Joyce E. Bono

From the editors publishing in AMJ-part 2: Research design

This editorial continues a seven-part series, Publishing in AMJ, in which the editors give suggestions and advice for improving the quality of submissions to the Journal. The series offers bumper to bumper coverage, with installments ranging from topic choice to crafting a Discussion section. The series will continue in October with Part 3: Setting the Hook. -J.A.C. Most scholars, as part of their doctoral education, take a research methodology course in which they learn the basics of good research design, including that design should be driven by the questions being asked and that threats to validity should be avoided. For this reason, there is little novelty in our discussion of research design. Rather, we focus on common design issues that lead to rejected manuscripts at AMJ. The practical problem confronting researchers as they design studies is that (a) there are no hard and fast rules to apply; matching research design to research questions is as much art as science; and (b) external factors sometimes constrain researchers ability to carry out optimal designs (McGrath, 1981). Access to organizations, the people in them, and rich data about them present a significant challenge for management scholars, but if such constraints become the central driver of design decisions, the outcome is a manuscript with many plausible alternative explanations for the results, which leads ultimately to rejection and the waste of considerable time, effort, and money. Choosing the appropriate design is critical to the success of a manuscript at AMJ, in part because the fundamental design of a study cannot be altered during the revision process. Decisions made during the research design process ultimately impact the degree of confidence readers can place in the conclusions drawn from a study, the degree to which the results provide a strong test of the researchers arguments, and the degree to which alternative explanations can be discounted. In reviewing articles that have been rejected by AMJ during the past year, we identified three broad design problems that were common sources of rejection: (a) mismatch between research question and design, (b) measurement and operational issues (i.e., construct validity), and (c) inappropriate or incomplete model specification. Cross-sectional data. Use of cross-sectional data is a common cause of rejection at AMJ, of both micro and macro research. Rejection does not happen because such data are inherently flawed or because reviewers or editors are biased against such data. …

Contemplating Mindfulness at Work: An Integrative Review

Mindfulness research activity is surging within organizational science. Emerging evidence across multiple fields suggests that mindfulness is fundamentally connected to many aspects of workplace functioning, but this knowledge base has not been systematically integrated to date. This review coalesces the burgeoning body of mindfulness scholarship into a framework to guide mainstream management research investigating a broad range of constructs. The framework identifies how mindfulness influences attention, with downstream effects on functional domains of cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology. Ultimately, these domains impact key workplace outcomes, including performance, relationships, and well-being. Consideration of the evidence on mindfulness at work stimulates important questions and challenges key assumptions within management science, generating an agenda for future research.

Putting the 'Positive' Back in Resources: A Discussion on Positive Resources

Although there is a plethora of scholarly attention on models that use resource- based perspectives, many if not most of these articles take a ‘negative’ view of resources, being primarily concerned with what depletes resources and what happens when resources are depleted. In this symposium we will shine a light on the ‘positive’ side of resources, and present work that focuses on how resources are built and what happens when resources are plentiful. A more complete and rich understanding of how resources can affect workplace outcomes can be gained by considering both the positive and negative aspect of resources. Work as a Calling: Integrating Personal and Professional Identities Presenter: Matt C Bloom; U. of Notre Dame Presenter: Mary Bales; U. of Notre Dame Presenter: Amy E. Colbert; U. of Iowa A Framework for Organizing Positive Resources Presenter: Trevor Foulk; U. of Florida Presenter: Joyce E. Bono; U. of Florida Presenter: Elisabeth Gilbert; Rollins College When Lending a Hand Depletes the Will: ...