Joseph T Liu

Purpose
This study aims to challenge the conventional view of “resistance to change” (RtoC) in organizational contexts, proposing a multilevel Force-Field framework (FFF) to reconceptualize RtoC, better characterized as reactions to change and integrate micro and macro perspectives on change management.

Design/methodology/approach
A literature search (1999–2024) across several databases identified 56 empirical and theoretical articles on RtoC, focusing on peer-reviewed studies from high-quality journals listed by the Australian Business Deans’ Council.

Findings
The review reveals that RtoC is not a universal or automatic response. The classic, overly simplistic RtoC formulation is individuals resisting change and organizations executing overcoming resistance strategies. The proposed FFF organizes helping and hindering forces across individual, organizational and environmental levels, highlighting nuanced responses such as support for change, dispositional resistance and ethical resistance. Organizational helping forces (e.g. leadership, communication) mitigate RtoC, while environmental forces such as social pressure influence change dynamics.

Research limitations/implications
The study is limited by its focus on articles using the search term “resistance to change.” Consequently, few or no articles were found in the organizational hindering and environmental hindering and helping categories, although in some cases there are rich literatures that could be accessed using different search terms. Future research should provide a holistic, integrative review exploring individual, organizational and environmental helping and hindering forces and multilevel interactions to enhance the understanding of responses to change.

Originality/value
This study introduces the FFF, a novel framework integrating micro and macro RtoC research, addressing calls for conceptual clarity and identifying new research frontiers, particularly at environmental and organizational levels.

Educational technology offers significant advantages for both faculty and students. However, staying updated with the latest advancements can be daunting for faculty members. This article reviews Alethea and its embedded artificial intelligence (AI) Academic Coaching tool. Alethea is a new online platform that enhances reading skills and retention by integrating conventional reading methodologies with an AI-powered interface. While it shares some functions with McGraw Hill’s AI Reader, Alethea includes additional features specifically to improve understanding and interaction in case studies. This article examines Alethea’s strengths and limitations, which can be utilized for various student levels and courses. Overall, students have expressed high satisfaction with Alethea, noting its effectiveness in aiding their learning process and making complex material more accessible.

Management education includes opportunities for students to develop themselves as leaders and improve their leadership self-efficacy. From a pedagogical perspective, experiential learning is a common approach to teaching leadership. While experiential learning components that can be embedded into a course have been shown to increase students’ leadership self-efficacy, there is a heavy reliance on case studies, simulations, and self-awareness-based exercises, which limits the capacity for students to experience leadership in a socially dynamic setting. This study documents an 8-week long group-based leadership exercise in which students rotate designated leader positions when assigned varied and progressively challenging weekly activities. We collected data on perceptions of leadership effectiveness and leadership self-efficacy and found that students in our group-based experiential learning activity series reported increased leadership self-efficacy over time. In addition, leadership self-efficacy was positively related to the effectiveness of the designated leader in their group. Further, we studied the impact of student resilience on the relationship between leadership effectiveness and leadership self-efficacy. The results of our study contribute to the literature on experiential learning by integrating social cognitive theory to identify factors affecting leadership self-efficacy, while also demonstrating the practical value and need for group-based experiential learning activities in leadership courses.

The traditional approach to using videos involves the so-called movie sandwich, which focuses on the use of a single video clip. Based on analogical learning research, we highlight the possible benefits of constructing what we term a video bridge, which consists of two analogous videos that are linked by important themes of similarity and used in tandem to enhance student learning through contrast and comparisons of the videos. In this article, we review research that supports the benefits of analogical learning through video bridges, highlight teaching implications, provide a detailed example of a video bridge with accompanying assignment, and list video resources for management educators to construct their own video bridges.

While video clips have undoubtedly advanced the practice of management education, social cognitive theory suggests that new sources of video clips may augment ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts in management classrooms and organizations. In this article, we begin by reviewing social cognitive theory research that points to links between video clips and DE&I outcomes that are part of many management classes and training curricula. Based on this social cognitive theory perspective, we discuss how management educators might foster learning and inclusion in management classrooms and organizations by incorporating video clips with a greater variety of demographic populations in managerial and organizationally impactful roles. To this end, we also provide a list of video resources that can be used to refresh or supplement the resources currently being used in undergraduate, graduate, online (synchronous and asynchronous), executive education, and corporate training courses that may present more homogeneous casts.

The justice literature has coalesced around the notion that actors (e.g., supervisors) tend to utilize the norm of equity for resource allocation decisions because it is generally considered most fair when employees who contribute more to the organization receive more resources. Yet, actors might sometimes utilize a need norm to allocate resources to those most in need. Studies that have addressed need-based resource allocations have assumed a relatively straightforward conceptualization of need. However, research from related areas suggests that multiple characteristics of the need itself could trigger actors' use of a need norm to allocate resources. We advance a theoretical framework that outlines various need characteristics that drive actors' use of a need norm. The framework draws on the processes outlined in attribution theory and integrates those with the content domains addressed in fairness theory. A discussion of the implications for justice, attribution, and fairness theory research follows.

This article reviews the documentary film American Factory as a resource for undergraduate management courses, especially those with a global emphasis. The film illustrates several themes, including overcoming cross-cultural challenges with cultural intelligence; international labor relations; employee health, safety, and well-being; stereotypes; and power distance and collectivism. This article also details clips from the film that illustrate these themes and suggests instructors show them alongside class lectures (in person, online synchronous, and online asynchronous) as nonfictional demonstrations of the concepts covered in class. In addition, this article provides discussion questions and sample answers so that these clips can be used as springboards for further class analysis, application, and extension. In sum, American Factory is a tool that can increase engagement and multimodality teaching in the management curriculum.

Although past research demonstrates that perceived fairness leads to many benefits, it also tends to assume that fairness flows almost exclusively from justice adherence. We instead reason that when employees form fairness judgments, they consider not only the extent to which supervisors adhere to justice but also why supervisors do so. In particular, our work outlines three distinct theoretical pathways to fairness. Supervisory justice motives affect fairness judgments via supervisors’ justice rule adherence (behavioral) and via employees’ attributed motives (attributional), such that prosocial (self-interest) motives are positively (negatively) related to fairness judgments after controlling for justice. We also reason that people jointly consider supervisory motives and justice when forming fairness judgments (interactive), such that the relationship between prosocial (self-interest) motives and fairness judgments is more positive (negative) when justice is lower versus higher. We test our predictions across six studies, both survey and experimental. Our results support the three pathways for prosocial justice motives and the behavioral and attributional (but not interactive) pathways for self-interest justice motives. Our work suggests organizations trying to promote fairness should avoid inadvertently instilling a self-interest justice motive in their supervisors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

After reviewing the various ways employee recovery from work has been conceptualized in existing literature as well as the predominant theoretical frameworks used to study recovery, we meta-analyze the relationships between employee recovery, demands, resources, well-being, and performance. We also quantitatively examine the conceptualizations of recovery as activities, experiences, or states in terms of both their intercorrelations and differing effects with demands, resources, well-being, and performance. Results of meta-analyses using a total of 198 empirical samples indicated general support for the hypothesized positive relationships between employee recovery and resources, well-being, and performance as well as a negative relationship with demands. However, the size and consistency of observed effects differed markedly based on the conceptualization utilized. Additionally, various conceptualizations of recovery were shown to be only modestly related, while recovery experiences and the state of being recovered were shown to have substantial temporal consistency. Implications of these findings for scholars studying recovery and practitioners are discussed.

Extending social learning theory to a multi-level perspective, this study proposes a theoretical model that investigates both individual and team-level mechanisms that mediate the effect of ethical leadership on employee voice. Specifically, in terms of an individual-level social learning perspective, we suggest that an ethical leader acts as a prototype of a moral person (i.e. an ethical role model). From a team-level social learning perspective, we propose that, as a moral manager, team ethical leadership will foster an ethical climate within the team which will create a moral context that impacts employees' behaviors. In both instances, employee voice behaviors will be enhanced through these mechanisms. Evidencing the importance of the interaction between leader behaviors and context for leader effectiveness, we also show that employees are more likely to regard their ethical leaders as ethical role models in a team that highly values ethical conduct (i.e. high in ethical climate). Results obtained from 47 managers and 211 subordinates in China support our theoretical model. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are also discussed.