Administrative Science Quarterly Online Table of Contents Alert
Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. 69, No. 2 is available online:
In our June issue, deputy editor András Tilcsik and I introduce ASQ’s updated data and methods transparency policy, which goes into effect for all new submissions starting July 1. I encourage you to read our From the Editors and as well as the policy itself in our submission guidelines. Keep an eye out for a short video and webinar if you would like more details. Most important in this issue, however, are the fascinating articles and book reviews. They cover a broad range of topics: entrepreneurial and professional identity, employee mobility and hiring, intersectionality and gender, and normative and algorithmic control. As always, they are great reads on important and timely topics.
License to Broker: How Mobility Eliminates Gender Gaps in Network Advantage
Evelyn Y. Zhang, Brandy L. Aven, and Adam M. Kleinbaum
We know that women are less likely than men to occupy brokerage positions in their social networks and to reap rewards from doing so. But this author team shows us something that can negate that disadvantage: mobility within an organization. Why? Gender stereotypes may promote suspicion when women behave as brokers, but it is role-congruent for women to stay in contact with their former colleagues after they move from one unit to another. Those persistent ties don’t contradict the stereotypes, and they do create network advantages for women that effectively close the brokerage gender gap.
Blog post is here
Words of a Leader: The Importance of Intersectionality for Understanding Women Leaders’ Use of Dominant Language and How Others Receive It
Cydney Hurston Dupree
How leaders speak and are received varies by race and gender. Studying remarks made in the U.S. Congress and on a social media site, Dupree finds that (defying stereotypes) white women leaders use dominant language more often than white men leaders do. However, when Black and Latina women use dominant language (which they do not do more than same-race men), they face a backlash and are portrayed as dominant and cold in editorials by journalists. An experiment replicates this finding and demonstrates that subjects view Black women leaders more negatively when they reference dominance. Dupree’s work shows why it can be crucial to take an intersectional approach in our research to clarify who, exactly, drives the effects we observe.
How Beneficiaries Become Sources of Normative Control
James Chu
In this ethnographic study of a school in China, Chu shows how organizations can achieve normative control by using those outside the organization as sources of that control. Teachers internalized the school’s value of self-sacrifice after hearing parents (the beneficiaries of teachers’ sacrifices) describe their difficult circumstances. Through a ritual of interaction, teachers first engaged in collective storytelling about parents’ needs, then were publicly shamed by organization leaders if their daily performance failed to meet those needs, and finally felt validated when parents positively evaluated their work.
Co-Constructing Community and Entrepreneurial Identity: How Founders Ascribe Self-Referential Meanings to Entrepreneurship
Eliana Crosina
This study of a coworking space explores how first-time founders interacted with the space and developed their identities as entrepreneurs (or didn’t). The author finds that those who “settled” into a particular seat invested in and created a community, and they came to identify themselves as entrepreneurs engaged in a common struggle. Others, who experienced the facility as merely an office space and were “nomads” in that space, did not identify as strongly (or sometimes at all) as entrepreneurs and had more idealized views of entrepreneurship. Thus, as Crosina writes, “in the face of ambiguity, first-time founders start from where they are to figure out who they are.”
Trusting Talent: Cross-Country Differences in Hiring
Letian Zhang and Shinan Wang
When hiring, employers may use strategies that focus on applicants’ potential, which prioritizes their foundational skills, or they may instead hire based on applicants’ immediate readiness, which emphasizes more-advanced skills that can quickly plug into organizational needs. This article argues that the choice of hiring strategy is influenced by social trust of the country in which an employer operates. Those of us who live in societies with higher social trust are more likely to be hired based on our potential, while those of us who live in low-trust societies would be wise to sharpen our advanced skills.
Blog post is here
The Making of the “Good Bad” Job: How Algorithmic Management Manufactures Consent Through Constant and Confined Choices
Lindsey D. Cameron
How do workers who are managed by algorithms navigate their jobs to experience some agency? Cameron gets behind the wheel of the ride-hailing industry to show that under algorithmic management, workers make frequent, narrow choices while they work. Some workers use engagement tactics, such as chasing demand-based incentives. Others are more deviant, trying to get around the algorithmic management without incurring sanctions. In both instances, the control workers feel over their work facilitates their willingness to consent to algorithmic management. Even though these are bad jobs by many metrics, workers’ perception of choice makes these “good bad” jobs.
Defining Who You Are by Whom You Serve? Strategies for Prosocial–Professional Identity Integration with Clients
Lakshmi Ramarajan and Julie Yen
Studying architects and designers, the authors explore how professionals who want to contribute to society walk the line between their prosocial and professional identities. Ramarajan and Yen describe four strategies these professionals use to try to manage their identity conflicts: defending, affirming, expanding, or reforming their professional identities to reconcile them with their prosocial identity. Each strategy responds differently to the status of the client: from hierarchical to power sharing with low status clients, which in turn affects whether design skills or a broader set of skills and knowledge are valued.
Book Reviews
Vili Lehdonvirta. Cloud Empires: How Digital Platforms Are Overtaking the State and How We Can Regain Control
Nan Jia
Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra. The Quantified Scholar: How Research Evaluations Transformed the British Social Sciences
W. Chad Carlos and Isaac St. Clair
Michael L. Siciliano. Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries
Sarah Harvey
Allison Elias. The Rise of Corporate Feminism: Women in the American Office, 1960–1990
Caitlin Rosenthal
Lorraine Daston. Rules: A Short History of What We Live By
Roger Friedland
Diane Vaughan. Dead Reckoning: Air Traffic Control, System Effects, and Risk
Stephen R. Barley
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.
Christine Beckman, University of Southern California
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Christine Beckman
University of Southern California
Los Angeles CA
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