Cognitive shifts within leader and follower teams: Where consensus develops in mental models during an organizational crisis

Developing a sustainability-driven learning organization through expatriate knowledge transfer: the case of Haier

Purpose

This study aims to examine how expatriates’ knowledge can be adopted to transform the mental models at the subsidiary level and develop a sustainability-driven learning organization in the context of emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs).

Design/methodology/approach

Through an inductive interpretive analysis of three Haier subsidiaries from developing countries, this study compares between old and new understandings of sustainability and examines how expatriates’ knowledge can facilitate shifts toward the new to foster a sustainability-driven learning organization.

Findings

The authors find that subsidiary employees face strategic and operational ambiguity concerning sustainability issues and that a mix of dissemination and reinforcement routines that align with headquarters’ expectations are used to maintain a continuous sustainability-driven learning pattern. Though EMNE subsidiaries may have contrasting understandings of sustainability, expatriate knowledge transfer can help change subsidiaries’ mental models and thus create sustainable capabilities and mindsets that form a sustainability-driven learning organization at the subsidiary level.

Originality/value

This study reveals the potential in applying expatriate knowledge transfer to transforming sustainable mental models in building sustainability-driven learning organizations.

The Emergence of Collective Leadership During a Terrorist Attack: Dynamic Role Boundary Transgressions as Central in Aligning Efforts

The current article examines the emergence and dynamics of leadership during an extreme situation—a terrorist attack at the foreign subsidiary of a multinational energy corporation—and the crisis response undertaken at the corporate headquarters. The inductive analysis reveals that the in-situ crisis leadership involved impromptu interactions between multiple individuals leading collectively. Multiple sources of leadership emerged to carry out four critical leadership functions, namely strategic framing, ad hoc structuring, relational coping, and instant developing. These functions were carried out by several formal and informal leaders together, enhancing the overall leadership capacity in the crisis management organization (CMO). With increased capacity to lead efforts in different domains came specialization, which could have led to misalignment and fragmentation. But this was avoided by leaders acting as “role boundary transgressors,” expanding the boundaries of their responsibilities across roles, functions, and levels to foster the alignment of collective efforts across the CMO. Based on rich data from a leadership situation that researchers rarely have access to, this study contributes to the understanding of leadership during extreme situations by illustrating who leads (the emergence of multiple leadership sources), what leaders do (leadership functions), and how leadership plays out over time and across levels (through dynamic role boundary transgressions).

Authentic Leadership, Trust, and Social Exchange Relationships under the Influence of Leader Behavior

During the pandemic, government policies such as social distancing and telework have impacted trust and working or social exchange relationships in the workplace. The behavior of leaders is critical for good leadership, employees’ trust, and social exchange relationships. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to assess the associations among authentic leadership, trust, and social exchange relationships under the influence of leader behavior. A regression-based approach was used to test the moderating and mediating effects. The results show that authentic leadership positively impacts trust and social exchange relationships, whereas trust directly affects social exchange relationships. During COVID-19, leader behaviors with ability, ethics, and positive relationships have had a positive impact on the association between authentic leadership, trust, and social exchange relationships. Additionally, trust positively mediates authentic leadership and social exchange relationships. The findings of this paper suggest that authentic leadership promotes trust and high-quality social exchange relationships. Moreover, based on leader behaviors during COVID-19, the ability to manage change effectively, boost employees’ work motivation, provide support, and take appropriate action is essential for authentic leadership to increase trust and foster a positive working relationship based on social exchange. Finally, regarding social exchange theory, high-quality leader behaviors and the leader–follower relationships drive positive associations among variables. These results will help organizational management teams to find methods to improve their organizational working relationships. The implication is that the abilities, ethics, and supportive and positive relationship behaviors of leaders are essential for effective management to improve leadership, trust, and social exchange relationships. Leaders should have the ability to manage work and people, even with teleworkers. Therefore, leader behaviors are important to maintain organizational sustainability. Further discussion on theoretical and practical implications is provided in the section.

Leaders' attitudes towards, and commitment to quality management of training within the military

Purpose

The successful implementation of quality management in organizations is dependent on people, particularly leaders. It seems as if leaders' affective states (attitudes and commitment) in the military were connected to their capability to inspire people and a group (corps training unit) to achieve a common goal. The research reported in this article was aimed at examining officers in corps training units' attitudes towards, and commitment to quality management in training in the South African Army.

Design/methodology/approach

Focus group interviews were conducted with a sample of 49 officers on various levels (senior, junior and warrant officers) at six South African Army corps training units.

Findings

The findings indicate that the attitudes of leaders played a significant role to ensure that quality management of training is conducted effectively. Participants experienced that leaders in the South African Army were mostly responsible for the negative attitudes of officers in corps training units. Inadequate leadership support and lack of trust contributed to a lack of transparency and poor communication that resulted in poor commitment among officers at corps training units. The investigation further revealed that a positive affective state (attitudes and commitment) of leaders is essential in ensuring effective quality management of training.

Originality/value

The potential usefulness of this research may provide insight into how leaders' affective state could be improved to ensure effective quality management. This research may also be of interest to other organizations that conduct in-house training.

Working Under the Gun: A Theoretical Analysis of Stressors Associated With the Re-negotiation of Norms and Control of Work Tasks During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many of the world's nations to impose numerous preventive and mitigative measures to increase social distance, including various forms of home isolation and quarantine. A central premise for the current paper is that the COVID-19 situation is likely to constitute a massive re-negotiation of social and organizational norms, which may lead to psychological distress at the individual, family and interpersonal level. Virtually overnight, people have to re-define what is expected and deemed appropriate by a given group member in a certain social setting. This goes for all kinds of general social interaction, such as societal, even multinational medical demands on social distancing. Simultaneously it also goes for a sudden, gargantuan re-division of labor in a complex global system. We provide a theoretical analysis of the potential consequences of re-negotiation of norms from the perspective of four sets of psychological theory: Theory of professions; organizational strategic crisis responses; the job-demands-resources model; and theories addressing the interplay between norm violations and psychological distance. From these theories we derive three suggestions that the discussion centers around: (1) The COVID-19 situation leads to a massive re-negotiation of norms related to work, (2) The COVID-19 situation diffuses the demarcation between the various professional arenas and the private sphere, and this diffusion enhances the stress associated with norm conflict, and (3) Norm conflicts are enhanced by digitalization. Our discussion centers on potential stressors associated with the renegotiation of norms, and also includes a few suggestions for practice. For each theoretical suggestion, we give examples of how the suggestion may manifest itself with respect to (a) the work task, (b) the individual's relationship to their leader and/or organization, and (c) interpersonal relationships. We finally point to some theoretical and applied implications.

Perspective on COVID-19 Pandemic Factors Impacting Organizational Leadership

Employees are important assets of an organization. Therefore, the employee engagement in teamwork is extremely vital for long-term organizational development. Good managers need excellent leadership skills. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly spreads around the world, many countries implemented strategies to avoid infection, such as working from home, isolation of infected people from others, and 14 days of self-quarantine. These strategies impact the trust, communal relationships, and social exchange relationships among organizational employees. However, communal and social exchange relationships are necessary for organizational leadership, and they are considered as the basis of social networks. The trust, communal relationships, social exchange relationships, and leadership in an organization are an interesting issue, particularly in the COVID-19 time, since the role of leaders is very crucial for maintaining organizational sustainability. The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on leadership in organizations based on trust, communal relationships, and social exchange relationships. The study employed correlation analysis to explore the interrelationships between variables. The 220 samples collected consisted of basic, middle, and high managers of organizations. The findings show that COVID-19 impacted organizational leadership. COVID-19 (F1) and (F2) factors integrated with each variable: (1) trust, (2) communal relationships, and (3) social exchange relationships created a stronger relationship between trust and leadership, communal relationships and leadership, and also social exchange relationship and leadership in organizations. On the contrary, Covid-19 (F3) factors integrated with each variable: (1) trust, (2) communal relationships, and (3) social exchange relationships decreased a relationship between trust and leadership, communal relationships and leadership, and also social exchange relationships and leadership in organizations. These results can help CEOs in organizations to perceive what factors have a positive impact or a negative impact on leadership in organizations in order to improve their leadership skills, even post COVID-19. The managerial implications are that (1) leaders need good communication skills to share true information with empathy and optimism and (2) leaders need to be thoughtful and capable to handle change in uncertain situations ethically.

What lies beneath resilience: Analyzing the affective-relational basis of shared leadership in the Chilean miners’ catastrophe

This article addresses how shared forms of leadership can activate resilient organizing to cope with catastrophic events by examining the case of the 33 Chilean miners’ rescue who survived confinement at 600 m below ground for 69 days. Qualitative analysis of interview and document data reveals how the miners as a group engaged in the sharing of agency vis-a-vis the task of absorbing strain and anxiety, thus enabling a sophisticated work capacity and a constructive relational dynamic. The miners’ resilient capabilities emerged from the activation of collective resources in three distinct yet complementary modes of interaction: self-organization, collaboration, and mutual caring. Our empirical findings indicate that the distribution of agency becomes essential for the promotion of both collective sensemaking and emotional containment in contexts of crisis. By accounting for such affective-relational underpinning of the sharing of leadership, this article contributes a more nuanced understanding of crisis management and the organization of positive, constructive responses to adversity, breakdown, and conflict.