The Lit Review - An AMJ Podcast

In this episode, I'm joined by Ethan Burris (UT-Austin) to discuss his new AMJ paper, which explores a straightforward question with important implications: when employees raise concerns on behalf of others rather than themselves, do managers actually discount that "hearsay" the way conventional wisdom suggests they should?   Burris, E. R., Howell, T. M., Stubben, S. R., & Welch, K. T. In-Pres...

In this episode, I’m joined by Abhinav Gupta, a Professor of Management in the Foster School of Management at the University of Washington, to discuss his recently published AMJ paper that shows how community trauma fundamentally alters risk-taking. When leaders are emotionally shaken, even competitive pressure doesn’t work the way we expect. And that has big implications for how we understand str...

This episode, I speak with Rachel Goodwin, Assistant Professor of Management at Syracuse University in the Whitman School of Management. In this episode, we dig into her recent AMJ article on perfectionism, based on a compelling study of professional ballet - a context where the stakes are high, the standards are exacting, and pressure to be flawless is constant. We discuss what perfectionism look...

This episode, I speak with Nan Jia, Professor of Strategic Management at University of Southern California. In our conversation, I talk with Nan about her recent award winning paper recently published in AMJ about how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance employee creativity. This paper explores how artificial intelligence can enhance employee creativity by automating routine aspects of work an...

The guest this episode is Winnie Jiang, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD. I talk with Winnie about her recent paper in AMJ that explores how entrepreneurs manage identity conflicts as they attempt to be a “boss” despite coming from humble beginnings. We discuss the emotional work necessary to become a successful entrepreneur and how policy makers and mentors can best suppo...

In this episode, I chat with Martin Kilduff, Professor of Organizational Behavior at UCL, about his latest AMJ paper on workplace rivalries. We break down how rivalries form in social networks, why they push people to compete harder (for better or worse), and what that means for careers. Who’s your biggest rival? And is that a good thing? Let’s find out!   Kilduff, M., Wang, K., Lee, S. Y., Tsai,...

This episode I speak with Christy Shropshire, an associate professor of management and entrepreneurship in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Recently, Christy published a paper about the role of displayed anger and happiness in corporate board meetings.  In our conversation, we discuss the findings in the paper, and how we can better understand the role that emotions...

This episode, I speak with Devin Rapp who is an Assistant Professor of Management at Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University. In our conversation, I talk with Devin about his recent paper in AMJ about Dirty Heroes - people who work in stigmatized jobs but are also publicly celebrated. The paper explores how workers manage perceptions of stigma, a very negative social evaluation, a...

To kick off the 4th season, I have two esteemed guests this episode, Tim Kundro and Nancy Rothbard, co-authors of the 'Best Paper' published in AMJ in 2023.  In our conversation, we talk we talk about Tim and Nancy’s recent award winning paper recently published in AMJ which explores how power can protect moral objectors in organizations, but shows that this protection operates differently for men...

This episode, I speak with Scott Sonenshein, the Henry Gardiner Symonds Professor of Management in the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.  In our conversation, we talk about a recent paper he published in AMJ, with co-author, Kristen Nault, about organizational resilience.  The paper explores the different ways that firms approach adversity and how these approaches can lead to d...

This episode, I speak with Gurneeta Vasudeva, an Associate Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.  In our conversation, we talk about her AMJ paper about how public-private collaborations can contribute to the success of socially beneficial innovation. We discuss the findings from this paper and the implications fo...

This episode, I speak with David Lucas, the Edward Pettinella Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and a Research Fellow with the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society.  In our conversation today, we talk about a recent paper he published in AMJ, with co-authors, Matthew Grimes and Joel Gehman, about Remaking Capitalism into a more j...

This episode, I speak with Jeff Bednar, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources in the BYU Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University.  In the pod, we talk Jeff's recent article (with  Jacob Brown, Ph. D. ) looking at Organizational Ghosts, which is when leaders continue to influence behaviors and emotions within the organization long after they are gone. Th...

This episode, I speak with Ron Burt, the Charles M. Harper Leadership Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the University of Chicago and Distinguished Professor at Bocconi University in Milan.   In our conversation, we talk about a recent AMJ paper, with co-author, Song Wang, about 'bridge supervision' in organizations, which occurs when a manager and their boss do not share any strong similar s...

This episode, I speak with Matt Semadeni, Professor of Strategy and Dean’s Council Distinguished Scholar at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.  In our conversation today, we talk about CEO political ideology.   We discuss how political activism has shaped corporate leadership, strategy, and investing - which pulls the conversation in all sorts of interesting directions...

This episode, I speak with Hatim Rahman, an Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.   In our conversation today, we talk about a recent paper he published in AMJ, with co-authors, about digital labor platforms and how experimentation by platform designers can impact worker autonomy. I also talk with Hatim about the current stat...

To kick off our 2nd season, I have two fantastic guests this episode: Angelica Leigh and Shimul Melwani, co-authors of the Best Paper published in AMJ in 2022, entitled, “Am I Next?” The Spillover Effects of Mega-Threats on Avoidant Behaviors at Work" In our conversation, we talk about the phenomenon of “Mega-threats” and how they impact behaviors at work.   I also talk with them about their exper...

The guest this episode is Tim Pollock, the Haslam Chair in Business, Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Kinney Family Faculty Research Fellow at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville In our conversation today we talk about scandals.  In his most recent work Tim and his co-authors investigate the anatomy of the scandal - asking the simple question: when is a firm’s bad behavior mos...

The guest this episode is Laura Huang, Professor of Management and Organizational Dynamics, Distinguished Professor, and Faculty Director of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative at Northeastern University. Getting funding is one of the most important goals for a new organization, but funding decisions are not always driven by objective measures. In this episode, we talk about how subtle individ...

The guest this episode is Modupe Akinola, the Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business at Columbia Business School.  In this episode we talk about the decisions that firms make about diversity initiatives. While progress has been made in regard to diversity in organizations, the persistence of underrepresentation remains salient.  What explains this state of affairs? In a recent AMJ paper...

The guest this episode is Thomas Lawrence, a Professor of Business at The University of Oxford.  We discuss one of Tom’s recently published papers in AMJ, which investigates how an organization imported a ”bad” practice in attempts to solve an important social problem, drug addiction.  The results of the paper are intriguing and speak to the broader theme of how controversial practices can be tran...

This podcast offers a deep dive into the insights of research published in the Academy of Management Journal. In every episode, Professor Sekou Bermiss interviews authors and corporate leaders to obtain the story behind a recent research article. What was the inspiration behind the study and resarch domain? How can insights from this research be applied to pressing issues in organizations and mark...