Publications
18 results found
Malhotra N, Zietsma C, Morris T, et al., 2021, Handling Resistance to Change When Societal and Workplace Logics Conflict, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol: 66, Pages: 475-520, ISSN: 0001-8392
<jats:p>Changes in societal logics often leave firms’ policies and practices out of step. Yet when firms introduce a change that brings in a new societal logic, employees may resist, even though they personally value the change, because the incoming logic conflicts with existing organizational logics. How can change agents handle logic-based resistance to an organizational initiative that introduces a new logic? We studied elite law firms that introduced a new role into their traditional up-or-out career path in response to associates’ anonymously expressed desire for better work–life balance, which associates resisted because expressing family concerns was illegitimate within the firms. Change agents responded to three forms of resisters’ logic-based concerns—irreconcilability, ambiguity, and contradiction—with three tailored responses—redirecting, reinforcing, and reassuring—using contextually legitimate logic elements. Over time logic elements of each concern–response pair harmonized to enable individuals to enact their logics seamlessly and organizations to update the existing logic settlement to assimilate the societal change. We demonstrate that the way available logics are accessed and activated between pluralistic change agents and resisters can enable logic settlements to be updated in response to societal change. We draw insights about how logics do or do not constrain agency.</jats:p>
Malhotra N, Ziestma C, 2020, Getting Your Team to Buy into a Big Change, Harvard Business Review, ISSN: 0017-8012
Malhotra N, Reay T, 2019, Hybridity and power in the microfoundations of professional work, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol: 65B, Pages: 241-255, ISSN: 0733-558X
In this chapter the authors focus on the role of power associated with microfoundations of organizational hybridity. They develop a framework that illuminates how key sources of power based on Buchanan and Badham (2008) and French and Raven (1959) manifest at the level of everyday work practices. Using this framework, they draw on existing studies concerning hybridity in professional organizations to illustrate how different forms of power come into play when actors guided by different logics engage in day-to-day professional work. Overall, the authors suggest that more attention to how micro-level actors use different forms of power to support, hamper, or alter different mechanisms to manage tensions among competing logics in everyday work is critical to improving our understanding about the microfoundations of institutionalism.
Phillips NW, Malhotra N, 2017, Language, Cognition and Institutions: Studying Institutionalization Using Linguistic Methods, The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism, Editors: Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence, Meyer, Publisher: Sage, Pages: 392-417, ISBN: 9781412961967
The second edition of the bestselling The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism has been thoroughly revised with new chapters added, bringing together extensive coverage of aspects of Institutional Theory.
Malhotra N, Smets M, Morris T, 2016, Career pathing and innovation capacity in professional service firms, Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol: 30, Pages: 369-383, ISSN: 1558-9080
In this paper, we start a new conversation about how career paths affect innovation capacity in professional service firms (PSFs) that face escalating pressures from clients to deliver more ingenious solutions plus enhanced efficiency. Using top-tier law firms as an illustrative case, we demonstrate how career path changes, initially made to address these work-life balance concerns, had the virtuous side effect of enhancing innovation capacity. Our study fosters dialogue between PSF research and broader innovation theories, based on four contributions. First, we build much needed conceptual clarity about what innovation means and the forms it takes in the context of PSFs. Second, we show exploration and exploitation are not orthogonal, but connected and mutually reinforcing in PSFs. We conceptualize an Innovation Loop that captures the continuous morphing of one into the other. Third, we draw attention to the neglected role of career pathing as a determinant of innovation capacity by facilitating seamless transitions between exploration and exploitation. Finally, we demonstrate how changing career paths are not a ‘necessary evil’ but create win-win solutions to both accommodate work-life preferences of staff and enhance innovation capacity for the firm.
Malhotra N, Hinings CRB, 2015, Unpacking Continuity and Change as a Process of Organizational Transformation, Long Range Planning, Vol: 48, Pages: 1-22, ISSN: 0024-6301
Von Nordenflycht A, Malhotra N, Morris T, 2015, Sources of homogeneity and heterogeneity across professional services, The Oxford Handbook of Professional Service Firms, Editors: Empson, Muzio, Broschak, Hinings, Publisher: Oxford University Press
Morris T, Malhotra N, Lawrence TB, 2013, Understanding power to achieve radical transformational change, Strategic HR Review, Vol: 12, ISSN: 1475-4398
Lawrence T, Malhotra N, Morris T, 2012, Episodic and systemic power in the transformation of professional service firms, Journal of Management Studies, Vol: 49, Pages: 102-143
Smets M, Morris T, Malhotra N, 2012, Changing career models and capacity for innovation in professional services., Handbook of entrepreneurship in professional services. (Eds.) M. Reihlin and A. Werr. Edward Elgar Press., Publisher: Edward Elgar Press
Malhotra N, Hinings CRB, 2010, An organizational model for understanding internationalization processes, JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES, Vol: 41, Pages: 330-349, ISSN: 0047-2506
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- Citations: 54
Malhotra N, Morris T, Smets M, 2010, New career models in UK professional service firms: from up-or-out to up-and-going-nowhere?, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol: 21, Pages: 1396-1413
Malhotra N, Morris T, 2009, Heterogeneity in Professional Service Firms, JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Vol: 46, Pages: 895-922, ISSN: 0022-2380
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- Citations: 162
Hinings CR, Malhotra N, 2008, Change in Institutional Fields, The Institutions of the Market: Organizations, Social Systems and Governance, Editors: Ebner, Beck, Publisher: Oxford University Press, Pages: 106-128, ISBN: 9780199231430
Phillips N, Malhotra N, 2008, Taking Social Construction Seriously: Extending the Discursive Approach in Institutional Theory, Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism, Editors: Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin K, Suddaby R, Publisher: Sage, Pages: 702-720
Malhotra N, Morris T, Hinings CR, 2006, Variation in organizational form among professional service organizations, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol: 24, Pages: 171-202
Malhotra N, 2003, The nature of knowledge and the entry mode decision, ORGANIZATION STUDIES, Vol: 24, Pages: 935-959, ISSN: 0170-8406
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- Citations: 46
Malhotra N, Lytle M, 1999, Foreign adventures: setting up an office overseas, Canadian Consulting Engineer, Vol: 40, Pages: 81-88
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