Journal of Management Inquiry

A rapidly growing research stream examines the social effects of entrepreneurship on society. This research assesses the rise of entrepreneurship as a dominant theme in society and studies how entrepreneurship contributes to the production and acceptance of socio-economic inequality regimes, social problems, class and power struggles, and systemic inequities. In this article, scholars present new perspectives on an organizational sociology-inspired research agenda of entrepreneurial capitalism and detail the potential remedies to bound the unfettered expansion of a narrow conception of entrepreneurship. Taken together, the essays put forward four central provocations: 1) reform the study and pedagogy of entrepreneurship by bringing in the humanities; 2) examine entrepreneurship as a cultural phenomenon shaping society; 3) go beyond the dominant biases in entrepreneurship research and pedagogy; and 4) explore alternative models to entrepreneurial capitalism. More scholarly work scrutinizing the entrepreneurship–society nexus is urgently needed, and these essays provide generative arguments toward further developing this research agenda.

Prior literature has highlighted the multimodal nature of organizations and organizing. However, management and organization studies continue to be guided by institutionalized conventions that prioritize words over other modes. This overreliance on words has resulted in “weak” multimodality that treats modes sequentially and often favors one mode over others. In this essay, we use play as a theoretical lens to explore how researchers can use the graphic novel to blend modes to extend “strong” multimodality. By focusing on the liminality of words and images in graphic novels, we make two critical contributions to multimodal research. First, we identify three graphic novels’ affordances researchers can use in MOS to attend to embodied and affective experiences (eroticize), contextualize when one mode is insufficient (narrativize), and demonstrate new ways of inquiry (theorize). Second, we elucidate how these affordances emerge from the researcher's playful engagement with modes to explore how they might work together.

Historical narrative studies suggest that history can be strategically manipulated and narrated by current actors to facilitate change. The studies emphasize that history can be used as a source of narratives to serve present purposes. Building on the studies, this research investigates how leaders use history as a set of narratives to delegitimize a dominant logic, thus facilitating institutional change. The empirical context of this study is a Korean Buddhist organizational field during and after Japanese colonization between 1910 and 1962. This context allows to examine how a group of Korean monks with a peripheral logic (meditation logic) proactively used past stories, legends, and myths to delegitimize a dominant logic (service logic). Their narrative strategies are conceptualized in this study as reviving history, stigmatizing history, and invoking leaders from the past. In integrating the findings with the relevant literature, this research aims to contribute to historical narrative and institutional research.

The literature on how organizations respond to institutional pressure has shown that the individual decision-makers’ interpretation of institutional pressure played an important role in developing organizational responses. However, it has paid less attention to how this interpretation ultimately contributes to their range of organizational decisions when responding to the same institutional pressure. We address this gap by interviewing board members of U.S. and Dutch hospitals involved in adopting best practices regarding board evaluation. We found four qualitatively different cognitive frames that board members relied on to interpret institutional pressure, and which shaped their organizational response. We contribute to the literature on organizational response to institutional pressure by empirically investigating how decision-makers interpret institutional pressure, by suggesting prior experience and role definition as moderating factors of multidimensional cognitive frames, and by showing how these cognitive frames influence board members’ response to the same institutional pressure.

Bereavement, the reaction to the loss of someone significant through death, is a challenging life event. Despite its prevalence, it is an understudied aspect of organizational life. The goal of this article is to encourage research on bereavement in the workplace. After providing a brief overview and definitions of key terms, I highlight themes of what we know about bereavement from work in the organizational sciences. I then suggest several generative directions for future work. Such research may alleviate some of the bereavement burden for employees by better addressing their needs and by developing more humane organizational policies and practices.