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Exploiting an exogenous increase in public awareness of banks’ lending to the gun industry, this article documents significant deposit outflows from gun lenders. These outflows are stronger in Democratic-leaning markets and for Republican-leaning lenders. In contrast, anti-gun lenders experience limited and insignificant outflows, consistent with policy alignment with depositor values. Outflows tighten funding constraints, prompting gun lenders to reduce deposit spreads and branches in Democratic-leaning markets. While large gun lenders remain resilient, small gun lenders significantly reduce their CRA loan volumes. The findings highlight political value misalignment as a driver of depositor behavior and its real effects on bank operations.
Today's organizations face rapid change, digital disruption, and rising demands for sustainability and resilience. This fifth edition text equips executives, students, and educators with a proven framework for designing effective organizations in complex environments. Built on decades of research, the multi-contingency model provides a step-by-step guide from diagnosis to design and implementation-now expanded to include knowledge interdependence, AI integration, sustainable development, and organizational resilience. Rich with real-world cases from LEGO, Microsoft, Haier, and Blackberry, the book blends theory with practice and offers clear visuals, intuitive 2x2 models, and tools to support hands-on learning and application. It helps readers understand who should do what, talk to whom, and-crucially-know what, in today's increasingly dynamic settings. Whether used in executive education or as a core text in MBA and business school courses, this updated edition is a comprehensive, accessible, and globally trusted guide to modern organizational design.
In multilevel governance systems, member states work together to address cross-border problems, yet people still lack a clear understanding of how and why their policies differ or converge. Existing research offers many explanations but often treats them separately or overstates the EU's independent influence. This Element brings these perspectives together in a single framework of policy dynamics. It distinguishes policy areas shaped mainly by EU institutions or member states, or by their interaction. It introduces an actor-centered typology of policy dynamics – stable patterns of actors, incentives, and mechanisms that shape policy over time. The Element shows that these dynamics matter only when governments, interest groups, and NGOs have the incentives, capacity, and leverage to build coalitions and pursue goals. The policy dynamics framework helps learners identify likely causal mechanisms and supports clearer comparison, explanation, and teaching of EU policymaking. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The Hudson Bay Company (HBC) fundamentally changed food strategies in North America. Rather than go where food was, company servants stationed along Hudson Bay traded with Indigenous hunters for the flesh of wild animals. HBC officials expected this food to be cheap, a strategy that defines our understandings of commodity frontiers. Yet a focus on price requires greater attention to how firms account for costs. This article argues that the HBC’s post-1774 expansion inland exacerbated tensions related to control over the trade in country provisions between the company and Maškēkowak hunters. Recurrent food crises related to one animal—partridge—at the HBC’s principal post, York Fort, in the 1780s and 1790s prompted defences of what food was worth beyond its exchange value, in evaluations recorded outside the company’s ledgers. Not only did experiences hunting and eating partridges shape the HBC’s later search for other cheap foods. It also suggests ways to rethink the politics of prices within commercial enterprises.
This article aims to provide an overview of family firms and entrepreneurial ecosystems regarding their current trends and future research directions. A systematic literature review was carried out on 37 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters extracted from the Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection databases up to December 2025. By carrying out a coding procedure and thematic approach, we blend the input-process-outcome model with three levels of analysis (i.e., individual, family, and firm). Findings reveal that family firms shape and are conditioned by entrepreneurial ecosystems. At the same time, resource deployment and embeddedness foster knowledge transfer and regional resilience, thus corroborating the co-evolutionary relationship between family firms and entrepreneurial ecosystems. The contribution of this work is threefold: (i) an integrated theory-driven conceptual model; (ii) an inductive thematic map grounded in coded outcomes; and (iii) a future research agenda steering scholars towards novel research directions.
We document two distinct mutual fund strategies: “Swinging for the Fences” (SF), in which managers hold stocks with extreme style-adjusted returns on either tail of the return distribution, and “Batting for Average” (BA), in which managers seek stocks with consistently moderate performance. We provide evidence that these strategies are persistent and deliberate. Existing measures of active management and known asset-pricing factors do not explain the strategies. SF attracts more flow, particularly when funds mention specific stock holdings in shareholder reports. SF funds charge higher fees and hold riskier portfolios; yet, they fail to deliver higher risk-adjusted returns. In falsification tests, SF strategies are not present in passive funds, supporting our conclusion that SF and BA are intentional strategies.
This Element addresses the illiberal challenge facing public administration amidst the rise of authoritarian populism and democratic backsliding. It investigates how populist governments seek to reshape state bureaucracies, often undermining liberal democratic principles such as pluralism, expertise, and constitutional safeguards, and examines how public administration must respond to safeguard democratic integrity. Drawing on global examples, the Element identifies strategies of populist administrative manipulation, patterns of bureaucratic compliance and resistance, and critical gaps in scholarly understanding. It develops a framework for analyzing these dynamics and proposes normative principles to defend active democratic bureaucracy. Through theoretical inquiry and practical recommendations, it advocates for robust, ethically grounded public administration capable of countering illiberal pressures. Its central thesis underscores the need to restore the intellectual foundation of public administration as a social science deeply embedded in and committed to the democratic policy process. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
We study the aggregate impact of information spillovers emerging from industry star firms. Changes in stars’ relative earnings growth predict future earnings growth, consensus earnings surprises, and job postings of same-industry nonstar firms. Star-firm performance also predicts industry-level GDP and employment growth. Price markup and innovation spillovers are potential channels underlying these patterns. Our results further show that this performance predictability is not fully incorporated into nonstars’ stock prices. A long–short portfolio based on star firms’ earnings growth earns an annualized 6-factor alpha of 8.7%. Together, our findings provide consistent evidence of the economic importance of star firms.
As organizations expand globally, the spatial distribution of top management teams (TMTs) across regions becomes increasingly prevalent. This paper aims to review the diverse literature on the geographic dimensions of teams (collocation, dispersion, and virtuality), and more specifically, the spatial configuration of upper echelons. Several studies explore the composition of TMTs, the diversity of their members, and their influence on firms’ strategic choices. However, the international location of TMT members remains largely overlooked. We conduct a systematic literature review that draws on spatial theory and the upper echelons approach. The results allow the development of a conceptual framework that integrates research related to the spatial dimensions of TMTs. The purpose is to contribute to a better understanding of how the spatial configuration of TMTs influences strategic leadership processes in geographically dispersed organizational contexts. We discuss the implications of this spatial perspective of upper echelons and propose potential avenues for future research.
Instead of following an “end-of-life” concept, the circular economy focuses on reducing, or alternatively reusing, recycling, and recovering materials in production, distribution, and consumption processes. Despite its potential to contribute to organizational environmental sustainability goals, there is much uncertainty about how the circular economy can be effectively implemented. So far, industrial and organizational (I-O) psychological science and practice have largely neglected how factors such as employee attitudes and motivation, teamwork, leadership behavior, and work design may contribute to the implementation of circular economy practices. Accordingly, the aim of this focal article is to outline how expertise from I-O psychology could be used for effective circular economy implementation. To achieve this goal, we first briefly summarize the history and current practices of the circular economy. Second, we expand the current understanding of the circular economy by adding an I-O psychology perspective. Third, we link the circular economy to other relevant topics in I-O psychology, such as corporate social responsibility and employee green behavior. Finally, we outline how I-O psychologists could address one of the major challenges in the circular economy transformation: intra- and interorganizational cooperation within and across the circular value chain.
We examine how Confucian culture operates as an informal institution by fostering relational contracts that substitute for formal legal frameworks in shaping corporate behavior. Using data on historical Confucian academies near firms’ headquarters in China, we find that greater cultural exposure is associated with higher investment in stakeholder relationships—measured by social contribution, stakeholder protection, courtesy expenses, patenting, and trade credit. These effects persist after controlling for human capital and alternative cultural influences, and weaken in regions with stronger formal institutions. Our findings highlight the enduring role of culture in supporting trust-based governance when formal contracting is limited.
This Element advances an agency-theoretic approach to public administration through comparative analysis of the United States, China, and EU. It examines how principals – such as legislatures, executives, or ruling parties – can align the actions of diverse agents, including civil servants, public agencies, street-level bureaucrats, and contractors, with the public interest. Drawing on an extensive review of 146 key studies and AI-assisted analysis of 8,400 articles from Public Administration Review, Part I outlines fundamental concepts: goal divergence, moral hazard, adverse selection, and information asymmetry and traces its history, debates, and criticisms. These concepts are then applied to key themes in public administration – performance management, federalism/decentralization, contracting, politics-administration, and institutional drift. Part II investigates how these problems manifest and tackled in the US, China, and Europe. Part III concludes with a synthesis of findings, debates, extensions, and future directions for theory and practice.
Protecting biodiversity on the planet through business involvement is a priority for many governments and citizens. To do this requires balancing different social, financial, and ecological objectives with economic output. This editorial questions what is the right way to do this based on considering different forms of capital, such as natural, human, social, manufactured, and financial. This enables renewed interest in the natural environment in terms of business involvement in issues such as climate change and the circular economy.
Transitioning to a sustainable economy requires firms to transform their business models in accordance with circular economy principles. Circular economy scholarship has predominantly examined resource-rich large firms and circular startups, leaving established, resource-constrained small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) underexplored. Facing capability constraints regarding resources, knowledge, and organizational capacity, government policy intervention plays an important role. Through interviews with 15 experts and analysis of seven government programs, we reveal the transition dynamics that shape SME circular engagement and how government intervention can reinforce the optimization of linear business models or facilitate moving toward circular business model transformation.
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence has accelerated its adoption across organizational functions. However, existing reviews often adopt sectoral or technology-focused perspectives, limiting understanding of its implementation within core firm activities. This study addresses this gap through a systematic review of articles published in Web of Science and Scopus up to December 2025, following established methodological guidelines. A total of 160 peer-reviewed articles met the inclusion criteria. Findings reveal convergent patterns of adoption in human resources, marketing and customer services, logistics, and finance. Artificial intelligence enhances analytics, automates routine tasks, personalizes interactions, and supports decision-making. Human resources applications focus on recruitment and workforce planning; marketing relies on predictive analytics and conversational interfaces; logistics improves forecasting and supply chain resilience; finance strengthens risk assessment and process efficiency. The study proposes an integrative conceptual model and research propositions, highlighting cross-functional challenges in governance, organizational capabilities, socio-technical alignment, and responsible implementation.
We conduct the first comprehensive study of blockchain currencies—stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies and traded on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Using transaction-level data linked to wallet characteristics, we show that prices in these markets are generally efficient, though constrained by blockchain frictions such as gas fees and Ether volatility. DEX rates closely track traditional currency markets through arbitrage and informed trading. Traders with substantial market share and access to primary markets exert greater price impact, reflecting informational advantages. While blockchain markets may improve access for customers excluded from traditional venues, their scalability depends on addressing frictions inherent to decentralized trading.
Affective Events Theory explains how workplace emotions arise from discrete events and shape attitudes and behaviour. Drawing on a phenomenological study of 29 employees and 13 managers working within oversight saturated supervisory contexts in the post–Royal Commission Australian financial services sector, this paper extends Affective Events Theory by examining how affective experience unfolds when accountability is continuous, and discretion is constrained. Across dual-cohort findings, affect was not primarily anchored to identifiable events that resolved over time. Instead, participants described emotion as persistent and cumulative, produced through ambiguity and emotional restraint, and circulating across supervisory roles. Employees reported sustained interpretive effort directed towards reading tone, silence, and procedural communication, while managers described regulating emotional expression to remain defensible under accountability pressures. These findings specify boundary conditions for the episodic logic of Affective Events Theory, by explaining how affect may be conceived as a sustained condition in contexts with sustained oversight, with meaningful implications for workplace attitudes and behaviours and for managerial practice in highly regulated organisational environments where accountability and supervision are continuous.