disease emerged, the “silent majority” held on to their moral beliefs about the category. Only when the “moral boundary” was punctured were audiences willing to consider the category’s updated causal dimension and allocate resources to the disease. The authors shed new light on the complex processes of category persistence and updating.
The Allegory of the Favela: The Multifaceted Effects of Socioeconomic Mobility
Leandro S. Pongeluppe
Education is generally considered an important tool for socioeconomic mobility, but this article shows that business training can have unintended consequences. The author studied the effects of a training program for people living in Brazilian urban slums (favelas), unexpectedly finding that while the programs helped participants gain income and experience self-efficacy and optimism, they also experienced more prejudice and feelings of social stigma as they interacted with higher-status people who had prejudices against favelas. This research has important implications for how researchers and policymakers approach similar training programs.
Blog post is here.
Evidence in Practice: How Structural and Programmatic Scaffolds Enable Collaboration in International Development
Rodrigo Canales, Mikaela Bradbury, Anthony Sheldon, and Charlie Cannon
How do actors collaborate and learn across organizational and sectoral boundaries to solve complex social problems? Through an examination of eight interorganizational international development interventions, the authors demonstrate the importance of experimentation and a set of structural and programmatic scaffolding practices. For example, successful collaborations iterated between convening and protective spaces to maintain participation and develop common understandings. The result is a process theory in which complementary scaffolding practices provide stability and extend opportunities for collaboration and learning.
Stretched Thin: How a Misalignment Between Allocation and Valuation Underlies the Paradox of Diversity Achievement in Higher Education
Tanya Y. Tian and Edward B. Smith
Attempts to hire underrepresented groups in the short run may inadvertently exclude those groups in the long run. Studying a sample of assistant professors in a large research university, Tian and Smith find a paradox at the heart of the organization’s efforts to achieve diversity: Black assistant professors were much more likely than their White counterparts to be jointly appointed to two academic departments. These appointments require work that does not count in formal evaluation systems and hinders research productivity. The result? Lower retention for faculty with joint appointments. The results offer critical considerations for organizations hiring into non-standard roles in their efforts to achieve greater diversity.
Blog post is here.
Frontline Professionals in the Wake of Social Media Scrutiny: Examining the Processes of Obscured Accountability
Arvind Karunakaran
Social media platforms have become a popular way to evaluate professionals, allowing the public to call out professionals for perceived misbehavior. This article examines the downsides of such bottom-up scrutiny among 911 call-takers, finding that rather than helping these professionals improve their accountability, social media scrutiny caused the call-takers to deviate from their mandate and categorize more calls as non-emergency. Rather than supporting performance as top-down scrutiny had done, bottom-up scrutiny degraded the performance of call takers and had negative downstream impacts on police officers by slowing response times.
Enacting Decentralized Authority: The Practices and Limits of Moving Beyond Hierarchy
Michael Y. Lee
Organizations have increasingly tried to reduce hierarchical authority by creating decentralized structures and moving decision making to the front lines. But success has been hard to come by. Viewing decentralization as a dynamic, continual process rather than a static outcome, this article examines a firm’s implementation of holocracy. The author shows how three mutually reinforcing practices bound authority to tasks rather than people and require people to work and relate through role rather than rank. Despite frictions such as more cognitive effort for employees and continual updating of role responsibilities, the changes result in more horizontal communications.
Book Reviews
Taylor Lorenz. Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet
Y. Jenna Song
Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev. Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t
Elizabeth Gorman
Asaf Darr. Between Conflict and Collegiality: Palestinian Arabs and Jews in the Israeli Workplace
Peter Bamberger
Justin Grimmer, Margaret E. Roberts, and Brandon M. Stewart. Text as Data: A New Framework for Machine Learning and the Social Sciences
Rodrigo Valadao
Wenqian Wang, Fabrice Lumineau, and Oliver Schilke. Blockchains: Strategic Implications for Contracting, Trust, and Organizational Design
Simone Santoni
Gillian Tett. Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life
Madeleine Rauch
Catherine J. Turco. Harvard Square: A Love Story
Gino Cattani
Peter Bamberger. Exposing Pay: Pay Transparency and What It Means for Employees, Employers, and Public Policy
Tae-Youn Park
ASQ articles have often been 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, follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter on Substack for all the latest ASQ announcements and information.
Christine Beckman, University of California, Santa Barbara
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Christine Beckman
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara CA
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