Genetic and neurological foundations of customer orientation: field and experimental evidence

We explore genetic and neurological bases for customer orientation (CO) and contrast them with sales orientation (SO). Study 1 is a field study that establishes that CO, but not SO, leads to greater opportunity recognition. Study 2 examines genetic bases for CO and finds that salespeople with CO are more likely to have the 7R variant of the DRD4 gene. This is consistent with basic research on dopamine receptor activity in the brain that underlies novelty seeking, the reward function, and risk taking. Study 3 examines the neural basis of CO and finds that salespeople with CO, but not SO, experience greater activation of their mirror neuron systems and neural processes associated with empathy. Managerial and research implications are discussed

Energy Management of People in Organizations: A Review and Research Agenda

Although energy is a concept that is implied in many motivational theories, is hardly ever explicitly mentioned or researched. The current article first relates theories and research findings that were thus far not explicitly related to energy. We describe theories such as flow, subjective well-being, engagement and burn-out, and make the link with energy more explicit. Also, we make a first link between personality characteristics and energy, and describe the role of leadership in unleashing followers’ energy. Following, we identify how the topic of energy management can be profitably incorporated in research from a scientific as well as a practitioner viewpoint. Finally, we describe several interventions to enhance energy in individuals and organizations

A critique of the Leader-Member Exchange construct: Back to square one

Nearly all of the scholarship in the area of leader-follower relationships hinges on one construct: Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). Given the central role of this construct in leadership and organizational studies, it is critical that LMX be clearly understood and both measured and analyzed in a valid manner. This critique identifies systemic conceptual (e.g., unclear definition and unclear nomological net), measurement (e.g., measures that do not capture LMX's theoretical foundations and misalignment between conceptualization and measurement) and treatment (e.g., endogeneity) issues associated with the construct. Collectively, these issues lead us to conclude that the LMX construct is incapable of serving the needs of the theories it has traditionally served, and as currently constituted, is unlikely to advance leadership theory and practice in significant or meaningful ways. We conclude with recommendations for how scholars can move forward with the opportunity and challenge of replacing the LMX construct

Organizational body work: Efforts to shape human bodies in organizations

In this article, we review management and organizational research that describes and explains “organizational body work”— purposeful, organizationally embedded efforts to shape human bodies. We conceptualize human bodies in terms of three dimensions—materiality, meaning, and functionality—and argue that organizational body work is constituted by programs of purposeful effort involving activities situated in and shaped by organizational life. Based on a review of 210 articles and books that feature descriptions of organizational body work, we unpack the concept in three main ways. First, we offer an inductively developed process model of organizational body work that comprises five key themes: the triggers, forms, consequences, contexts, and the variations of bodies targeted. Second, a key observation that emerged from our review was that organizational body work is animated by a set of organizational tensions, and so we explore three such tensions situated in the cultural, health, and political dynamics of organizational life. Third, we suggest eight directions for future research intended to illustrate and inspire, rather than set boundaries around the study of organizational body work