Given the ubiquity of organizational change, it is fitting that considerable research has focused on employees’ responses to change, much of it collated in review articles. With the aim of integrating this diverse review literature and providing an employee-centric theorization, we provide a meta-review, a systematic review of reviews. We present the meta-construct of employee change orientation (EChO), which aggregates employee responses, attitudes, behaviors, and the associated psychological mechanisms related to organizational change. Our meta-review includes 50 scholarly reviews published between 2001 and June 2025, drawing on 1,606 primary studies. Through a synthesis of these reviews, we present the EChO framework and taxonomy. We identify areas for improvement, particularly for research design, and generate key insights for change practitioners working with employees experiencing change. Our meta-review contributes by clarifying well-researched areas, extending theorizing, and highlighting the need for further research to understand how employee responses to change influence outcomes.

We share the world we live and die in with others, in ways that are organized and disorganized. The authors of this special issue address life-and-death as a compound term, foregrounding the vital and deadly outcomes of (dis)organization and their (business) ethics implications as they play out in the context of growing inequalities and ongoing health, geopolitical, environmental, refugee crises and egregious war crimes. Organizations and organizing can shape such contexts by engaging in the ethics of care and politics of inclusivity, redefining “essential” or “front line” work, managing relationships between bodily health and work, or ethically relating to non-human forms of life. Considering the roles of organizations in terms of life-and-death can help scholars redefine organizations and/in/for/with the world by stressing the ethical dimensions of organizing for life which involves human and other-than-human relatedness and the obligation of care for all forms of life.

We take the opportunity in this editorial that marks the end of our tenure, to offer some reflections on our experiences. It is an occasion for looking back, for reflection on the scholarship and practice of business ethics, and for celebrating some of the outstanding work that is being done in and for the journal.

In this article, we consider how zones of slow death can emerge from epistemic marginalization—specifically, the kind that occurs when a social group lacks shared interpretive models due to processes of “social descent.” Drawing on an ethnographic study of waste collectors who moved from skilled to low-skilled or unskilled labor, we explore how this epistemic marginalization is reinforced by the temporal framing of certain lives in the “past tense.” In this way, epistemic marginalization and temporal disqualification are intertwined: denying a group’s interpretive authority simultaneously enables the erasure of their claims to justice as outdated and obsolete.

We examined whether obsessive passion and harmonious passion interacted in the prediction of work–family conflict, and the indirect effects of obsessive passion on counterproductive work behaviors as mediated by work–family conflict. We collected data from two samples of employees with jobs in engineering (Sample 1) and administration (Sample 2). Obsessive passion was associated with higher levels of work–family conflict, whereas harmonious passion was negatively related to work–family conflict. Furthermore, the positive effects of obsessive passion on work–family conflict were lower at high levels of harmonious passion. Work–family conflict was also positively related to counterproductive work behaviors (Sample 2). Finally, the indirect effects of obsessive passion on counterproductive work behaviors (Sample 2) were lower at high levels of harmonious passion.

The rise of remote work has reshaped organizational dynamics, necessitating a deeper understanding of its implications for leadership, employee motivation, and performance. This longitudinal study examined direct and indirect effects (via leadership behaviors) of remote work intensity on employee motivation and performance. Using three waves of survey data from 512 Norwegian employees, results indicate that higher remote work intensity positively predicted perceived need-supportive leadership and negatively predicted perceived controlling and laissez-faire leadership. Need-supportive leadership positively predicted intrinsic motivation, which in turn predicted adaptability and proactivity, whereas controlling leadership positively predicted extrinsic regulation and amotivation. Amotivation negatively predicted proficiency but was a positive predictor of proactivity. Laissez-faire leadership also positively predicted proactivity, suggesting that reduced managerial oversight may encourage initiative in certain remote work contexts. These results offer valuable insights for organizations navigating the future of work, highlighting the need for leadership strategies that enhance intrinsic motivation and adaptability in remote work settings.

Research on the ethics of life and death in organizations has overlooked the growing role of social media in shaping the ethical implications of organizational regulations on death. More specifically, while recent research suggests that memes are increasingly used to influence the reputation and perception of organizational actions, research on their roles in legitimating the organization of death is scant. This paper analyzes Internet memes legitimizing police slaughter in Brazilian favelas. Three primary discourses were identified: denying life worthiness, establishing actors deserving death, and upholding the police organization as executioners of death. This paper contributes to research on the ethics of organizational death in three different ways in a context of political polarization and growing authoritarism. First, it discusses how social media creates a legitimate discourse that makes death visible and gloats over its victims. Second, this discourse is enabled by social media memes, which divert the ethical debate on life and death, replacing it with superficial and transient engagement. Third, we discuss how memes can reinforce the role of the state police enforcement apparatus as an expression of racialized inequalities.

Although the relevance of the dynamic nature of teams has generated a thriving literature, contributions have originated from a variety of disciplines. This situation has hindered scholarly understanding and collaboration. To assess the state of the dynamic teams’ field in an unbiased and comprehensive way, a literature review relying upon bibliometric techniques combined with content analysis was conducted. Considering all disciplines that have examined the subject, this study aimed at defining its knowledge structure, identifying its main research lines, methods, and key theoretical framework. Results revealed eight research lines. Teams/teamwork, membership change, performance, dynamic team, and membership change were found as the motor themes. In turn, decentralised control, access control, multi-robot system, and distributed system were found as themes that are either emerging or disappearing. The latter themes, related to the engineering and computing fields, are emerging and are likely to become central and developed. Future research lines are suggested.