Status is a pervasive construct in the organizational literature, and a recent surge in interest in the topic testifies to its potential as a field of study. In this article, we review the existing studies on status, and we propose an integrative classification framework based on two distinct dimensions: the level of analysis—macro, meso, or micro—and the role status hierarchies play in extant research. We do so with a view to clarifying the status construct, differentiating it from the cognate concept of reputation, and clearly stating the ways in which status dynamics could inform organizational scholars and their research efforts. We conclude by highlighting underdeveloped theoretical intersections and suggesting potentially fruitful directions for future inquiry.

How do organizations react to stakeholder disapproval of a category to which they belong? In this paper, we draw on the categorization, stigma, and identity literatures in building a theory to predict whether firms that are involved in stigmatized activities will choose to reduce or terminate their involvement in them, as opposed to resorting to less drastic measures such as defensive practice adoption or impression management techniques. Conceptualizing groups of organizations involved in such contentious practices as stigmatized categories in the eyes of an audience, we argue that organizational responses rest on three elements: (1) the intensity of stigma targeting the category, (2) the media exposure of the category, and (3) the extent to which an organization is a member of the category. A quantitative study of proposed new nuclear reactor units in the United States between 1970 and 2000, in the face of mounting opposition to atomic power, provides empirical support for our claims.

International audienceRecent works have documented the dark side of scandals, revealing how they spread, contaminate associated organizations, and taint the perception of entire fields. We complement this line of work by exploring how scandals durably affect competition within a field, translating into relative advantages for certain organizations over others. First, scandals may benefit organizations that provide a close substitute to the offerings of the implicated organization. Second, scandals pave the way for moralizing discourses and practices, shake taken-for-granted assumptions about the conduct of organizations, and result in a shift in the criteria used to evaluate organizations within the field. Our arguments suggest that organizations whose offerings are most similar to those of the implicated organization, yet perceived as enforcing stricter standards of conduct, are likely to benefit the most from a scandal. We find support for these arguments in a county-level study of membership in the Catholic Church and sixteen other Christian denominations in the United States in the wake of a series of sex abuse cases perpetrated by Catholic clergy between 1971 and 2000. This study contributes to our understanding of the competitive effects of scandals on organizations, and carries important implications for the management of organizations in scandal-stricken fields

Established management practices – such as Six Sigma or business process re‐engineering, as well as more recent practices such as agile management processes, HR analytics and beyond budgeting – are viewed by practitioners as the basic tools of their trade. Yet they have been known to wax and wane in popularity, often quite unpredictably, with one technique following the other in wave‐like fashion. The scholarly observation of this phenomenon has given rise to the literature on fads and fashions in management studies, which – building on earlier work in allied disciplines – has sought to explain the transience, persistence, and overall trajectory of management practices. In this paper, we review and integrate the existing literature on management fads and fashions, taking stock of the sizable body of work that has accumulated over the past three decades and which has, to our knowledge, never been reviewed comprehensively before. At the same time, we also note that technological change – with the advent of social media and the ubiquity of Internet connectivity, for example – has radically transformed how practitioners seek, consume, and engage with new practices, as well as the way in which such practices are broadcast and diffuse. In our review, therefore, we try to make this well‐established body of literature current by explicitly discussing how well its central tenets and theoretical arguments have stood the test of time, and propose useful directions for moving forward.

Social movement scholarship has increasingly sought to understand the relational dynamics of internal movement activity, from investigating the factors that enable movement coalitions to analyzing the trade-offs of organizational hybridity. We bring these and other related phenomena together under the label of boundary-spanning processes. Specifically, we organize research on boundary-spanning in social movements by identifying three types of boundaries that have symbolic significance as categorical demarcations: ( a) issue and identity boundaries, ( b) organizational boundaries, and ( c) tactical boundaries. We then elucidate the tension in work that has examined how each form of boundary-spanning either promotes or hinders the realization of three important movement outcomes: ( a) mobilization, ( b) internal movement solidarity and scope, and ( c) external social and political change. We relate our three types of boundary-spanning to these three types of outcomes in an organizing framework to locate future opportunities for research on boundary-spanning in social movements.