Abstract
This is the third year that Business & Society offers a forum to the finalists of the Academy of Management’s Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division Dissertation Award. The dissertation forum includes an introductory article by the chair of the committee as well as dissertation abstracts from the three finalists. This article describes the procedures behind the dissertation award and the criteria used to find the winner. Also, it reflects on the finalists’ unique contributions.
The Committee
When I was asked to become the chair of the 2012 Social Issues in Management (SIM) dissertation committee I became completely excited and felt very privileged. From last year’s chair, I learned that becoming a member of the SIM dissertation committee comes along with a firsthand impression of what is hot in SIM research. Indeed, I had the chance to get an intense impression of the upcoming fields of SIM research. It was fascinating to see young scholars’ passion for social issues in management. Also, I was impressed by the innovativeness of the research ideas, the methodological rigor, and the managerial relevance. At the same time, it was a pleasure for me to interact with such engaged and sympathetic young researchers.
Although I did not participate in the SIM dissertation committee before, I felt very comfortable chairing the dissertation award, as I could rely on Praveen Parboteeah, the former chair, and Johanne Grosvold, former member of the committee and winner of the SIM dissertation award 2010, to support me. The three of us formed the SIM dissertation award committee, which formerly involved five scholars. However, experience in the past years showed that a committee of three scholars would be sufficient. Furthermore, I was tremendously supported by the SIM division chair, Shawn Berman, and the Academy of Management meeting program division chair, Jennifer Griffin. Finally, the previous SIM dissertation chairs developed a set of guidelines and forms that very much facilitated my work (Mattingly, 2011; Parboteeah, 2012).
The Submissions
In March 2012, Shawn Berman posted an invitation to participate in the SIM annual Doctoral Dissertation Award competition via the SIM list serve. Furthermore, also other divisions, like “Organization Management and Theory” (OMT) were informed. Deadline for submissions was April 30, 2012. In the invitation letter, we indicated that an abstract of no more than 10 double-spaced pages would need to be submitted. Furthermore, the following requirements were set: (a) Participants must have successfully defended their dissertation between March 1, 2010 and March 31, 2012; (b) the dissertation must have been written in the English language; (c) the dissertation must have focused on some aspect of the relationship between business and society; and (d) the dissertation must not have been submitted to any other academy division in the same year. However, dissertations were eligible for an award for 2 years after completion. Therefore, participants could submit their dissertation to SIM 2 years in a row or submit to SIM one year and to a different division another year (Parboteeah, 2012).
In total, we received 17 submissions. All met the eligibility requirements. While 47% came from the United States and Canada, 53% were non–North American submissions (as by the affiliation of the doctoral student). We thus see that past year’s trend of the globalization of the SIM dissertation award is continued. Even further, 2012 is the first year where non-North American submissions exceeded the ones from the United States and Canada. Among those non–North American submissions, 41 % came from Europe, 6% from South America, and 6% from Central America. Asia and Africa unfortunately were not yet represented. While one submission focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China, the affiliation of the doctoral student was European.
The vast majority of submissions were related to and stakeholder management. Furthermore, social entrepreneurship was also among the topics submitted, reflecting the increased interest paid by researchers and managers to different forms of social responsibility in management. Interestingly, only a few submissions were related to business ethics. Among submissions in business ethics, those related to organizational failure were dominant. While generally most submissions considered the corporate level, two submissions investigated social and ethical issues on the interpersonal level.
Methodology wise, submissions covered a broad range of methods, covering qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Qualitative approaches included interviews, case studies, and autoethnography. Quantitative approaches focused on survey and experiments for primary data and databases for secondary data. Mixed-methods approaches triangulated quantitative findings with qualitative findings stemming mostly from company reports, company letters, and newspaper articles. The empirical context chosen in the submissions included business related industries, such as the financial industry, manufacturing, supply-chain management, or marketing. However, also non–business-related empirical contexts have chosen such as hospitals and universities.
The Selection Process
After checking eligibility requirements, the chair sent the abstracts to the other two committee members. Along with the abstract, I sent the SIM mission statement and criteria to evaluate the abstracts. These criteria have been developed by previous SIM dissertation chairs (Mattingly, 2011; Parboteeah, 2012). Also, in our evaluation, these criteria have been found to be very useful.
The criteria applied included:
Domain relevance. The research topic is applicable to the domain statement of the SIM division of the Academy of Management. The motivation for the research problem is clearly established.
Presentation style. The writing is clear, reasoning is sound, each part clearly contributes toward a coherent thesis, and passive language is avoided. The manuscript’s length is commensurate with the scope of the project.
Literature review. The literature reviewed provides an appropriate and thorough context for understanding current knowledge surrounding the research problem. The length of the literature review is appropriately matched to the methodological strategy employed.
Conceptual development: The constructs being examined are clearly identified and defined, and relationships among them are clearly and thoroughly explained. Potentially confounding constructs are not ignored but are clearly identified and their potential effects are adequately considered. Hypotheses deduced, or propositions induced, are clearly and thoroughly established from the literature or research results presented, respectively.
Methodological appropriateness: The methodological tradition followed is well matched to the research problem and the scholarly context established in the literature review. The procedures followed to collect and analyze data are rigorous, appropriately balancing validity and reliability.
Significance of contribution: Conclusions are interesting, important, and timely, producing a significant contribution to the study and practice of management. Conclusions logically follow from the research question, arguments developed, and the data presented.
I created a questionnaire including these six items and asked each committee to rate each item ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Each abstract could therefore achieve a maximum of 30 points. Besides calculating the final score for each submission, I asked the committee members to indicate their subjective rank order of submissions.
To my surprise, there was high convergence among the committee members regarding the three finalists. In those cases, where convergence did not appear for all committee members from the very beginning, we openly discussed our evaluations. However, consensus was easily reached. After the three finalists were identified, I contacted each of them and requested their full thesis. At the same time, I informed the candidates who had not been chosen as finalists about the current state of the process. The committee then took some time for an in-depth analysis of the full dissertations, again relying on the same evaluation criteria. In June, we discussed the final rank order of the finalists and realized that we all had the same rank order. Reaching complete consensus concerning the finalists’ rank order made all of us feeling comfortable with our final decision.
The Finalists’ Contributions
The three finalists presented their dissertations at the SIM Best Dissertation Finalists Session on August 5, 2012. The finalists presented in alphabetical order (and this dissertation forum is also structured in alphabetical order). The session was well attended. While all dissertations combined intriguing research questions, interesting empirical settings, methodological sophistication, and impressive theory building, each thesis had a unique theory development approach. The approaches chosen to generate theory are generally seen as promising strategies for theory development. The three theory development approaches include (a) combining theories from different fields of research (Oswick, Fleming, & Hanlon, 2011; Whetten, Felin, & King, 2009; Zahra & Newey, 2009), (b) taking a new perspective to a known phenomenon based on experiences from practice (Sandberg & Tsoukas, 2011), and (c) applying counterintuitive thinking to demonstrate new paths of research (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011).
Combining Theories From Different Fields of Research
The first presenter was Daina Mazutis. She received her PhD from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario. Her supervisor was Mary Crossan. Daina Mazutis’s PhD dissertation is entitled: “The CEO Effect: A Longitudinal, Multi-Level Analysis of the Relationship Between Executive Orientation and Corporate Social strategy.” Blending strategy literature with CSR literature, Daina Mazutis develops the concept of corporate social strategy (CSS). This concept depicts the strategic rootedness of CSR in firms’ strategy over time. With ongoing discussions about firms’ level of sincerity concerning their interest in social responsibility, it seems to be ever more important to be able to distinguish firms whose strategy is deeply enrooted in social responsibility from those that are only superficially interested in CSR. Daina Mazutis’s concept of CSS allows for such distinctions. Furthermore, applying a quantitative study based on longitudinal archival data collected from various sources, she analyzes the level of CSS development over time and the role of the CEO for this development. Her analysis is based on 6,334 firm-year observations, from 349 firms with data from 1991 to 2009. Firms’ CSS growth trajectories are modeled as nested models in hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Based on her very profound methodological approach, Daina Mazutis shows that CSR becomes more and more enrooted in business strategy. Furthermore, Daina Mazutis investigates the role of the CEO in CSS adoption. In particular, she develops the concept of CEO open executive orientation, which includes CEO worldview, type of functional background, breadth of functional experience, education, and international experience. Her empirical analyses support several of these aspects to foster CSS adoption. At the same time, Daina Mazutis shows that industry effects do not play a major role for CSS adoption. Her positive findings on CSS development over time and the role of the CEO for CSS adoption are likely to motivate future researchers to continue exploring the implementation of CSS in firm processes.
Taking a New Perspective to a Known Phenomenon Based on Experiences From Practice
The second presenter was Manuela Priesemuth. She received her PhD from the University of Central Florida, Orlando. Her supervisor was Marshall Schminke. Manuela Priesemuth’s PhD dissertation is entitled: “Stand Up and Speak Up: Employees’ Prosocial Reactions to Observed Abusive Supervision.” In her dissertation, Manuela Priesemuth takes a new perspective on abusive leadership, which is motivated (among others) by the Penn State Football Team Scandal. In particular, she analyses the role of third parties when witnessing abusive leadership. While the role of the target and also the role of the perpetrator have been analyzed in detail (Aryee, Li-Yun, Zhen Xiong, & Debrah, 2007; Martinko, Harvey, Sikora, & Douglas, 2011; Shao, Resick, & Hargis, 2011; Zellars, Tepper, & Duffy, 2002), employee abuse most often does not take place in a vacuum but is often witnessed by other employees.
While in other contexts, such as violence against minorities in public, the role and also the moral duty of the witnesses is discussed widely in society (as the Penn State Football Team Scandal shows), the role of the witness in the case of employee abuse has not yet been discussed. Therefore, Manuela Priesemuth directs our attention to a very important new perspective of abusive leadership. In particular, Manuela Priesemuth points to the importance of positive witness reactions, such as standing up or speaking up and the conditions under which these are likely to appear. Results from a laboratory study with 103 undergraduate students and a subsequent field study including 122 focal employees with corresponding coworker and supervisor reveal that observed abusive supervision (by the third party) only partially leads to positive third-party reactions, such as voice or standing-up behavior. Furthermore, results show that it is friendship ties, but not moral courage, that moderate the relationship between observed abusive supervision and voice/standing-up behavior. Results from another field study including 157 focal employees with corresponding coworker and supervisor shows that on a corporate level, it is a firm’s climate of justice determining whether or not witnesses engage in prosocial behavior toward the victim. Her findings are likely to activate research on abusive leadership to take a broader view on the phenomenon and thus to gain new insights on how to deal with the negative outcomes of abusive leadership.
Applying Counterintuitive Thinking to Demonstrate New Paths of Research
The third presenter was Sunita Sah. She received her PhD from the Tepper Business School, Carnegie Mellon University. Her supervisor was George Loewenstein. Sunita Sah’s dissertation is entitled “Essays on Conflicts of Interest in Medicine” and includes three essays. Conflict of interest appears in those situations, in which the supplying party profits privately from selling a particular product (Moore, Tetlock, Tanlu, & Bazerman, 2006). In medicine, as Sunita Sah argues, physicians’ acceptance of incentives offered by pharmaceutical companies is generally seen as a conflict of interest. Consequently, in her first article, Sunita Sah investigates residents’ motivation to accept gifts. Based on 301 responses from pediatric and family medicine residents, Sunita Sah shows that it is particularly the perception of personal sacrifice (related to financial sacrifice and work environment sacrifice) and the application of rationalization strategies that increase residents’ acceptance of gifts.
Going one step further, Sunita Sah then investigates, in her second article, under which conditions inflated advice is given. Based on an experiment with 171 community members, Sunita Sah shows that in the presence of a conflict of interest, advisors gave significantly more biased advice to unidentified than identified recipients. Furthermore, based on an experiment with 160 students she demonstrates that multiple and single-unidentified recipients receive more biased advice than a single-identified recipient, whereby giving more biased advice to multiple recipients overrides identification effects.
In her third article, Sunita Sah investigates the role of disclosure. In particular, Sunita Sah points to potential pressure created by disclosure. In the context of doctor–patient relationships, she argues, that doctors’ disclosure of self-interest leads on one hand (as expected) to a decrease of patients’ trust in the doctor’s advice. On the other hand, more importantly, doctors’ disclosure of self-interest fosters patients’ compliance pressure. Disclosure therefore rather becomes a burden than supporting unbiased and independent decision making. Based on two experiments with 627 community members and 485 university alumni, Sunita Sah does not only demonstrate the negative effects of disclosure, but also points to practical solutions of how to avoid this ethicality trap. Her dissertation therefore makes an important contribution to understanding and successfully addressing the dark side of disclosure.
Conclusion
Seeing the finalists’ passion to explore new fields of social issues in management and recognizing their level of methodological rigor and academic as well as the practical relevance of the topics chosen was very motivating, not only for the SIM dissertation committee but also for all participants attending the finalists’ presentations. While each of the dissertations offered a unique and intriguing theoretical contribution, we felt that Daina Mazutis’s study was particularly impressive with regard to her methodological approach. Daina Mazutis demonstrated profound knowledge of the underlying statistical mechanisms of multilevel hierarchical modeling. Furthermore, the successive development of the models tested, as well as the use of alternative models to triangulate her findings, generated very solid findings.
Being a member of the SIM best dissertation committee offered me the chance to deepen my own knowledge on social issues in management as well as potential methods to be applied in this context. I believe that the SIM division is blessed with dedicated, creative, and well-educated young researchers. Not only the finalists but also the other contributors to the best dissertation award demonstrate that the SIM division is a nurturing ground for next generations of excellent researchers. Their engagement and their ideas are the pathway for our future understanding of social issues in management. With the SIM best dissertation award becoming more and more global, we will have the chance to grasp the most promising young researchers’ ideas around the world and to offer a forum for these ideas. In this vein, I would like to motivate young researchers also from Asia and Africa to submit their ideas to the upcoming SIM best dissertation award.
Finally, I would like to thank all contributors to the SIM best dissertation award 2012. Also, I would like to thank the members of our committee, Praveen K. Parboteeah and Johanne Grosvold. It was a pleasure to work with them. I can only encourage everyone to consider becoming a member of the SIM dissertation committee one day—it was an amazing learning experience!
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.