Journal of Management Inquiry

This article explores the impact of the World Trade Center disaster on the meanings that people attach to their work. In the wake of the attacks, several examples of people changing occupations appeared in the media. An analysis of people’s need for increased meaning in their work, and their exodus into work that they view as a calling, is given. It appears that for many, the disaster served to focus attention on what their work was contributing to the wider world. As a result, thousands of people in the United States have decided to pursue different careers.

As a resident of lower Manhattan, the author reflects on her own experience of September 11 and discusses how terror management theory (TMT) can help explain behavior following the attacks. TMT predicts and research confirms that mortality salience increases the need for people to feel that they are a part of enduring social entities (such as church or nation). By identifying themselves with larger social groups that are not subject to the mortal fate of the individual human being, people can symbolically evade death, thus enabling them to buffer the anxiety arising frommortality awareness. Connecting oneself to future generations serves a similar function because it allows people to feel as though they can “live on” beyond their own deaths.

This article offers personal observations of the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions of New Yorkers in the days immediately following the World Trade Center attacks. Social identity theory is used as an interpretive lens through which to understand how a group facing extreme adversity found ways to fortify themselves by marshaling socioemotional, informational, and physical resources. Emphasis is placed on how initial emotional reactions to perceptions of threat in the hours after the attacks prompted people to seek out others to mobilize information and manage emotional distress. This article takes the position that these social gatherings became arenas in which people redefined group boundaries, modified the group’s identity, erected new symbols, and transformed each other’s emotions in ways that triggered actions to protect and restore the group.

The events of September 11, 2001, unified our nation. But how long can this unity last? I examine the dynamics of the national shift between individualism (“me”) and communalism (“we”) on the heels of September 11 through comparison with analogous patterns in interorganizational behavior. Based on these patterns, I conclude that, despite the severity of the crisis, the United States will again return to “business as usual”.

One of the clearest challenges of the 21st century is to create multinational organizations that support an economically vibrant and culturally diverse global society. This article addresses issues raised in September 2001 from the perspective of a Norwegian-based multinational company that is combining its global business strategy with unique, artistically based organizational strategies to create both fiscal and cross-cultural success.

Roger M. Boisjoly was honored as the James T. Pursell, Sr. Distinguished Fellow in Management Ethics at Auburn University in January 2001, the fifteenth anniversary of the Challenger disaster. The interview with him and interviewer commentary include an explanation of the causes of the Challenger disaster, the ethics affecting the situation before and after the disaster, the role of heuristics in making the decision to launch Challenger, career advice for professionals on being ethical, and developing ethical organizational cultures.

This article reviews the insights gleaned frommore than 10 years of instruction and lead ership/organizational development consulting with the Challenger case study. Little known facts about the case (including serious questions about the veracity of the Rogers Commission report) and reasons for continued intense interest in the subject are provided. Seven key elements of “the Challenger syndrome” are presented, pinpointing existing bureaucratic imperatives as a primary obstacle to the exercise of leadership and ethical decision making. Central insights for organizational leaders are reviewed, including the blinders of “corporate masculinity” and the fact that Challenger was neither an example of groupthink nor an example of excessive risk taking. The article closes with 10 central leadership lessons from the Challenger case study.

For the Academy of Management annual 2000 meeting, I collaborated with a colleague to create a sculpture titled “Times on my Mind,” which we referred to by the working name “The Head.” This article reflects on this collaboration and, using this experience as a case study, offers a typology of individual collaborative frames. These frames—negotiation, power, and knowledge—each offer a different model of collaboration, with different implications for decision making, vision, ownership, and the role of inquiry.

This study explores the effect of the dissertation process on career outcomes for doctoral candidates in management. The study proposes a classification system of doctoral candidate types (i.e., willing clone, conscripted clone, free agent, or the unattached) composed of two dimensions: the extent to which the doctoral candidate selects the dissertation topic and the degree to which the topic chosen represents a match with the area of research of the dissertation chair. Then, the authors explore the relationship between type of candidate and individual process-related outcomes. Implications for knowledge creation for the field given specific candidate types also are discussed.