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Research Interests:
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Embeddedness in social networks is increasingly seen as a root cause of human achievement, social stratification, and actor behavior. In this article, we review sociological research that examines the processes through which dyadic ties... more
Embeddedness in social networks is increasingly seen as a root cause of human achievement, social stratification, and actor behavior. In this article, we review sociological research that examines the processes through which dyadic ties form, persist, and dissolve. Three sociological mechanisms are overviewed: assortative mechanisms that draw attention to the role of actors' attributes, relational mechanisms that emphasize the influence of existing relationships and network positions, and proximity mechanisms that focus on the social organization of interaction.
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Organizations face many potential issues but their capacity to attend to them is constrained. Formal and informal agendas, the aggregate sets of issues to which decision makers allocate attention and effort, help prioritize among multiple... more
Organizations face many potential issues but their capacity to attend to them is constrained. Formal and informal agendas, the aggregate sets of issues to which decision makers allocate attention and effort, help prioritize among multiple concerns. Such agendas evolve over time, with issues expanding or decreasing in scope and prominence. We analyzed interviews, observations, and archival data collected over an 18-month timeframe in a multinational biomedical firm's to understand micro-mechanisms that account for changes in its sustainability agenda. Some issues rose in scope and prominence while others faltered. We found social interaction practices to be central to agenda evolution. Successful interaction rituals energized issue entrepreneurs and mobilized coalitions and facilitated access to decision-making venues and the creation of new decision-making channels. The study contributes to research on the behavioral theory of the firm, employee activism, and environmental manag...
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Organizations play a critical role in promoting social movement goals through the market; yet, there is a lack of understanding about the processes by which organizations mobilize entrepreneurs to ...
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The efforts of midlevel employees to focus organizational attention on particular initiatives are central to organizational change. Accordingly, researchers have investigated the political and discursive tactics that enable such issue... more
The efforts of midlevel employees to focus organizational attention on particular initiatives are central to organizational change. Accordingly, researchers have investigated the political and discursive tactics that enable such issue sellers to succeed. However, little attention has been paid to organizational structures that promote issue selling or to external actors with an interest in encouraging changes, such as social movements. Likewise, research on social movements as agents of organizational change has largely not attended to the role of internal change agents at targeted organizations. In this paper, we contribute to filling these gaps by investigating the consequences of a network spanning issue sellers and external activists on organizations’ climate change reforms. We combine survey, interview, and archival data on the EDF Climate Corps program to show that internal organizational contexts and external ties cumulatively shape the ambitions of issue sellers at participa...
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We examine the processes and mechanisms of translating broader field-level change to the local community, drawing on insights from the inhabited institutions perspective and community-based institutionalism. In particular, we develop the... more
We examine the processes and mechanisms of translating broader field-level change to the local community, drawing on insights from the inhabited institutions perspective and community-based institutionalism. In particular, we develop the concept of linking organizations as key actors in institutional change that connect the broader field and community levels. We use multiple forms of qualitative data, collected over a two-year time frame, to study the processes of a community foundation, the ‘Rainbow Wellness Foundation’, as a linking organization that engaged five community coalitions to embed a new wellness approach, locally. Our findings suggest that linking organizations interpret the central tenets of the approach, define them locally around relevant aims, and regulate community organizations’ adherence, to ensure legitimacy with the field. In addition, by engaging and negotiating with the community and helping manage ambiguity, linking organizations enable local ‘filling-in’ o...
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We develop the concept of the distant future as a new way of seeing the future in collective efforts. While a near future is represented in practical terms and concerned with forming expectations and goals under conditions of uncertainty,... more
We develop the concept of the distant future as a new way of seeing the future in collective efforts. While a near future is represented in practical terms and concerned with forming expectations and goals under conditions of uncertainty, a distant future is represented in stylized terms and concerned with imagining possibilities under conditions of ambiguity. Management research on future-oriented action has developed around problems of the near future. To explore distant futures, we analyze the case of geoengineering, a set of planetary-scale technologies that have been proposed as solutions to the threat of climate change. Geoengineering has increasingly been treated as if it were a reality, despite continued controversy and in the absence of any implementation. We find that societal-level imaginaries that were built on deeply-held moral bases and cosmologies underpinned the conception of geoengineering, and that a dialectic process of discursive attempts to reconcile oppositional imaginaries increased the concreteness and credibility of geoengineering so that it increasingly has been treated as an 'as-if' reality. We suggest that distant futures orient collective efforts in distinctive ways, not as concrete guides for action but by expressing critiques and alternatives, that can become treated as 'as-if' realities.
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Individual entrepreneurs committed to sustainability experience paradoxes: interdependencies and conflict between social, environmental, and economic goals. Whereas prior research focuses on direct responses to paradoxes, we examine... more
Individual entrepreneurs committed to sustainability experience paradoxes: interdependencies and conflict between social, environmental, and economic goals. Whereas prior research focuses on direct responses to paradoxes, we examine multi-level dynamics between organizations and individuals in responding to sustainability paradoxes. Using a 20-month qualitative field study of sustainable food entrepreneurs in Detroit, we investigated how a business collective organization, FoodLab, enabled entrepreneurs to move from paradoxical thinking to practicing sustainable business. Our findings suggest that while individuals may struggle to address multiple goals of sustainability alone, business collective organizations provide a coordinating mechanism that amplifies their efforts. Through guardrails that facilitate the co-creation of shared resources for members, organizations can minimize cognitive and practical barriers of sustainable entrepreneurship.
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We develop the concept of the distant future as a new way of seeing the future in collective efforts. While a near future is represented in practical terms and concerned with forming expectations and goals under conditions of uncertainty,... more
We develop the concept of the distant future as a new way of seeing the future in collective efforts. While a near future is represented in practical terms and concerned with forming expectations and goals under conditions of uncertainty, a distant future is represented in stylized terms and concerned with imagining possibilities under conditions of ambiguity. Management research on future-oriented action has developed around problems of the near future. To explore distant futures, we analyze the case of geoengineering, a set of planetary-scale technologies that have been proposed as solutions to the threat of climate change. Geoengineering has increasingly been treated as if it were a reality, despite continued controversy and in the absence of any implementation. We find that societal-level imaginaries that were built on deeply-held moral bases and cosmologies underpinned the conception of geoengineering, and that a dialectic process of discursive attempts to reconcile oppositional imaginaries increased the concreteness and credibility of geoengineering so that it increasingly has been treated as an 'as-if' reality. We suggest that distant futures orient collective efforts in distinctive ways, not as concrete guides for action but by expressing critiques and alternatives, that can become treated as 'as-if' realities.
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We advance interactionist perspectives on how organizational structures emerge in new issue domains. Our study is grounded in field data collected over 18 months at a large biomedical company that sought to become more sustainable. Over... more
We advance interactionist perspectives on how organizational structures emerge in new issue domains. Our study is grounded in field data collected over 18 months at a large biomedical company that sought to become more sustainable. Over that period, some sustainability-related issues became firmly embedded in formal structures and procedures, while others faltered. We identify the quality of situational interactions among organizational members as the engine behind the structuring of organizational sustainability efforts. Successful interactions generated traces of attention, motivation, knowledge, relationships, and resources that linked fleeting interactions to emergent organizational structures. Our findings point to the importance of internal advocates and distributed processes at middle and lower levels for developing organizational structures, and we show that advocates’ interests, commitments, and identities are altered in the course of repeated interactions, as are the polit...
Research Interests: Organizational Behavior, Marketing, Organizational Theory, Organizational Change, Corporate Social Responsibility, and 10 moreSocial Interaction, Symbolic Interaction, Corporate Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Structuration Theory, organizational Politics, Business and Management, Tempered Radicals, Organizational Design and Structure, and Administrative Science Quarterly
“Sustainability” is a domain of theory and practice in which people seek “win–win” opportunities for business and society, short- and long-term prosperity, humans and the natural environment. Lurking within the concept are some... more
“Sustainability” is a domain of theory and practice in which people seek “win–win” opportunities for business and society, short- and long-term prosperity, humans and the natural environment. Lurking within the concept are some challenging paradoxes surrounding these parts and wholes of social systems that lead to tragedies of the commons. These paradoxes become salient when natural and organizational resources become scarce, when diverse societal stakeholders give voice to their interests and perspectives, and when efforts at organizational change bring these latent concerns to light. As people navigate these paradoxes of sustainability, they can manage them defensively, or actively engage paradox toward two positive outcomes. One is trade-off-breaking innovation that achieves win–win solutions. The other is flourishing of people who realize their contradictory sets of cares and motivations. Achieving the goals of the sustainability paradigm may therefore require “champions of ambivalence” who foster paradoxical thinking and action in organizations.
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The rise and institutionalization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in sport is captured in a growing body of work in sport management. This literature suggests professional teams should be strategic in their approaches—matching... more
The rise and institutionalization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in sport is captured in a growing body of work in sport management. This literature suggests professional teams should be strategic in their approaches—matching internal resources with external needs—but we lack an understanding of the processes and mechanisms in the evolution to more strategic CSR, as well as specific practices that characterize these approaches. Further, by focusing on broad trends in how and why teams are adopting CSR, we miss the opportunity to learn from teams with innovative and authentic CSR approaches. To address these gaps, this article uses a qualitative case-study approach to examine how one professional team in the U.S.—the Detroit Lions—evolved their CSR to a more strategic and authentic partnership-focused model. Our findings point to key process steps and mechanisms in the decision making around, and implementation of, this approach, including the role of organizational structu...