Prior research on status has focused primarily on the cognitive perspective, exploring the effects of status and offering a limited understanding of the impact of positive status change and its emotional mechanisms. This study draws upon the two-facet model of pride to examine how positive status change influences the behaviors of new status holders. Specifically, we propose that when status differentiation is low, positive status change enhances new status holders' prosocial behavior through their authentic pride, while in cases of high status differentiation, it increases their self-interested behavior through their hubristic pride. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a series of studies, including a laboratory experiment, a scenario experiment, and a time-lagged multilevel and multisource field study. Our multilevel analyses of the data provided strong support for our hypotheses. Our findings shed light on when and why positive status change triggers different behaviors among new status holders, offering important insights into the emotional mechanisms that underlie the effects of status change.

Although some organizations encourage employees to generate radical ideas by implementing stretch goals, the relationship between stretch goals and radical creativity is complicated. Unfortunately, existing research has not adequately addressed this issue. Therefore, we integrate signaling theory with creativity-related research and propose that the interaction between stretch goals and cognitive flexibility predicts employees' willingness to take risks, thereby influencing their engagement in radical creative activities and ultimately affecting their radical creativity. To test our hypotheses, we conduct two empirical studies. The results suggest that, for employees with high cognitive flexibility, stretch goals increase their willingness to assume risks, thus leading to improved engagement in radical creative activities and enhancing their radical creativity. Conversely, for employees with low cognitive flexibility, stretch goals decrease their willingness to take risks, which hampers their engagement in radical creative activities and their radical creativity. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of this study are also discussed.

CEOs who develop strong clan values as a result of exposure to clan culture in early life wish to bring honor to their clan, motivating them to engage in increased CSR activities. We propose that the influence of CEOs' clan values on CSR is subject to contextual boundaries. Specifically, we predict that the positive relationship between CEOs' clan values and CSR results primarily in an improved level of institutional CSR and varies with CEOs' personal attributes such as overseas experience and hometown identity. An analysis of a longitudinal sample of Chinese publicly listed firms for 2010–2019 provides strong support for our predictions. The implications for upper echelons theory and CSR research are discussed.

In this study, we propose hierarchical inconsistency among family-member top leaders as a novel structural reason for nonfamily executives' high compensation in family firms. Hierarchical inconsistency among family-member top leaders is observed when the head in the formal business hierarchy is not ranked the highest among family-member executives and directors in the informal family hierarchy. We argue that this structure triggers contestations between the heads of the two hierarchies, adding complexity and challenges to nonfamily executives' jobs. Family firms with hierarchical inconsistency among family-member top leaders need to offer higher compensation to make up for the demanding features of these professional managers' work. The positive relationship between hierarchical inconsistency and nonfamily executives' compensation is weaker when the proportion of female family-member executives and directors is high and when the formal head's tenure is long. We use data from publicly listed family firms in China to test our arguments. Our study contributes to family business research by suggesting how the interplay between family relationships and formal organizational structures influences job features and compensation decisions.

Although extant research has highlighted the tangible benefits of bridging ties that interlink network communities, our understanding of the determinants of a firm's propensity to form new bridging ties is scarce. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm, we conceptualize the formation of new bridging ties as a consequence of decision-makers' bounded rationality and verify the effect of performance feedback on the share of new bridging ties. Additionally, we contend that decisions regarding forming new bridging ties in response to performance feedback are bounded by CEOs' experience. We use a longitudinal dataset of Chinese publicly listed firms in the pharmaceutical industry from 2010 to 2020. The results indicate that the magnitude of a firm's outperformance relative to its aspirations positively affects the share of new bridging ties, while the magnitude of a firm's underperformance relative to its aspirations has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the share of new bridging ties. CEOs' academic and political experience strengthens the positive relationship between the magnitude of a firm's outperformance relative to its aspirations and the share of new bridging ties. CEOs' political experience flattens the inverted U-shaped effect of the magnitude of a firm's underperformance relative to its aspirations on the share of new bridging ties.

We examine how the central government's management of subnational governments' agency influences the smartness of the latter's industrial specialization choices. Based on smart industrial specialization theory and agency theory, we hypothesize how two central government tools governing subnational governments' agency – facilitating their organizational efficacy and promoting their officials to higher ranks – explain recent industrial specialization choices by China's 31 provincial governments. We find that provincial governments with greater organizational efficacy, measured by access to better-resourced local state-owned enterprises in focal industries, make smarter specialization policies. In addition, we show that provincial governments with greater numbers of officials previously promoted to the central government make, contrary to conventional wisdom, potentially less smart specialization policies. Our research extends smart specialization theory by explaining that central government tools governing subnational agency problems can have knock-on effects making subnational governments' industrial specialization choices smart or unsmart.

In the previous issue (Vol. 20, Issue 3), we published a perspective article entitled ‘Responsible Research: Reflections of Two Business Scholars Doing Mental Health Research during COVID-19’, by Zhang and Chen. The pair represents two management scholars who ventured into medical research during the COVID pandemic. Zhang and Chen shared their insights from this exploration with the broader community of management scholars, highlighting key differences in how the field of medicine balances the goals of rigor and relevance and judges what research deserves to be published.

The early months of the COVID pandemic prompted a flood of research aimed at illuminating all facets of the disease and its spread. Scholars sought to create and assess practical interventions that ranged from vaccines to government lockdown policies to workplace practices. To date, there are nearly a half-million publications on the pandemic, and more are in process.

As I read Zhang and Chen's (2024) perspective paper, I was impressed with the authors' flexibility moving into the medical field and the impact of their research. Moreover, I agreed wholeheartedly with their call to learn by working across fields and with their assessment of how differently management and healthcare scholarship is created, disseminated, and used. Yet I was quite stumped by the editor's request that I suggest some ‘urgent and pressing’ issues that might help management scholars achieve the kind of practical relevance of medical researchers.