Does Co-worker Presenteeism Increase Innovative Behavior? Evidence From IT Professionals Under the 996 Work Regime in China

Drawing on the event system and regulatory focus theory, this study constructed an impact mechanism model to investigate the relationship between the event strength of co-worker presenteeism and innovative behavior among IT professionals under the 996 work regime. In addition to test the direct effect, we examined the indirect effect of promotion focus and the moderating effect of event time in this relationship. Data were collected through an online survey administered to 374 IT professionals in China. The results showed a positive relationship between the criticality of co-worker presenteeism events and innovative behavior. An indirect effect of promotion focus was also found in this relationship. The timing of co-worker presenteeism events moderated the relationship between the criticality of co-worker presenteeism events and promotion focus. Specifically, the effect was more significant when co-worker presenteeism events occurred during project delays.

Investigating how the Clock–Event Time Dialectic Shapes the Doing of Time in Organizational Change

Enacting both clock and event time – ambitemporality – in organizational change is beneficial but contradictory. Prior research establishes that actors valuing the co-existence of both time conceptions enables ambitemporality in change. However, this is likely to be problematic in many organizations because clock time is hegemonic. Clock time not only exerts systemic influences, but its proponents also work to exclude event time perspectives from affecting change. So how does event time influence change in these contexts? I explore, in an ethnography of an organizational change, how the clock–event time dialectic shapes the doing of time in change. The study’s primary contribution is in showing that event time proponents gain power to influence change through two types of political action: uncertainty switching and plasticizing temporal boundaries. A secondary contribution demonstrates the specific features of conflict that enable ambitemporality to emerge despite power asymmetries existing between the contradictory time conceptions.

Hop to it! The impact of organization type on innovation response time to the COVID-19 crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a changing environment posing many challenges that call for innovative solutions, leading to a changing innovation landscape. We explore particular organizational actors' innovation response time by analyzing data from a commercial innovation database. Arguing that innovation response time mostly depends on how organizations perceive time, we expect innovative start-ups to be the quickest and universities to be the slowest in responding to the crisis. Controlling for a set of external drivers of structural change, we find support for our hypothesis about start-ups. Contrary to our expectations, universities do not significantly differ in their innovation response time compared with incumbents. To underpin the robustness of our findings, we provide a specification curve analysis. Our results indicate the significance of start-up-corporate collaboration and open innovation, especially in the aftermath of the crisis.

Managers Fail to Innovate and Academics Fail to Explain How

I am stunned by the failure of so many organizations to create the capability for generating streams of new products and services over time. Organizations capable of ongoing innovation can create more profits, more value, more employment, more growth, and more adaptability to transformations in technologies and markets (BCG study of investor returns). Generating streams of innovation is even more important now, especially for organizations in emerging economies, because industrial transformations and global grand challenges (Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman, 2015) demand continuous innovations in products, programs, business processes, and strategies. For example, digitalization is transforming business models from vertical industrial silos such as consumer goods, materials, or financials to horizontal platforms that orchestrate networks, create technologies, and provide services (think Amazon, Alibaba). New markets and technologies emerge unpredictably but will produce major economic and social changes. Emerging economies more directly face grand challenge complexities of poverty, water scarcity, inequality, and climate changes. Innovations in emerging economy organizations are also very complex, since they often include innovations in sales, distribution, and business models along with rigorous product design and development processes.