Gratitude at Work

Thesis advisor: Jean M. BartunekThesis advisor: Myeong-Gu SeoMy dissertation builds theory about gratitude at work. Drawing from Affective Events Theory, I suggest two different forms of gratitude: state gratitude and job gratitude. State gratitude refers to grateful moods or emotions which tend to last short term, whereas job gratitude refers to employees’ grateful attitudes particularly toward their jobs that tend to last longer. Empirically, I conducted three related studies. In the first study, I developed and validated the 7-item measure of job gratitude using a series of surveys that confirmed a satisfactory content and construct validity of the measure. Using an experience sampling procedure, in the second study I suggested and tested a theoretical model of state gratitude at work. A series of longitudinal surveys with 135 employees showed that state gratitude that is captured by a 3 week long daily survey is positively associated with in-role behaviors through the desire to reciprocate benevolence. My analyses also showed that the availability of extrinsic job rewards negatively moderates the positive impact of state gratitude on helping behaviors through the desire to reciprocate benevolence. Employees’ job dependency also negatively moderates the positive impact of state gratitude on both helping and in-role behaviors through the desire to reciprocate benevolence. The third study proposed and tested a theoretical model of job gratitude. My analyses showed that through the mechanism of intended help, job gratitude is positively associated with extra-role behaviors including helping behaviors, organizational citizenship behaviors directed to an organization, and voice behaviors. Taken together, my dissertation enriches theories in emotion literature by exploring a particular type of discrete, social, and moral emotions. My dissertation also contributes to gratitude literature outside of organizational studies, as it broadens the scope of impacts of gratitude in work contexts. Lastly, this dissertation contributes to Organizational Positive Scholarship by shedding light on the experiences of the recipients’ of prosocial behaviors.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016.Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management.Discipline: Management and Organization

Senior managers’ sensemaking and responses to strategic change

Our longitudinal study of the sensemaking and responses to strategic change of the senior management team of a UK multinational subsidiary provides unusual data that enable us to explore the complexity of senior team change related sensemaking. We show senior teams to be distinct interpretive communities rather than one homogeneous category of change agents, as typically portrayed in change literature, who at times of center-led strategic change occupy a complex dual recipient/change agent role. By adopting a narrative approach, we show the shared sensemaking of such a team to be impacted by the locally differentiated nature of its interpretive and relational contexts, leading to context specific interpretations of center-led change and locally distinct responses, with consequences for change outcomes. We found that because of their dual role, senior managers construct two sets of interwoven and interacting change narratives which mediate the relationship between the wider organizational change and local change actions. Our analysis reveals how these evaluations of change, accompanied by affect, evolve over time and how they impact action. These findings contribute to existing theories of sensemaking and change by addressing the previously undertheorized relationship between senior management teams’ sensemaking and their responses to strategic change

Bacterial Uracil Modulates Drosophila DUOX-Dependent Gut Immunity via Hedgehog-Induced Signaling Endosomes

SummaryGenetic studies in Drosophila have demonstrated that generation of microbicidal reactive oxygen species (ROS) through the NADPH dual oxidase (DUOX) is a first line of defense in the gut epithelia. Bacterial uracil acts as DUOX-activating ligand through poorly understood mechanisms. Here, we show that the Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway modulates uracil-induced DUOX activation. Uracil-induced Hh signaling is required for intestinal expression of the calcium-dependent cell adhesion molecule Cadherin 99C (Cad99C) and subsequent Cad99C-dependent formation of endosomes. These endosomes play essential roles in uracil-induced ROS production by acting as signaling platforms for PLCβ/PKC/Ca2+-dependent DUOX activation. Animals with impaired Hh signaling exhibit abolished Cad99C-dependent endosome formation and reduced DUOX activity, resulting in high mortality during enteric infection. Importantly, endosome formation, DUOX activation, and normal host survival are restored by genetic reintroduction of Cad99C into enterocytes, demonstrating the important role for Hh signaling in host resistance to enteric infection

Uncovering relationships and shared emotion beneath senior managers’ resistance to strategic change

Many approaches to organizational change assume that change recipients will resist and that this resistance is illegitimate and unfounded, as "right" sits with those initiating change. Working with data on senior managers, we challenge these assumptions developing a model that has implications for understanding of change and change agent practice

Organizing for social change and innovation: Challenges and opportunities of organizations

A diverse range of organizations, encompassing for-profit organizations, social enterprises, non-profit and public organizations, are driven by a strong social mission to resolve societal challenges and drive social change. Such organizing necessarily involves navigating complexity in the form of potentially competing values (e.g., Gehman, Trevino & Garud, 2012), institutional logics, organizational forms and identities (Smith & Besharov, 2019). Often, in order to balance the competing needs for innovation and stability, organizations are forced to “deviate from socially legitimate templates for organizing and thus experience unique organizing challenges” (Battilana & Lee, 2014, p. 397). Research has shown that many organizations which navigate complexity and combine opposing elements struggle to maintain a balance between their various aims (Smith, Gonin, & Besharov, 2013) and experience mission drift (Besharov & Smith, 2014; Ramus & Vaccaro, 2017), often resulting in the abandonment of social aims in favour of commercial goals (Mair, Battilana & Cardenas, 2012). Scholars have recognized that most organizations cope with a multiplicity of opposing demands – mostly social and commercial – to some degree (Shepherd, Williams & Zhao, 2019), for example with for-profit organizations increasingly engaging in the generation of social value and not-for profit organizing engaging in commercial activities to substitute their traditional sources of income. Yet our understanding of how organizations can resolve challenges and instead leverage the unique opportunities they face remains vague. Building on existing research, the aim of this symposium is to explore the challenges and opportunities of organizing from various angles. The presenters will explore key questions that individually and collectively enhance our understanding of how organizing efforts can drive social change. To accomplish this, each paper draws on different theoretical lenses and empirical contexts

Inflammation-Modulated Metabolic Reprogramming Is Required for DUOX-Dependent Gut Immunity in Drosophila

DUOX, a member of the NADPH oxidase family, acts as the first line of defense against enteric pathogens by producing microbicidal reactive oxygen species. DUOX is activated upon enteric infection, but the mechanisms regulating DUOX activity remain incompletely understood. Using Drosophila genetic tools, we show that enteric infection results in ‘‘pro-catabolic’’ signaling that initiates metabolic reprogramming of enterocytes toward lipid catabolism, which ultimately governs DUOX homeostasis. Infection induces signaling cascades involving TRAF3 and kinases AMPK and WTS, which regulate TOR kinase to control the balance of lipogenesis versus lipolysis. Enhancing lipogenesis blocksDUOXactivity, whereas stimulating lipolysis viaATG1-dependent lipophagy is required for DUOX activation. Drosophila with altered activity inTRAF3-AMPK/WTS-ATG1pathwaycomponents exhibit abolished infection-induced lipolysis, reduced DUOX activation, and enhanced susceptibility to enteric infection. Thus, this work uncovers signaling cascades governing inflammation-induced metabolic reprogramming and provides insight into the pathophysiology of immune-metabolic interactions in the microbe-laden gut epithelia. (c) 2018 Elsevier Inc

Considering planned change anew: stretching large group interventions strategically, emotionally and meaningfully

Large Group Interventions, methods for involving “the whole system” in a change process, are important contemporary planned organizational change approaches. They are well known to practitioners but unfamiliar to many organizational researchers, despite the fact that these interventions address crucial issues about which many organizational researchers are concerned. On the other hand, these interventions do not appear to be informed by contemporary developments in organizational theorizing. This disconnect on both sides is problematic. We describe such interventions and their importance; illustrate them with extended descriptions of particular Future Search and Whole‐Scale™ change interventions; summarize research on strategy, emotion, and sensemaking that may inform them; and suggest questions about the interventions that may stimulate research and reflection on practice. We also discuss conditions that may foster effective engagement between Large Group Interventions practitioners and organizational researchers. Our approach represents a way to conduct a review that combines scholarly literature and skilled practice and to initiate a dialog between them

Prokaryotic Soluble Overexpression and Purification of Human VEGF165 by Fusion to a Maltose Binding Protein Tag

<div><p>Human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key regulator of angiogenesis and plays a central role in the process of tumor growth and metastatic dissemination. <i>Escherichia coli</i> is one of the most common expression systems used for the production of recombinant proteins; however, expression of human VEGF in <i>E</i>. <i>coli</i> has proven difficult because the <i>E</i>. <i>coli</i>-expressed VEGF tends to be misfolded and forms inclusion bodies, resulting in poor solubility. In this study, we successfully produced semi-preparative amounts of soluble bioactive human VEGF165 (hVEGF). We created seven N-terminal fusion tag constructs with hexahistidine (His6), thioredoxin (Trx), glutathione S-transferase (GST), maltose-binding protein (MBP), N-utilization substance protein A (NusA), human protein disulfide isomerase (PDI), and the b'a' domain of PDI (PDIb'a'), and tested each construct for soluble overexpression in <i>E</i>. <i>coli</i>. We found that at 18°C, 92.8% of the MBP-tagged hVEGF to be soluble and that this tag significantly increased the protein's solubility. We successfully purified 0.8 mg of pure hVEGF per 500 mL cell culture. The purified hVEGF is stable after tag cleavage, contains very low levels of endotoxin, and is 97.6% pure. Using an Flk1⁺ mesodermal precursor cell (MPC) differentiation assay, we show that the purified hVEGF is not only bioactive but has similar bioactivity to hVEGF produced in mammalian cells. Previous reports on producing hVEGF in <i>E</i>. <i>coli</i> have all been based on refolding of the protein from inclusion bodies. To our knowledge, this is the first report on successfully expressing and purifying soluble hVEGF in <i>E</i>. <i>coli</i>.</p></div