Leveraging Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap) in Crisis: A Multiphase Framework

Despite recent advancements in understanding of leadership in context, there is surprisingly little insight into leadership in crisis. To provide insight into how leaders navigate crisis, we utilize historical sources of Sir Winston Churchill’s leadership during World War II to analyze which resources are used by leaders during a crisis and how they leverage these resources to lead through and out of the crisis. We discover that psychological capital (PsyCap) is a core individual resource that leaders leverage in crisis. Our findings suggest that leaders leverage PsyCap in varying ways based on the phase of the crisis. That is, different dimensions of PsyCap are used to lead ahead of, into, through, and out of the crisis. This study contributes to the strategic leadership and positive organizational behavior literatures by empirically illustrating the dynamic nature of PsyCap and how leaders leverage it to navigate crisis

Leveraging Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap) in Crisis: A Multiphase Framework

Despite recent advancements in understanding of leadership in context, there is surprisingly little insight into leadership in crisis – a context that is both pervasive and particularly challenging. To provide insight into how leaders navigate crisis, we utilize historical sources of Sir Winston Churchill’s leadership during World War II (WWII) to analyze 1) which resources may leaders use in crisis and 2) how they leverage these resources to lead through and out of the crisis. We discover that positive psychological capital (PsyCap) is a core strategic resource that leaders leverage in crisis. Our findings suggest that leaders leverage PsyCap as a core resource to build second-order capabilities needed to 1) prepare in the anticipation of a crisis, 2) persevere in the face of obstacles during the crisis, and 3) lead out of the crisis. In addition, we show that leaders do not just leverage PsyCap in its entirety; rather depending on circumstances, different elements of the PsyCap become more prominent at different times. In doing so, this study contributes to positive organizational behavior and leadership literatures by empirically illustrating dynamic nature of PsyCap as well as how leaders leverage it to navigate crisis

Away from the Top: Exploring Strategic Leadership in an Emergent Strategic Initiative Process

Strategic leadership is essential to organizational viability and success. However, by looking only at the strategic leader of the organization, we may be missing important strategic leadership behaviors that are distributed throughout the organization. Using an in-depth instrumental case study of an emergent initiative in a healthcare institution, we find that strategic leadership behaviors permeate the organization in a dynamic manner. Our findings illustrate that in contrast to much of the extant literature, strategic leadership transpires much before individuals positioned at the apex of the organization formalize and implement the final initiative top- down. More specifically, we portray strategic leadership as a distributed phenomenon that occurs throughout the emergent initiative process. In doing so, our findings extend the current, predominately leader-centric, understanding of strategic leadership

Revisiting Weber’s charismatic leadership: Learning from the past and looking to the future

Purpose – Weber emphasized the informal structure, followers\u27 power, and time in charismatic leadership; yet the extant literature either overlooks or underplays the significance of each of these facets. The aim of this paper is to revisit Weber\u27s conceptualizations of charisma and illuminate these facets, thus creating new avenues for the contemporary charismatic leadership research. Design/methodology/approach – The focus of this research is on analysis of Weber\u27s conceptualization of charisma. The analysis of selected quotes is grounded within contemporary discourse in order to illustrate how three overlooked facets may propel future research on charismatic leadership. Findings – By revisiting Weber\u27s seminal work, the paper illustrates several historical findings and identifies research opportunities that are yet to be addressed by contemporary study in charismatic leadership. In doing so, the paper generates a set of propositions as an impetus for future exploration. Research limitations/implications – To address the three proposed questions, researchers should focus their attention on the exploration of charisma outside of the formal bureaucracy, the dynamic power relations between leaders and followers, and the temporally bound nature of charisma. Given the nature of these questions, researchers may also consider alternative research methods such as in-depth case studies and narratives in order to more fully capture the dynamic and unpredictable nature of charisma in complex contexts. Originality/value – Contemporary research largely overlooks or underplays the issues of time, the informal structure, and followers in the study of charisma. Through analysis of Weber\u27s writings, this paper brings to the forefront these issues, and thus provide rich opportunities for future research on charismatic leadership

Conflicting and Complementing Logics: Examining Sustainability Practices Across Economies

The role institutional environments play in sustainability practices across countries is well documented in the international business literature. However, how multiple and occasionally conflicting institutional logics shape sustainability practices at the individual-level is underexplored, especially across countries. To enhance our understanding of this process, we investigate how individuals in two high-hazard organizations in the energy sectors in the Republic of Serbia and Canada practice sustainability. Our findings illustrate that in both contexts, individuals “pull down” structural elements of high-hazard logics into their daily sustainability practice, thereby relating their practices to the well-being of others as well as aligning them to their salient identities. However, our findings also illustrate how multiple, often conflicting, logics interact to shape this process distinctively across two countries. In Serbia, individuals pull-down and combine elements of high-hazard and legacy state logics to construct community logic and align their practice to it. In Canada, individuals do so to construct professional logics and align their practice to it. Based on our comparative case analysis of a developed economy and an economy in transition, we create a general model, as well country-specific models, depicting how individuals navigate multiple institutional logics to engage in sustainability practices

The Paradox of Knowledge Creation in a High-Reliability Organization: A Case Study

We employed an instrumental case study of a multisystem hydroelectric power producer, a high-reliability organization (HRO), to explore how new knowledge is created in a context in which errors may result in destruction, catastrophic consequences, and even loss of human life. The findings indicate that knowledge creation is multilevel, nested within three levels of paradox: paradox of knowing, paradox of practice, and paradox of organizing. The combination of the lack of opportunity for errors with the dynamism of the HRO context necessitates that individuals work through multiple paradoxes to generate and formalize new knowledge. The findings contribute to the literature on knowledge creation in context by explicating the work practices associated with issue recognition, resolution, and refinement, and the formalization of knowledge in failure-intolerant organizations

The Paradox of Knowledge Creation in a High-Reliability Organization: A Case Study

We employed an instrumental case study of a multisystem hydroelectric power producer, a high-reliability organization (HRO), to explore how new knowledge is created in a context in which errors may result in destruction, catastrophic consequences, and even loss of human life. The findings indicate that knowledge creation is multilevel, nested within three levels of paradox: paradox of knowing, paradox of practice, and paradox of organizing. The combination of the lack of opportunity for errors with the dynamism of the HRO context necessitates that individuals work through multiple paradoxes to generate and formalize new knowledge. The findings contribute to the literature on knowledge creation in context by explicating the work practices associated with issue recognition, resolution, and refinement, and the formalization of knowledge in failure-intolerant organizations

Exploring the Micro-Dynamics of Adaptability: A Symbolic–Interpretative Perspective

Much of the work in contemporary organizations could be considered adaptive work: it requires individuals to deviate from routines to meet the needs of changing contexts. Yet, despite this, the dynamics of adaptive work have been largely underexplored. In this paper, we address this by exploring adaptive work as a micro-dynamic of organizational adaptability by focusing on different symbols individuals use in their work. We discover that individuals use exogenous (symbols surrounding the work) and endogenous (symbols within the work) symbols to insert variability into the work and adapt to unexpected events. Exogenous symbols create adaptive space where variability and routine coexist while endogenous symbols both link and disrupt routines thus enabling individuals to adapt to new circumstances. To this end, our study unpacks the practices that constitute adaptive work and adds clarity to the literature on organizational adaptation from the micro level of analysis

Academics perception of public areas video surveillance in smart cities

The growing trend of the urban population looks for the formation of the concept of Smart Cities, based on the principles of sustainable development, which will meet the needs of people who live in them. The city must develop its public service infrastructure to provide all the requirements for the population. One of the requirements, people living in cities is the security of public areas managed by the city. The system of video surveillance, public areas should contribute to the personal safety of citizens, children and traffic, reducing the rate of crime and more efficient operation of public services. This research aims to examine academics' opinions (perceptions) about the impact of security cameras on increasing security within the concept of Smart Cities. The research had conducted on the territory of Serbia through an online survey. The obtained data were processed statistically by Chi-square and T-test, ANOVA method, multiple regression and correlation using SPSS application. The research indicates that academics much more believe in the contribution of video surveillance, reducing the crime rate, than studies of the effectiveness of the use of video surveillance shows. Video camera monitoring accelerates the reactions of competent services, but video camera recordings have not always been accepted as evidence in court