Chad Murphy

Oregon State University | OSU · College of Business

Research on identity has provided key insights into the challenges individuals experience when their professional self-concept is disrupted. However, there has been little to no consideration of the fact that individuals’ sense of how they are viewed and defined by others—their construed image—is also a key dimension of the professional self, one t...

Research Summary We consider the link between firms' decisions to adopt a CSR executive position and the political ideology of prior adopter CEOs. We theorize that firms are more likely to adopt a CSR executive position when it has been previously adopted by conservative‐leaning CEOs at other firms, as opposed to liberal‐leaning CEOs. This effect i...

In emerging occupations, individuals are given very little prepackaged identity “content”—e.g., occupational values, legitimating ideologies, clear goals, tasks, and/or routines—to help them build their individual‐level occupational identities. By contrast, individuals in well‐established occupations (e.g., professions) are given ample identity con...

We take an inductive approach to understanding the aftermath of crises, namely, the process by which organizations come to be viewed as morally accountable (or not) for such events. We studied the transcripts of the 2009 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) that investigated the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Our findings revealed a dy...

We provide an overview of the grounded theory approach, a methodology with significant (and largely untapped) potential for human resources (HR) research. Grounded theory is an abductive, data-driven, theory-building approach that can serve as a conceptual link between inductive and deductive research approaches. We begin by explaining the grounded...

One key responsibility of leaders involves crafting and communicating two types of messages—visions and values—that help followers understand the ultimate purpose of their work. Although scholars have long considered how leaders communicate visions and values to establish a sense of purpose, they have overlooked how these messages can be used to es...

Leadership and strategic management research suggests that the extent to which CEOs influence performance largely depends on the presence or absence of certain factors. These factors may include the characteristics of the task at hand, subordinates, the organization itself or the external environment. Among these factors, a fundamental contingency...

We examine the role of a practice’s opacity (versus transparency) in the interorganizational diffusion of organizational practices. Though the opacity of a practice is typically thought to impede diffusion, a political-cultural approach to institutions suggests that opacity can sometimes play a positive role. Given that adoption decisions are embed...