Patrick Flynn’s research while affiliated with North Carolina State University and other places

Despite the prevalence of research on the consequences of collective turnover (TO), we lack an understanding of how, when, and why changes in the external environment influence collective turnover. The present study extends context emergent turnover and threat-rigidity theories to consider temporal changes in rates of collective turnover brought on by an external disruption. We also conduct variance decomposition to evaluate the relative influence of internal and external factors on collective turnover and examine how changes in the external environment impact relative influences. Finally, we examine the role of collective engagement in explaining patterns of collective turnover over time. Our study is based on a large, geographically dispersed U.S. firm. Findings from a two-phase longitudinal model reveal that rates of collective turnover change over time in ways that are predictable from threat-rigidity theory. Variance decomposition analysis finds that internal store-level factors explain substantially more variance than external factors, but the balance changes in response to an external disruption. We also show that collective engagement can mitigate increases in collective turnover. Results inform theory regarding the relative importance of internal versus external factors in influencing collective turnover and provide a framework for predicting how contextual change in the external environment impacts collective turnover over time.

There is debate in the literature regarding when impression management motivates networking performance for self and others, and how well individuals perform tasks when the driving motivation is to look good. We take a novel approach to this quandary, integrate social exchange with sensemaking theories and research, and examine how networking group characteristics enable entrepreneurs to make sense of, and interpret, their collective environment and subsequently determine how they should behave to look their best. We identify collective altruism as an important group characteristic affecting how impression management tactics influence entrepreneurs’ willingness to help fellow group members. Findings from a sample of entrepreneurs ( n = 189) engaged in Business Network International (BNI) groups ( k = 24), illustrate that the relationship between entrepreneurs’ exemplification and the revenue they generate for others’ ventures and their own was more strongly positive when collective altruism was higher. Similarly, the effects of entrepreneur supplication and intimidation on revenue generated for others’ ventures were positive in groups with higher collective altruism. We discuss implications for theory and practice.

We extend event system theory (EST) to conceptualize proactive events and examine how event duration, timing, criticality, and disruption are related to two phases of change associated with an organizationally initiated event. Specifically, we explore the impact of a new sustainability monitoring system on energy consumption using longitudinal archival data from 87 manufacturing units of a Fortune 200 multinational firm. We use a variant of mixed-effects discontinuous growth modeling (DGM) to test EST propositions related to initial and longer-term changes associated with implementing the monitoring system. Results indicate that while the new sustainability monitoring system is effective in reducing within-unit energy consumption on average, there are significant differences in change magnitude between units. The magnitude of change during the pre-post phase was related to between-unit differences in event duration, timing, criticality, and disruption. Longer-term change patterns were related to between-unit differences in managerial criticality behaviors. The results empirically validate several of EST’s core propositions and provide an illustration of how DGM can be modified to study events that vary in onset and duration across entities.