To the complex question of “What is the number one issue on which we should focus as producers, e... more To the complex question of “What is the number one issue on which we should focus as producers, evaluators, and consumers of research?” our simple and blunt answer is: It's the theory, stupid. Accordingly, we offer guidance on how to produce, test, and use theory by answering the following questions: (1) Why is theory so critical and for whom? (2) What does a good theory look like? (3) What does it mean to have too much or too many theories? (4) When don’t we need a theory? (5) How does falsification work with theory? and (6) Is good theory compatible with current publication pressures? Our answers are useful to current and future scholars and journal editors and reviewers, as well as consumers of research including other researchers, organization decision makers, and policy makers, and other stakeholders in the theory production and testing process including deans and other university administrators.
The Theory Crisis in Management Research: Solving the Right Problem
Academy of Management Review, 2021
Lewin’s famous dictum is that “there’s nothing so practical as a good theory,” yet there is growi... more Lewin’s famous dictum is that “there’s nothing so practical as a good theory,” yet there is growing concern that management theory is not very useful or usable. Many scholars seek to fix the growin...
ABSTRACT 2003 on t.p. is a typographical error. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Carnegie Mellon University, 2004.... more ABSTRACT 2003 on t.p. is a typographical error. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Carnegie Mellon University, 2004. Photocopy.
Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020
Creativity is an intrinsic human ability with multiple benefits across the lifespan. Despite its ... more Creativity is an intrinsic human ability with multiple benefits across the lifespan. Despite its importance, societies not always are well equipped with contexts for creativity stimulation; as a consequence, a major decline in creative abilities occurs at the age of 7 years old. We investigated the effectiveness of using a robotic system named YOLO as an intervention tool to stimulate creativity in children. During the intervention, children used YOLO as a character for their stories and through the interaction with the robot, creative abilities were stimulated. Our study (n = 62) included 3 experimental conditions: i) YOLO displayed behaviors based on creativity techniques; ii) YOLO displayed behaviors based on creativity techniques plus social behaviors; iii) YOLO was turned off, not displaying any behaviors. We measured children's creative abilities at pre-and post-testing and their creative process through behavior analysis. Results showed that the interaction with YOLO contributed to higher creativity levels in children, specifically contributing to the generation of more original ideas during story creation. This study shows the potential of using social robots as tools to empower intrinsic human abilities, such as the ability to be creative.
Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Organizational Paradox: Investigating Social Structures and Human Expression, Part B, 2021
Organizational scholars have long been interested in how jazz musicians manage tensions between s... more Organizational scholars have long been interested in how jazz musicians manage tensions between structure and freedom, plans and action, and familiarity and novelty. Although improvisation has been conceptualized as a way of managing such paradoxes, the process of improvisation itself contains paradoxes. In this essay, we return to jazz improvisation to identify a new paradox of interest to organizational scholars: the paradox of intentionality. To improvise creatively, jazz musicians report that they must “try not to try,” or risk undermining the very spontaneity that is prized in jazz. Jazz improvisers must therefore control their ability to relinquish deliberate control of their actions. To accomplish this, they engage in three interdependent practices. Jazz musicians intentionally surrender their sense of active control (“letting go”) while creating a passive externalized role for this sense of active control (using a “third ear”). Letting go allows new and unexpected ideas to e...
all of whom we are delighted to have, and who were enthusiastic about joining our adventure. On o... more all of whom we are delighted to have, and who were enthusiastic about joining our adventure. On our inaugural issue, we wanted to provide a sneak peek at our vision for the journal.
Often, the senders and receivers of scientific communication have different knowledge bases. Whil... more Often, the senders and receivers of scientific communication have different knowledge bases. While such communication is essential for solving the complex social and technological problems that affect multiple stakeholders, a diversity of knowledge among communicators can create representational gaps (rGaps). rGaps occur when senders make assumptions that receivers do not, creating conflict over the meaning and value of the information communicated. Such conflict could, if managed, promote learning and innovation as communicators reconcile their assumptions. More often, however, rGaps cause conflict to transform from a debate that informs to an argument that divides. Managing rGap conflict so that it does not degrade communication requires relationship building to mitigate the negative by-products of persistent conflict while maintaining appropriate levels of cognitive distinctiveness among diverse stakeholders. Thus, we provide a framework for identifying and leveraging rGaps throu...
In this paper, we consider how the four key team emergent states for team learning identified by ... more In this paper, we consider how the four key team emergent states for team learning identified by Bell et al. (2012), namely psychological safety, goal orientation, cohesion, and efficacy, operate as a system that produces the team's learning climate (TLC). Using the language of systems dynamics, we conceptualize TLC as a stock that rises and falls as a joint function of the psychological safety, goal orientation, cohesion, and efficacy that exists in the team. The systems approach highlights aspects of TLC management that are traditionally overlooked, such as the simultaneous influence of and feedback between the four team emergent states and the inertia that TLC can have as a result. The management of TLC becomes an issue of controlling the system rather than each state as an independent force, especially because changing one part of the system will also affect other parts in sometimes unintended and undesirable ways. Thus the value is to offer a systems view on the leadership function of team monitoring with regards to team emergent states, which we term team state monitoring. This view offers promising avenues for future research as well as practical wisdom. It can help leaders remember that TLC represents an equilibrium that needs balance, in addition to pointing to the various ways in which they can influence such equilibrium.
How Controlling Failure Perceptions Affects Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment
The Accounting Review
We conducted a clustered randomized field experiment with 20 Brazilian distributorships of a mult... more We conducted a clustered randomized field experiment with 20 Brazilian distributorships of a multi-national direct sales organization to examine whether controlling failure perceptions through formal communications increases performance. We used the organization's weekly sales meetings to deliver a video-based message from the regional head that either communicates workers should view failure as a natural part of learning rather than an indictment of their ability (treatment condition) or simply summarizes the organization's history (control condition). We find that those who were assigned to the treatment condition were more likely to sustain their effort in response to economic adversity that coincided with our experiment. Additional analyses suggest that our treatment accomplished this by increasing job-specific confidence, and by reinforcing social norms that encourage workers to persevere after failure. Overall, our findings highlight that formal communications from sen...
Teams are ubiquitous in organizations, yet work contexts now make traditional teams—those that ha... more Teams are ubiquitous in organizations, yet work contexts now make traditional teams—those that have identifiable boundaries, stable membership, and members who belong only to that single team—a rarity. Teamwork has evolved along with work itself, making the traditional means of studying and validating team experiences (e.g., agreement statistics) inadequate. Yet it is not merely that current measures are antiquated, many of the assumptions about teams themselves are no longer correct. We felt that rather than simply trying to further exploit our traditional approaches to studying teams, the field should explore new or different ways to capture the team experience. New ideas about how to study teams will necessarily start out as theoretical—arguments made based on disciplined imagination and actual experience for why such new approaches are credible. If those who study new forms of teams can then validate these theories, then such new approaches expand the field’s capabilities. Thus,...
Functional diversity is central to the performance of product development teams in that multiple ... more Functional diversity is central to the performance of product development teams in that multiple perspectives increase the team's creativity. Failures in cross-functional product development teams (CFPDTs) are often attributed to a team's inability to capitalize on their diversity. In this study we develop and test a model based on the representational gaps perspective (Cronin & Weingart,
(J.D. Sterman). 1 Formally, consider any stock, S, with inflow I and outflow O. The stock at any ... more (J.D. Sterman). 1 Formally, consider any stock, S, with inflow I and outflow O. The stock at any time T, S T , is the integral of its net inflow over time, plus the quantity in the stock at the initial time, t 0 , S t0. The net inflow to the stock is the difference between inflow and outflow, I À O: ST ¼ Z T t0 Net inflow dt þ St 0 ¼ Z T t0 ðI À OÞ dt þ St 0 Equivalently, the rate of change of the stock is the net inflow: dS dt ¼ Net inflow ¼ I À O Note the units of measure: the stock is measured in units, e.g., liters of water in a tub, dollars in an account, or people in a store, while the inflow, outflow, and net rate of change in the stock are measured in units/time period, e.g., litres/sec, $/month, or people/min.
The Influence of Representational Gaps on Team Processes and Performance
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Despite the oft touted benefits of having differences in task-related cognition, teams often do n... more Despite the oft touted benefits of having differences in task-related cognition, teams often do not capitalize on their heterogeneity. We add a nuance to this literature by examining representational gaps—fundamental incompatibilities in the way that team members conceptualize the problem and solution space—and show that they have a unique effect on performance above and beyond mere differences in cognition. In a laboratory study of 50 teams, the authors find that representational gaps decreased information elaboration and increased relationship conflict. Relationship conflict, in turn, mediated the negative relationship between gaps and performance, satisfaction and intent to remain. We discuss the implications of this work in the context of designing multi-disciplinary teams.
Markets for attention: Will postage for email help
Abstract Balancing the needs of information distributors and their audiences has grown harder in ... more Abstract Balancing the needs of information distributors and their audiences has grown harder in the age of the Internet. While the demand for attention continues to increase rapidly with the volume of information and communication, the supply of human attention ...
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Papers by Matthew Cronin