Lee Phillip McGinnis

The Impact of Flow and Communitas on Enduring Involvement in Extended Service Encounters

This study explores the comparative effects of two antecedents of enduring involvement in determining whether social versus psychological effects are more important in establishing enduring involvement with an extended service encounter. Specifically, the authors look at the effects of communitas—a social effect—and flow—an individual psychological effect—to determine which has a stronger impact on ones enduring involvement in golf. Self-determination theory argues that flow should be more important than communitas in establishing enduring involvement because of higher levels of volitional control; the findings support this premise. From a practical perspective, these findings should help extended service managers determine which service environments or strategies (e.g., social atmosphere strategies vs. game improvement strategies) to emphasize when trying to establish loyal participants. The moderating effects of gender and participation frequency on the relationships between communitas and enduring involvement and between flow and enduring involvement are also examined.

“I Just Want To Play”: Women, Sexism, and Persistence in Golf

Golf does not inherently privilege men or women physically, yet men are much more likely to participate in golf. The authors explore the institutional(e.g., societal level) and interactional barriers to women’s golf participation and uncover strategies women use to negotiate playing and persisting in golf. Guided by research on tokenism in occupations, statistical discrimination, and feminist research in the sociology of sport, the authors use 10 interviews with recreational women golfers to explore these issues. Similar to women in predominantly male occupations, the women in this study report heightened visibility and experiences with typecasting on the golf course. In addition, social closure operates in the form of unwelcoming courses; women reported feeling ignored, overlooked, or unimportant on the course. The authors discuss several strategies the women in the sample use to overcome sexism and persist in golf.

Ritual-based Behavior that Reinforces Hegemonic Masculinity in Golf: Variations in Women Golfers' Responses

Golf is male dominated and consists of rituals and ritualized behaviors that both reflect and help create hegemonic masculinity. Using in-depth interviews with amateur committed women golfers, we explored how women negotiated masculinized rituals in golf. Our data indicated three ways: (a) accommodating (i.e., acknowledging masculine rituals and working around them), (b) unapologetic (i.e., challenging masculine rituals that threaten entitlement to golf and attempting to create women inclusive alternatives), and (c) remaining unaware (i.e., focusing on golf as a sport and ignoring or denying masculine dimensions of golf rituals). Many of the women golfers studied experienced communitas (i.e., a heightened sense of community), but not at the same level of engagement as most male golfers.

Effects of underdog (vs. top dog) positioning advertising

The study investigates individual differences in attitudes towards brands being positioned as underdogs in advertising from an emotional perspective. We argue that the personality trait of empathic concern moderates the underdog effect on brand attitude and that the moderating effect is mediated by empathic response to the advertisement. We conducted three experiments with ads using top-dog and underdog appeals. Those who have stronger empathic concern showed more favourable attitudes towards the brand advertised through underdog positioning, and the effect of empathic concern was mediated by the empathic response to the underdog positioning advertisement. For managers, targeting consumers who have high levels of empathic concern could result in more favourable attitudes towards underdog businesses when using underdog appeals.

“How” Narratology Narrows the Organizational Theory–Practice Gap

In this conceptual piece, we take a narrative approach to explicating the gap between organizational theory and practice. The narrative pentad (what, why, how, who, and when/where) represents six narrative questions metaphorically mapped to the five fingers of the hand. The narrative pentad has successfully served both narrative scholars and practitioners, and we believe that the narrative pentad holds similar promise as a theoretical framework for HRD scholars and practitioners. At the finger tips, spaces between fingers represent gaps between questions. In the organizational domain, the theory–practice gap is attributable primarily to a scholarly focus on the universal and abstract what and why questions (story in narrative terms) and a practitioner focus on the particular or embodied how question (discourse in narrative terms). Framed as similarities, we propose that all HRD questions are interrelated at the palm of the hand. In narrative terms, effective organizational theory must include both story and discourse, thereby addressing all questions. This article emphasizes the how question—important to practitioners—but often marginalized by postpositive organizational scholars. We propose the how question represents aesthetic knowledge, and this form of knowledge should be central to organizational theory. We explore related ontological and epistemological considerations. Three recognized causes of the theory–practice gap are examined in light of a narrative approach to organizational theory: (a) the knowledge divide (divergence of emphasis on forms of knowledge between scholars and practitioners); (b) the knowledge transfer problem (lack of information sharing between scholars and practitioners); (c) and the knowledge production problem (associated with an absence of collaboration between scholars and practitioners).

Motivational bases for consumers’ underdog affection in commerce

Purpose The understanding of the motives for consumers’ support of business underdogs is generally limited. The purpose of this paper is to help address this important research topic by conceptualizing underdog affection as a theoretical construct capturing the emotional attachment held by some consumers toward underdog business entities and advances two perspectives (self- and other-oriented) to unravel its motivational underpinnings. Design/methodology/approach To test the conceptual model, a survey study was conducted involving 365 respondents drawn from an electronic alumni association list from a medium-sized Midwestern university in the USA. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses were used to validate the scales, and the structural equations modeling method was used to test the hypothesized effects. Findings The data support most of the hypotheses (eight out of nine). Under the self-oriented perspective, commerce underdog affection is positively influenced by underdog orientation, need for uniqueness, nostalgia proneness, and hope, and is negatively impacted by their materialism level. Only hope did not impact consumer underdog affection. Under the other-oriented perspective, balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, and empathic concern positively influence underdog affection. The other-oriented factors, especially top dog antipathy and balance maintenance, show stronger effects on commerce underdog affection than self-oriented factors. Research limitations/implications The sample was geographically restrictive in the sense that it measured only one group of respondents in the USA. The conceptual model is limited in terms of its coverage of the consequences of underdog affection. While discriminant validity is established in the scale development phase of the study, relatively close relationships do exist among some of these theoretical constructs. Practical implications Given the significant evidence linking consumers’ underdog affection to underdog support in commerce, small locally owned businesses could use underdog positioning advertising to differentiate themselves against national retailers. Due to their tendency to display higher underdog affection in commerce, people with higher levels of balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, underdog orientation, emphatic concern, and nostalgia proneness, and lower levels of materialism can be segmented for marketing purposes. Social implications This research indicates that there are ways in which small business entities and non-profits alike can operate in a business setting that is increasingly more competitive and challenging for underdog entities. Originality/value This study integrates the various underdog studies across contexts to examine motives to underdog affection, a construct not yet operationalized in business studies. In addition, hypotheses linking eight specific antecedents to commerce underdog affection, via two theoretical perspectives, are empirically examined to assess relative as well as absolute effects.

The Evidence Matrix

Evidence-based management (EBM) is a growing area in approaches to managerial understanding and decision making. In the current research we examine the relevance of evidence in the student lassroom context. Specifically, we suggest that organizational behavior teaching can be improved by taking a broader view toward evidence that is inclusive of four forms of evidence: faith, analytics, intuition, and research. Together the four forms of evidence comprise the Evidence Matrix. The authors share their findings and suggestions for the use of the Evidence Matrix applied to two sections of an organizational behavior class.