Karen D. W. Patterson

Mindfulness and the Development of a Readiness for Change

This article argues that because much behaviour in organizations occurs in a relatively automatic and non-conscious manner, the focus on how change recipients develop positive change beliefs regarding an explicitly formulated change is likely to be an incomplete understanding of how readiness for change develops. A more complete understanding requires consideration of how change recipients develop an awareness of their automatically replicated behaviours. The article theorizes that mindfulness facilitates this awareness, and further suggests that there may be trade-offs involved in developing positive change beliefs and uncovering automatically replicated behaviours. The article concludes with suggestions regarding how these two aspects of readiness may be balanced.

Institutional Predictors of and Complements to Industry Self‐Regulation with Regard to Labor Practices

In recent years, there has been increasing managerial and academic attention given to a variety of mechanisms for companies to respond to stakeholder concerns about global business ethics. One area that merits further analysis is the role of industry‐level cooperation regarding issues in global business ethics such as labor practices. There are two main issues that we will address in this article: institutional pressures that predict when an industry will create a code of conduct and institutional complements for an industry‐level code of conduct to be “successful” with regard to responding to stakeholder concerns about international business operations. We offer a number of propositions - bringing together work from both the corporate social responsibility and (neo)institutional theory literatures - with regard to both predictors and complements of industry self‐regulation in reference to labor practices.

Let’s Not “Taint” Stigma Research With Legitimacy, Please

We propose that stigma and legitimacy are distinct constructs. Drawing from extant research, empirical observations, and the theoretical assumptions of both constructs we assert that, in spite of increasing efforts to equate stigma as illegitimacy, the opposite of legitimacy, that it is not. Specifically, we argue that organizations and their actors can be both stigmatized and legitimate at the same time. With this recognized, we propose a stigma-focused research agenda, separate from - and untainted by - legitimacy. Further, we propose an agenda that broadens conceptualizations of audiences and their dynamics, addresses how normal “deviants” take action in the face of stigma, and reconceptualises how audiences and the stigmatized interact.

Process and emergence in contested terrain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to deal with the issue of market redefinition through an examination of a unique industry that has met with multiple obstacles: online gambling. The main research question is how markets get redefined when quantum technological change occurs, despite the lack of formal support and a highly fragmented industry structure, typical in online industries.Design/methodology/approach – This industry lends itself to the analysis because of the intense competition for reconstruction of the field among state powers, professional associations, and global forces. The paper provides an archival and qualitative overview of the industry and identify the various forces competing for dominance in the market. It examines the competing logics in this industry and identify the sources and implications of such competition for emerging markets.Findings – Both broad and specific contributions of this paper are discussed, namely the important role of professional and interest associations in...

Introduction: A Dialog on Stigma Versus Legitimacy, and How They Relate to Organizations and Their Actors

Recently, stigma research has reached an important threshold in management literature. With an increasing number of publications on the topic of stigma and related social evaluations, researchers run the risk of convoluting disparate concepts. At the same time, examining different components of a singular social evaluation can result in unique contributions that might be overlooked if not thoroughly unpacked. This dialogue presents two differing perspectives on the social evaluations of stigma and legitimacy. The authors discuss the merit of examining stigma as its own distinct construct and as a component of moral evaluation. The authors engage previous research to provide insights on the origins, antecedents, outcomes, processes and consequences of stigma from two different perspectives. Finally, established stigma researchers provide insight into the debate, drawing on previous research as well as their own foundational work.

Political market performance and corporate political activity: Examining the US automobile industry

This study aims to examine conditions in which firm political market performance is associated with firm efforts to influence regulatory outcomes. Applying measures of political market performance based on firm performance in government enforcement actions and a firm’s ability to obtain favorable political outcomes, the authors make the case that political market performance is a key part of competitive political markets, which is associated with particular types of firm efforts to influence policy.,Longitudinal examination of nine automobile manufacturers during National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration crash tests reveals that firm performance in government enforcement activities is associated with greater efforts to cooperate with political suppliers, while declining firm performance in efforts to influence political outcomes is associated with increased firm opposition to political supplier actions.,Firm performance in government enforcement activities is associated with greater efforts to cooperate with political suppliers, while declining firm performance in efforts to influence political outcomes is associated with increased firm opposition to political supplier actions.,Performance in regulatory enforcement results in increased firm actions to engage regulators in the policy-making process, while performance in obtaining desired policy outcomes is associated with a greater focus on opposition to proposed standards. These results suggest that political demanders can take deliberate actions to either engage or oppose supplier actions based on political market performance.,The primary contribution of this research is to begin to examine the implications of performance dynamics within political markets. Adding the construct of political market performance to the political markets framework reveals that variations in political market performance can be associated with specific types of corporate political activity.