Mainstream academic literature and media use the word ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ in a monolithic manner that implies internal homogeneity. However, the Islamic faith is subject to multiple interpretations, with multiple types of Muslims who practice Islam based on their ideological interpretations, sect, ethnicity and gender. Drawing on a review of literatures on Islam and Muslims from diverse fields such as religion, gender, diversity and extremism, we present a taxonomy of different types of Muslims, and highlight implications for management, organizations and governance. We trace ideological sources of divergence among variants of Islam and analyze how certain doctrinal and jurisprudential associations may reflect intolerance and extremism.

While a wealth of evidence exists about failure in organisational settings and the emotions evoked by failure, researchers have paid less attention to failure and its related emotional consequences in academic life. Given that failure is often a cause of significant stress, which in turn can lead to damaging consequences, we argue that this is an issue deserving of greater consideration. In this article, we adopt Ashkanasy’s five-level model of emotion in organisations, and explore the potential role of emotions in academics’ experiences of failure at five levels: within-person, between-persons, interpersonal interactions, groups and teams (and leadership), and organisation-wide. In doing so, we draw on findings from scholarly literature, anecdotal evidence, and our own experiences as academics to build arguments. Following discussion of the model, we suggest how academics might begin to normalise the experience of failure in academia and to build resilience in the coming generations of young scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the circumstances under which empowering leadership fosters creative performance. Arguments were developed for a three-way interaction of empowering leadership, problem-solving demands and creative personality in this linkage. These arguments resulted in competing hypotheses from a fit and a compensation perspective. The results from a survey of 213 employees of a Flemish large industrial organization were used. We found that less creative employees in jobs with high problem-solving demands particularly benefit from empowering leadership. This paper adds to a more complex understanding of the effectiveness of empowering leadership by highlighting the relevance of the simultaneous interplay of contextual and personal factors.

This article examines how identities are constructed and performed by a sample of Muslim women in the Canadian workplace. This research will provide new insights on how Muslim women disclose or ‘perform’ their identities in different contexts. This study will build upon previous research on identity construction of ethnic minorities in the workplace and intersectionality and the workplace experiences of Muslim women by conducting interviews with 23 professional Muslim women in Canada. The findings have important implications for understanding Muslim women’s identity work in broader contexts of discrimination, as well as accommodation and inclusion in organizations.

A mission statement is a widely used strategic tool that emphasises an organisation’s uniqueness and identity. It was in the early 1980s that academics, managers, and consultants recognised the need for explicitly formulating a mission statement in organisations. Since then, mission statements have remained as a popular strategic tool in organisations. This article conducts a systematic literature review to synthesise research on mission statements. The analysis of the 53 articles selected includes a bibliometric and content analysis. According to their perspective, the works selected were grouped into four thematic areas: (1) mission statement development, (2) mission statement components, (3) mission impact on employees, and (4) mission impact on performance. The overreaching conclusion is that mission statements are widely used in practice but poorly researched in theory. Most articles adopt a managerial phenomenon-based strand, lacking a deep theoretical foundation. The article ends with suggestions for further research in terms of theory, practice, and methodology.

Recently, there emerged a theory of collective psychological ownership – an intersubjective sense of possession for different objects within the work and organizational context (e.g., work space). This shared mind-set has been cast as having the potential to explain a variety of collective, work-related attitudes, and actions. Preventing scientific inquiry into this phenomenon is the absence of an instrument for the measurement of this construct. The purpose of this work was the development and validation of such an instrument. To this end, work with a panel of judges and three sequentially conducted field studies was undertaken. Construct validation evidence (e.g., content, discriminant, nomological, and incremental validity) for an instrument for the assessment of collective psychological ownership is provided.

The study investigates demographic diversity, cognitive diversity and internal diversity within Islam among top-level management of firms and their impacts on the financial performance of Malaysian-listed companies. In addition, Muslim and non-Muslim women and Islamic religious diversity on corporate boards are investigated. Even though numerous organisations desire to be socially diverse, the significance of diversity for organisational performance remains uncertain. Are profitable companies inclined to improve board diversity or do other characteristics of the company contribute to firm performance? Does the participation of Muslim and non-Muslim women on corporate boards affect firm performance? Does internal diversity within Islam affect firm performance? Data from 330 Malaysian-listed companies in eleven full fledged sectors were used for the period from 2009 to 2013. This study employed econometrics methodology from panel data analysis to fill the research gap in the current management literature. This study used the interaction approach to examine empirically diverse corporate boards and their impacts on firm performance. This discussion included: (1) a combination of gender diversity and ethnic diversity and (2) a combination of gender diversity and foreign participation. The findings suggest that demographic, cognitive and internal diversity within Islam are significant predictors of a firm’s financial performance. Ethnic women on boards have a significant and negative impact on firm performance. Hence, companies having high profits are more accountable for encouraging diversity among top-level management.

Despite their many contributions, each of the most prevalent approaches to leadership – the micro interpersonal leadership models such as transformational theory, trait theory and charismatic leadership, and the macro strategic management – has notable ‘blind spots’ and relies on biased or partial assumptions. Furthermore, the macro–micro polarization of major leadership theories overlooks important meso perspective processes, such as structuring, which leaders can use to attain a more compounded and sustained effect on organizational outcomes. The goal of this paper is to propose an integrative theoretical framework – value-creating leadership – which provides what is missing from the theory of organizational leadership. Value-creating leadership combines micro and macro perspectives regarding management and leadership along with a meso perspective to create a unified model of corporate leadership.

Programmatic learning goals serve as the foundation for an educational institution’s curriculum design and assurance of learning processes. The purpose of our study is to determine the relevance or alignment of undergraduate business school learning goals. We identify the learning goals of US undergraduate business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-International (AACSB) and determine the extent to which the goals are aligned with (a) evidence-based competencies that are needed for managerial success (including the ‘Great Eight’ and the ‘hyperdimensional taxonomy’) and (b) content areas identified in AACSB’s Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation. We found that learning goals conform to AACSB Standards and evidence-based managerial competencies, but goals are most closely aligned with AACSB Standards, followed by the Great Eight, and the hyperdimensional taxonomy, respectively. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to business schools’ assurance of learning processes and provide recommendations for AACSB, business schools, the broader academy, and future research.

Surprisingly, the strategic management literature has had little to say of an explicit nature on the topic of capitalism. However, the discourse on capitalism is vast in economics and many would say the writings of some economists on the topic of capitalism have been inordinately influential. Bearing this in mind, the differences between three world renowned economists on the topic of capitalism are examined with the intention of identifying where scope exists for strategic management to contribute to the discourse on capitalism. The paper concludes that strategic management is well placed to develop its own organization-centric discourse on the subject.

The effects of employee-perceived leadership paradigms on multiple measures of firm performance collected from managers and customers in small businesses were examined. Four leadership paradigms operating in Australian retail pharmacies were assessed against six performance measures – financial outcomes, staff and customer satisfaction, productivity, retaining staff, and manager retention. Structural equation modeling, regression, and analysis of variance were employed to test the hypotheses. Predictions that firms characterized by visionary and organic/distributed leadership would outperform those using classical and transactional leadership were supported on all measures. Furthermore, the emerging organic leadership paradigm outperformed the others on every measure.

This study is a test of the relationship between organizational dissent and the perception of workplace freedom of speech in Singapore. Through a quantitative analysis of 384 individuals in Singapore, the following was found: articulated dissent and latent dissent are positively correlated with workplace freedom of speech. In addition, multiple analysis of covariance analyses revealed nation of birth exerted considerable influence on articulated dissent, and latent dissent, but not on workplace freedom of speech. The results provide evidence of how nation of birth is related to an individual’s willingness to express dissent. Theoretical and practical implications for research into organizational behavior are discussed.

In management studies, systems theory is an underexplored construct consistent with the dynamic capabilities framework. The systems approach received attention from management scholars in the middle of the last century, but, since then, has been largely abandoned. Meanwhile, academic disciplines have continued to narrow their focus. The capabilities and systems frameworks both adopt a holistic view that calls for all elements of an organization to be in alignment, and both recognize the importance of some form of learning for the purpose of adaptation. Dynamic capabilities go further by recognizing that organizations not only adapt to the business environment, they often try to shape it, too. While systems theory emphasizes internal stability over time and homogeneity across similar systems, dynamic capabilities include an explicit role for management/leadership that allows systemic change to start from within, which is the source of heterogeneity across firms. Dynamic capabilities are part of a system that includes resources and strategy. Together they determine the degree of competitive advantage an individual enterprise can gain over its rivals.

Social comparison plays an important role in collective bargaining. However, due to self-serving bias, the bargaining parties rarely agree on appropriate referents. In this respect, Wisconsin teachers’ collective bargaining provides an intriguing case because there is consensus on an appropriate comparison group: the schools’ athletic conferences. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the use of athletic conferences as referents is institutionalized beyond their technical merits. Using conference realignment as a natural experiment, this paper shows that when the bargaining parties experienced conference realignment, they changed their comparison groups. Because this realignment can be regarded as exogenous to collective bargaining, such changes in comparison groups are unlikely to be accounted for by technical factors, thus providing support for institutional theory.