Does proactive personality matter in leadership transitions? Effects of proactive personality on new leader identification and responses to new leaders and their change agendas

Despite the growing frequency of leadership transitions and their significant impact on team and organizational performance, little research has examined why and how teams develop an identification with a new leader or their subsequent receptiveness to the new leader’s change initiatives. Drawing from the contrast and congruence effects and the theoretical perspectives of leader identification, this study empirically tests a model in which the congruence of new leaders’ and their teams’ proactive personalities foster new leader identification, as well as the team’s behavioral responses to the new leader’s change agenda. This effect is strongest when the new leader’s proactive personality is higher than that of the former leader’s proactive personality (positive contrast). Our findings of a four-wave “before-and-after” transition survey of 155 hotel employees and 51 new leaders, achieved through polynomial regression analyses, proved very insightful. Essentially, we found that the congruence between a new leader’s and his/her team’s proactive personalities and the positive contrast between a former leader’s and the new leader’s proactive personalities enhanced new leader identification and the team’s shared identification with the new leader’s change agenda, and, thereby led the team to exhibit more behavioral engagement with, and voice behavior about, the new leader’s change agenda

Evolutionary history of hepatitis C virus genotype 5a in France, a multicenter ANRS study

The epidemic history of HCV genotype 5a is poorly documented in France, where its prevalence is very low, except in a small central area, where it accounts for 14.2% of chronic hepatitis C cases. A Bayesian coalescent phylogenetic investigation based on the E1 envelope gene and a non-structural genomic segment (NS3/4) was carried out to trace the origin of this epidemic using a large sample of genotype 5a isolates collected throughout France. The dates of documented transmissions by blood transfusion were used to calibrate five nodes in the phylogeny. The results of the E1 gene analysis showed that the best-fitting population dynamic model was the expansion growth model under a relaxed molecular clock. The rate of nucleotide substitutions and time to the most recent common ancestors (tMRCA) of genotype 5a isolates were estimated. The divergence of all the French HCV genotype 5a strains included in this study was dated to 1939 [95% HPD: 1921–1956], and the tMRCA of isolates from central France was dated to 1954 [1942–1967], which is in agreement with epidemiological data. NS3/4 analysis provided similar estimates with strongly overlapping HPD values. Phylodynamic analyses give a plausible reconstruction of the evolutionary history of HCV genotype 5a in France, suggesting the concomitant roles of transfusion, iatrogenic route and intra-familial transmission in viral diffusion

The Physics of the B Factories

This work is on the Physics of the B Factories. Part A of this book contains a brief description of the SLAC and KEK B Factories as well as their detectors, BaBar and Belle, and data taking related issues. Part B discusses tools and methods used by the experiments in order to obtain results. The results themselves can be found in Part C

Middle-status conformity revisited: The interplay between achieved and ascribed status

Decisions about conforming to or deviating from conventional practices in a field is an important concern of organization and management theory. The position that actors occupy in the status hierarchy has been shown to be an important determinant of these decisions. The dominant hypothesis, known as middle-status-conformity, posits that middle-status actors are more likely to conform to conventional practices than high- and low-status actors do. We challenge this hypothesis by revisiting its fundamental assumptions and developing a theory where actors’ propensity to conform based on their achieved status further depends on their ascribed status that actors inherit from their social group. Specifically, we propose that middle-status conformity applies only to actors who have a sense of security, based on their high ascribed status. For actors with low ascribed status, we propose that high-and low-status actors show greater conformity than middle-status actors. We test our hypotheses using data from the U.S. symphony orchestras from 1918 to 1969

How firms respond to financial restatement: CEO successors and external reactions

Although past studies have paid considerable attention to firms' reputations, few have investigated the actions that firms take following a reputation-damaging event. We identify firms involved in financial earnings restatements and examine whether naming a successor CEO with specific qualities serves to signal the seriousness of a firm's efforts to restore its reputation. Using theories of market signaling, we argue that attributes of successor CEOs significantly influence the reactions of key external constituencies. In particular, firms with more severe restatement tend to name successors who have prior CEO or turnaround experience and a more elite education. The naming of such successors results in more positive reactions from the stock market, financial analysts, and mass media. We argue that these attributes send messages to stakeholders and the broader public about the CEO's credibility and the firm's efforts

Means versus ends in opaque institutional fields: Trading off compliance and achievement in sustainability standard adoption

__Abstract__ The long-standing discussion on decoupling has recently moved from adopters not implementing the agreed-upon policies to compliant adopters not achieving the goals intended by institutional entrepreneurs. This “means-ends decoupling” prevails especially in highly opaque fields, where practices, causality, and performance are hard to understand and chart. I conceptualize the conditions under which the adoption of institutions in relatively opaque fields leads to the achievement of the envisaged goals. Voluntary sustainability standards governing socioenvironmental issues illustrate these arguments. I argue that the lack of field transparency drives institutional entrepreneurs to create and maintain concrete and uniform rules, apply strong incentives, and disseminate “best practices” to ensure substantive adopter compliance. However, such rigid institutions are ill-equipped to deal with the causal complexity and practice multiplicity underlying opacity while they smother adopter agency. The ensuing tension between substantive compliance and goal achievement leads to an inherent trade-off: institutional entrepreneurs who remedy the policy-practice decoupling may enhance the disparity between means and ends, and vice versa. While sustainability standards and other institutions in highly opaque fields can, therefore, not fully achieve the envisaged goals, the trade-off can be reduced through systemically designed institutions that promote goal internalization and contain niche institutions

Holier than thou? Identity buffers and adoption of controversial practices in the Islamic banking category

Existing scholarship on categories frequently highlights how some category members may violate codes that others diligently abide by. In this paper, we take into account the differences in identity across category members, and ask how these relative differences determine their response to a code-violating change. Taking a case where category members are clearly identified as ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, we argue that insiders’ reaction to a code violation depends upon the extent to which they believe their identity to be distinct from the code violator’s, who might be an insider or an outsider. Specifically, we suggest that it is the presence or absence of an ‘identity buffer’ – i.e., a relative identity advantage – which determines insiders’ reaction. We hypothesize that when a code violation is introduced by a fellow category insider, the focal insider will be more likely to refrain from the practice. When it is an outsider who introduces the code violation, insiders will be more likely to adopt the code violation as long as they can retain an identity buffer. We further posit that when outsiders adopt code-preserving behavior, thus narrowing the identity buffer between insiders and outsiders, it will mitigate insiders’ likelihood of code violation adoption. We test and find support for our hypotheses using data on Islamic banking industry in 12 countries (2003-2014)