Previous research mainly emphasizes relational factors that drive employees to engage in unethical behaviors to benefit their group, overlooking the role of ability-related mechanisms. However, understanding the ability-related mechanisms not only deepens our insight into unethical pro-group behaviors but also informs effective strategies for reducing such behaviors. Drawing upon social cognitive theory, we propose that employees who perceive low group potency are more likely to engage in unethical pro-group behaviors. In this regard, transformational leadership can reduce these unethical behaviors by increasing employees’ perception of group potency. Furthermore, we suggest that this effect is particularly salient when employees perceive a high leader–organization fit. We conducted an experiment and a multi-source, multi-wave field study to empirically test this theoretical model. Our research contributes to the literature on behavioral ethics and transformational leadership and provides practical implications for reducing unethical pro-group behaviors in the workplace.

This study examines how top managers engage in sensemaking to navigate dynamic and complex industrial policy environments and respond strategically. Based on a longitudinal narrative case study of a privately owned firm in China, we explore how managers interpret evolving policy signals and drive corporate strategic change. We extend sensemaking theory by incorporating an institutional logics perspective to investigate how top managers draw on multiple logics to make sense of policy shifts and craft organizational responses. The study develops a holistic process model that links industrial policy, sensemaking, and strategic change, highlighting the embedded agency of top managers in responding to evolving and diverse institutional pressures. By unpacking the temporal dynamics of sensemaking, we identify how the temporality of sensemaking contributes to heterogeneity in corporate strategic behavior. This research advances understanding of sensemaking as a key process linking shifting policies with firm strategic actions and contributes to the literature on sensemaking, institutional logics, and strategic change.

This study examines how internal CEO alliances, defined as social and structural ties between CEOs, subordinate executives, and board members, influence corporate carbon performance. Drawing on data from 36 countries over the period 2002–2023, we find that strong internal alliances are associated with weaker carbon performance, suggesting that concentrated internal power may hinder firms’ emission reduction efforts. However, this adverse effect is significantly moderated by various organizational and institutional factors. Specifically, it is attenuated in contexts characterized by stringent environmental regulation, robust media oversight, high regulatory quality, and greater board gender diversity. At the individual level, CEO characteristics such as hometown affiliation and older age also appear to reduce the negative influence of internal alliances. These findings advance our understanding of how CEO power dynamics interact with external and internal governance mechanisms to influence firms’ climate-related outcomes.

How do bankers treat green firms? Using unique loan application and banker preference data from a mid-sized bank, we find that customer managers, serving as front-line bankers, give more favorable recommendations to green firms, especially when they hold green values themselves. However, a minority of environmentally skeptical loan officers, aware through internal training that customer managers generally have greener preferences, counter this by downgrading positive evaluations of green firms. Despite not knowing the customer manager’s identity, these officers use their discretion to mitigate what they perceive as green biases, demonstrating the significant moderating role of superiors within the bank’s hierarchy.

The aim of this editorial is to provide an update about the Journal of Management & Organization in terms of its progress during the year 2025. This will help to understand how the journal has progressed over time and the main changes occurring in 2025 in term of analysis of articles, subject topic, author, reviewer, and other relevant information. To do this, a historical perspective is provided that highlights the main contributions in 2025 that are especially relevant given the journal’s 30th birthday celebrations. The core management topics and areas of interest published in 2025 are discussed in terms of final decisions about total number of articles accepted and acceptances based on country of main authors. A list of best reviewers for the journal is included as well as a published list of reviewers. The journal metrics are discussed as well as future objectives and goals.

We examine the consequences of controversies on corporate reputation and identify a strategy that companies often adopt to restore their trust relationships with stakeholders in the aftermath of media condemnation. In the post-controversy period, firms appear to use a bolstering strategy of engaging more actively in philanthropic activities. In terms of regaining reputation, as measured by the increase in the Britain’s Most Admired Companies ranking, such strategy proves to be ineffectual. This may be because charitable giving in such context could be viewed as superficial virtue signaling rather than a fundamental change in the company’s ethical stance.

We develop a capital structure model in which firms differ in their ability to adjust output prices. Firms with inflexible prices are more exposed to nominal and real shocks, leading to lower leverage, shorter debt maturity, higher cost of debt, tighter covenants, and greater precautionary cash holdings. Shocks to cash flow volatility raise the cost of debt more for firms with less pricing flexibility. We empirically confirm these predictions: Firms with inflexible prices experience significantly larger increases in credit spreads following monetary policy shocks and the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, especially when they face high preshock rollover risk.

We show that the decision to go public is influenced by spatial variation in the supply of equity financing. We measure the amount of capital of equity investors in each U.S. region and document that the incidence of initial public offerings (IPOs) by intangible-intensive resident firms increases significantly when regional equity capital is abundant. Using a novel empirical strategy and hand-collected data on out-of-state pension flows, we confirm that our findings are not due to underlying regional factors.

What are the benefits of access to the bond market for unlisted firms, and how does it affect their bank lending conditions? Using a regulatory reform that allowed unlisted firms to issue minibonds, we address these questions comparing new bank loans to issuers with concurrent loans to matched non-issuers. After the first minibond issuance, issuers obtain lower interest rates on bank loans of similar maturity, largely reflecting a shift in the seniority structure of corporate debt, and reduce the use of bank loans while increasing their total financial debt. They also increase turnover, total and fixed assets, particularly intangible assets.

This article examines American “capitalist feminism” as a type of “business feminism” through the lens of biography. To demonstrate crucial linkages between business culture and historical social developments, the article foregrounds an account of the first woman president of a major commercial bank, Mary G. Roebling. Roebling sought women’s collective uplift primarily through economic empowerment, forwarding her message through accommodationist tactics, such as presenting a “feminine” image, embracing capitalism, and espousing moderate politics. This essay briefly explores additional biographies to suggest that other professionally successful, elite white women held similar “capitalist feminist” views. The article also employs biographical and associational examples to illustrate how capitalist feminism is a distinct category of business feminism.