本文精选了管理学国际顶刊《Academy of Management Review》近期发表的论文，提供管理学研究领域最新的学术动态。

Entrepreneurs as Scientists: A Pragmatist Approach to Producing Value Out of Uncertainty

原刊和作者：

Academy of Management Review Volume 48 Issue 3

Thomas Zellweger （University of St. Gallen）

Todd Zenger （University of Utah）

Abstract

Building on pragmatism, we advance an entrepreneur-as-scientist perspective and depict entrepreneurs as engaging in causally inferential action by forming beliefs, testing these beliefs, and responding to the feedback received. However, this sequence of entrepreneurial actions arrives with a set of companion doubts: namely, doubt about product–market fit, because the entrepreneurs’ beliefs are self-chosen; doubt about feedback validity from false positives or false negatives; and doubt about over- and under-fitting in responses to feedback. We discuss the rationality of heuristics deployed by the entrepreneur to overcome these doubts. Our insights contribute to the microfoundations of entrepreneurial action and strategy by explaining how entrepreneurs generate the information to produce value out of uncertainty.

Link: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2020.0503

First-Mover Advantages versus First-Mover Benefits: What’s the Difference and Why Does It Matter?

原刊和作者：

Academy of Management Review Volume 48 Issue 3

Kubilay Cirik （Louisiana State University）

Richard Makadok （The Ohio State University）

Abstract

We present a theoretical framework to address the inherent endogeneity problem in entry-timing research by distinguishing the concept of “first-mover benefits” (FMB) from “first-mover advantages” (FMA)—the former being a counterfactual and (usually) unobserved pure treatment effect, and the latter being an actual observed combination of treatment and selection effects. They differ in the baseline to which the first mover’s performance is compared—either to the follower’s actual performance (for FMA) or to the first mover’s hypothetical performance if it had been a follower (for FMB). We consider the implications of this distinction for entry-order choices, and our formal economic model analyzes this distinction to make predictions about biases arising from using FMA as a proxy to estimate FMB, and also about how FMA, FMB, and their difference are affected by interfirm asymmetries in resources and information.

Link: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2017.0499

The Social Contract in Miniature: How Virtual Bargaining Supports Team Production

原刊和作者：

Academy of Management Review Volume 48 Issue 3

Hossam Zeitoun （University of Warwick）

Tigran Melkonyan （University of Alabama）

Nick Chater （University of Warwick）

Abstract

The ability of teams to self-organize and engage in spontaneous collaboration is crucial to 21st-century organizations. The large extent of nonroutine activities in such organizations hampers the effectiveness of traditional management instruments, such as monitoring effort and performance levels and exercising fiat—resulting in increasingly important self-organized collaboration. To explain how such collaboration is possible, we suggest a refinement of the psychological assumptions underpinning influential theories of the firm—specifically, concerning how people reason. We juxtapose “Nash reasoning” (the mode of reasoning underpinning organizational economic theories of the firm) with “virtual bargaining” (a more collaborative mode of reasoning drawing on recent research in cognitive science). Virtual bargaining enables individuals to establish, maintain, and abide by tacit “social contracts” of their team and organization—the (often-tacit) norms, rules, roles, and responsibilities governing how employees should behave (irrespective of their personal objectives). Thus, virtual bargaining helps individuals mitigate challenges of team production, such as shirking and hold-up, in a self-organizing and self-enforcing way. We analyze the conditions under which virtual bargaining leads individuals to coordinate on enhanced effort levels in organizationally relevant settings. We outline avenues for empirically testing virtual bargaining in organizations and discuss conceptual implications.

Link: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2020.0229

Imagine All the People: A Motivated Model of Work-Related Imagined Interactions

原刊和作者：

Academy of Management Review Volume 48 Issue 3

Beth S. Schinoff （Boston College）

Kris Byron （Georgia State University）

Abstract

As jobs become increasingly unstable and contingent and employees are increasingly geographically separated and likely to communicate via technology, employees may find it more difficult to feel connected with one another and to navigate work interactions. We theorize that, given such circumstances, employees are likely to engage in work-related imagined interactions, mental simulations of interactions with work-related others. Drawing on a core social motives framework, we propose two primary types of work-related imagined interactions: those aimed at helping employees feel more connected with others (i.e., imagined interactions concerning socio-emotional goals) and those aimed at helping employees gain confidence to influence others (i.e., imagined interactions concerning socio-instrumental goals). We explicate the conditions that motivate employees to engage in each type of imagined interaction and examine the content of these imaginings, explaining with whom they imagine interacting, what the imagined interaction is like, and when the imagined interaction occurs. Our theorizing sheds light on employees’ intrapersonal relational landscape of work. In doing so, we contribute to the management literatures on relationships and social cognition and to the literature on imagined interactions. We conclude by highlighting important implications for both managers and employees.

Link: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0201

Far From Void: How Institutions Shape Growth in Informal Economies

Academy of Management Review Volume 48 Issue 3

Robert Nason （McGill University）

Joel Bothello （Concordia University）

Abstract

Entrepreneurship scholars often lament the lack of economic growth in contexts of poverty and informality. We propose that this dismal assessment, as well as subsequent prescriptions to address it, flow from a narrow epistemological approach to informality based on absence, where the lack of (Western) market-supporting legal and regulatory institutions explain missing economic growth at the firm level. In contrast, we build a theoretical approach grounded in presence, proposing that a more comprehensive incorporation of existing institutions may reveal less visible, individual level types of entrepreneurial growth occurring in informal economies. To do so, we conceptualize informal economies as institutional interfaces built of “bits and pieces” from market and nonmarket institutions. We propose that the configuration of these interfaces influences the cultural toolkits of inhabitant entrepreneurs, which in turn shapes how they grow in an informal economy. Specifically, we link three dimensions of institutional complexity at the institutional interface (jurisdictional influence, fragmentation, and incompatibility) to three types of growth (direct, dispersed, and disguised) that vary in terms of visibility. Our theory animates understanding of diverse informal economies and the entrepreneurial activity that exists within them.

Link: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0170