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Please find below details of this month's free access featured article plus other recent content.
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
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FREE ACCESS FEATURED ARTICLE FOR NOVEMBER
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Free to access until 30 November 2017:
A dual-mode framework of organizational categorization and momentary perception
Kimberly D Elsbach and Heiko Breitsohl
Human Relations 69(10): 2011-2039. First Published March 23, 2016
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716631397
Abstract
We examine how both automatic and motivated modes of categorization are integral to understanding momentary perceptions of organizations, including perceptions of organizational identity and legitimacy. We begin by discussing how extant organizational research has relied, primarily, on single modes of categorization to describe how we form momentary perceptions of organizations. These 'single-mode' frameworks have explained momentary organizational perceptions as the result of either automatic categorization (i.e. driven by unconscious cognitive processes) or motivated categorization (i.e. driven by individual needs and desires). While these frameworks explain much about momentary organizational perceptions, we provide some notable examples that do not follow the paths they predict. To more fully explain momentary organizational perceptions, we present a framework grounded in psychological research that considers how both motivated and automatic modes of categorization influence these perceptions. In doing so, we illustrate how such a 'dual-mode' framework might better account for organizational perceptions that seem counter-intuitive when viewed through a single-mode lens. We conclude by outlining some theoretical and practical implications of our framework, and presenting an agenda for future research on organizational categorization and perception that may capitalize on our dual-mode framework.
Keywords: categorization, cognition, identity, legitimacy, perception
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VIRTUAL SPECIAL ISSUES
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Job crafting – NEW! Enjoy FREE ACCESS for a limited period
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/hum/collections/virtual-special-issues/job-crafting
On 10 October 2017, past Editor-in-Chief Paul Edwards (University of Birmingham) invited an eclectic mix of scholars to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Human Relations by posing and inviting responses to the following question: Can, and should, social science contribute to better quality jobs? David Guest (King's College London) was the first to present, and reminded the audience of definitive job design theories of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Guest remarked that although these theories initially generated much enthusiasm, interest in them has slowly waned. He therefore invited a resurgence of research on how to improve job design to enhance quality of working life. When taking questions at the end of the presentation, audience member Rob Briner (Queen Mary University of London) posed the important question of whether scholarship has moved beyond classic job design theories founded in earlier decades to inform current understanding of job quality. David Guest responded by discussing theory and research of job crafting.
Job crafting research has a special home in Human Relations. This should come as no surprise given the pioneering work of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations on socio-technical systems, and its links with quality of working life. However, unlike prior theory and research that has examined how jobs are designed from the 'top down', scholars who study job crafting examine how employees (re)design their jobs from the 'bottom-up.' This research also begins to help answer the question 'Who designs jobs?'.
In this virtual special issue, we feature six recent papers that showcase current thinking on job crafting. Bringing together these papers shows how job crafting is influenced by various factors, including employee personality (Bakker et al., 2012), characteristics of the job (Niessen et al., 2016), jobs of those who work side-by-side the job crafter (Bizzi, 2017) and the positive outcomes of job crafting (Bakker et al., 2016). This collection also identifies extensions of notions of crafting beyond that of the job, including crafting of leisure time (Petrou and Bakker, 2012) and careers (Lam and De Campos, 2015). We hope this online collection spurs new research to answer Guest's call to explore ways to increase quality of working life.
Amanda Shantz
Associate Editor, Human Relations
Associate Professor, Trinity College Dublin
Network characteristics: When an individual's job crafting depends on the jobs of others
Lorenzo Bizzi
Human Relations 2017, 70(4):436–460, first published on August 25, 2016
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726716658963
When and why do individuals craft their jobs? The role of individual motivation and work characteristics for job crafting
Cornelia Niessen, Daniela Weseler and Petya Kostova
Human Relations 2016, 69(6): 1287–1313, first published on January 7, 2016
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726715610642
Crafting one's leisure time in response to high job strain
Paraskevas Petrou and Arnold B Bakker
Human Relations 2016, 69(2): 507–529, first published on October 12, 2015
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726715590453
Modelling job crafting behaviours: Implications for work engagement
Arnold B Bakker, Alfredo Rodríguez-Muñoz and Ana Isabel Sanz Vergel
Human Relations 2016, 69(1): 169–189, first published on September 24, 2015
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726715581690
'Content to be sad' or 'runaway apprentice'? The psychological contract and career agency of young scientists in the entrepreneurial university
Alice Lam and André de Campos
Human Relations 2015, 68(5): 811–841, first published on November 5, 2014
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726714545483
Proactive personality and job performance: The role of job crafting and work engagement
Arnold B Bakker, Maria Tims, Daantje Derks
Human Relations 2012, 65(10): 1359–1378, first published on September 11, 2012
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726712453471
Other Virtual Special Issues:
- Knowledge and knowing in the study of organization: From commodity to communication
- Women, men, and work: Gender identity and gender differences in the workplace
- Diversity research: Theorizing the new frontier in sexual orientation diversity
- Change management
- Critical performativity
Editor's Choice Collections:
- Paper of the Year Award winners
- Classic papers from Human Relations
- Papers that have influenced Paul Edwards, former EIC
Reflections on the history of Human Relations
Human Relations is one of the oldest social science journals. It was established in 1947, ahead of journals such as the British Journal of Sociology (1950), and long before other leading management journals such as those published by the Academy of Management (the Journal, 1958, and the Review, 1976) and journals of work, organization and employment (e.g. Organization Studies, 1980 and Work, Employment and Society, 1987).
For the 70th anniversary of the journal's foundation, Professor Paul Edwards, FBA, looks back over its development and contents and offers a series of reflections:
- Human Relations: The first 10 years, 1947–1956
- Human Relations: 1957–1966
- Human Relations: 1967–1986
- Human Relations: 1987–1996 and beyond
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NOVEMBER ISSUE ARTICLES
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When too many are not enough: Human resource slack and performance at the Dutch East India Company (1700–1795)
Stoyan V Sgourev and Wim van Lent
Human Relations 70(11): 1293–1315. First published February-01-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717691340
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717691340
Abstract
Slack is an elusive concept in organizational research, with studies documenting a variety of relationships between slack and firm performance. We advocate treating slack not as a resource, but as a practice – a sequence of events and responses over time. A longitudinal analysis of the Dutch East India Company (1700–1795) highlights the use of slack as a response to a resource constraint (the shortage of skilled labor). After documenting the negative performance effects of skill shortage, we identify a trade-off in the use of human resource slack (number of sailors above what is operationally required), in which slack enhanced operational reliability, but reduced efficiency. Derived from a historical context, this trade-off has contemporary relevance and is helpful in reconciling contradictory evidence on slack.
Keywords: contingent workers, human resources, management history, organizational slack, personnel selection
You might like to read the following blog post about this article:
Lessons from history: What the Dutch East India Company can teach us about modern-day organizational slack
ManagementINK, March 06, 2017.
Using humor and boosting emotions:
An affect-based study of managerial humor, employees' emotions and psychological capital
Nilupama Wijewardena, Charmine EJ Härtel and Ramanie Samaratunge
Human Relations 70(11): 1316–1341. First published April-28-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717691809
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717691809
Abstract
Evidence from emerging scholarly investigations consistently points to managerial humor as fruitful new grounds to expand management knowledge and practice. In light of this, the present study examined managerial humor as an affective event at work that has short-term emotional and long-term psychological outcomes for employees. To test this empirically, we recruited a sample of 2498 Australian employees to participate in a field experience sampling study. We also considered the potential moderating effect of leader–member exchange on the humor–emotions relationship. Findings provide initial support for managerial humor as an affective event such that when employees perceived their manager's humor as positive they reported experiencing positive emotions, and vice versa. Importantly, employees with high-quality relationships with their managers responded to their manager's humor use with a greater number of positive emotions and fewer negative emotions than did employees with low-quality relationships with their managers. We argue that humor is an event that managers must responsibly manage in order to produce positive emotional experiences for employees and support healthy emotion regulation at work. We also discuss the conditions under which it is advisable for managers to use humor with employees, and suggest future research directions to develop this growing field of inquiry.
Keywords: affective events theory (AET), broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, experience sampling, leader–member exchange (LMX), managerial humor, psychological capital (PsyCap)
Betwixt and between: Role conflict, role ambiguity and role definition in project-based dual-leadership structures
Joris J Ebbers and Nachoem M Wijnberg
Human Relations 70(11): 1342–1365. First published April-28-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717692852 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717692852
Abstract
Project-based organizations in the film industry usually have a dual-leadership structure, based on a division of tasks between the dual leaders – the director and the producer – in which the former is predominantly responsible for the artistic and the latter for the commercial aspects of the film. These organizations also have a role hierarchically below and between the dual leaders: the 1st assistant director. This organizational constellation is likely to lead to role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by the person occupying that particular role. Although prior studies found negative effects of role conflict and role ambiguity, this study shows they can also have beneficial effects because they create space for defining the role expansively that, in turn, can be facilitated by the dual leaders defining their own roles more narrowly. In a more general sense, this study also shows the usefulness of analyzing the antecedents and consequences of roles, role definition, and role crafting in connection to the behavior of occupants of adjacent roles.
Keywords: creative industries, dual leadership, film industry, project-based organization, role crafting
Antagonism, accommodation and agonism in Critical Management Studies: Alternative organizations as allies
Simon Parker and Martin Parker
Human Relations 70(11): 1366–1387. First published: May-15-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717696135
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717696135
Abstract
Critical Management Studies has long been engaged in discussions about the purpose of critique and the possibilities of engagement. A recent expression calls for Critical Management Studies to moderate its 'negative' critique of management and instead use words like care, engagement and affirmation in order to enable 'progressive' engagement with managers. This 'performative turn' has been poorly received by some who see it as a dilution of radical intent. We argue for a middle ground between the antagonistic versions of Critical Management Studies that appear to want to oppose management, and 'performative' scholars who appear to accommodate with managerialism. We do this by planting the debate firmly within an empirical setting and a crisis that the first author experienced as a 'critical scholar' when conducting an ethnography at a sustainable financial services firm. In order to do this, we explore Chantal Mouffe's concept of agonism to establish a particular mode of political engagement that acknowledges a space between being 'for' and being 'against'. We conclude by suggesting that the exploration of alternative forms of organization and management, themselves already involved in struggle against a hegemonic present, should be the proper task of a discipline that wishes to engage with the present and remain 'critical'.
Keywords: agonism, alternative finance, alternative organization, Chantal Mouffe, Critical Management Studies, critical performativity, sustainability
Towards an integrated framework of professional partnership performance:
The role of formal governance and strategic planning
Michel W Lander, Pursey PMAR Heugens and J (Hans) van Oosterhout
Human Relations 70(11): 1388–1414 First published date: May-12-2017 10.1177/0018726717700697
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717700697
Abstract
Conventional wisdom identifies human capital and organizational reputation as the critical resources explaining professional partnership (PP) performance. PPs have increasingly adopted organizational practices like strategic planning and formal governance, however, which have long been alien in highly professionalized contexts. In order to test the influence of both these classic resources and the newly adopted practices on PP performance, as well as the mediating mechanisms- that is, client attraction and retention as well as organizational efficiency-through which this influence is channeled, we develop an integrated theoretical framework of PP performance. We test the resulting hypotheses using survey and objective data collected on 196 Dutch law firms. Our findings provide new insights into the drivers of PP performance and the complex interrelationships between PP resources and newly adopted practices.
Keywords: client attraction and retention, human capital, managed professional business, professional partnership, reputational capital
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
Access all OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
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Penis-whirling and pie-throwing: Norm-defying and norm-setting drama in the creative industries
Bent Meier Sørensen, Kaspar Villadsen
Human Relations, first published October 30, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717733310
Abstract
This article explores the drama performed around a self-proclaimed 'anti-establishment' executive at a Danish film company, Zentropa. The company prides itself on being against the existing 'elitist' and commercialized Danish film industry. Inspired by the thesis that modern capitalism develops by incorporating the critiques directed against it, the article analyses how Zentropa's Chief Executive Officer invests a 'progressive', counter-cultural spirit in his management practices. We describe how a 'freethinking' and 'subversive' CEO uses his dramatized performances to exercise an authority that violates employees' privacy and involves public displays of disrespect. We further examine how employees use impression management to cope with norm-violating management practices, including sexual provocations and the dramatic, unjustified dismissal of an employee. In the context of these disruptions, we analyse how order is reestablished through dramaturgical cycles of symbolic events, including sacrifice. In particular, the study provides insights into how theatrically staged, norm-defying performances both disrupt the organization and allow managerial power to be reinstituted. It also demonstrates that anti-establishment management involves and rests upon the occasional exercise of traditional managerial hierarchy and control. Theoretically, the article develops a dramatist perspective, combining Goffman's symbolic interactionism and Burke's dramatism to offer a framework for understanding norm-transgressive management in modern organizations.
Keywords: creative industries, dramaturgy, Erving Goffman, film industry, Kenneth Burke, norm-transgression, sacrifice
When does an issue trigger change in a field? A comparative approach to issue frames, field structures and types of field change
Santi Furnari
Human Relations, first published October 25, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717726861
Abstract
Previous research has shown that institutional fields evolve around issues, but has devoted less attention to explain why certain issues trigger substantial field-level changes while others remain largely inconsequential. In this article, I argue that the extent to which an issue is likely to trigger field change and the type of field change triggered depend on the structure of the field and the ways in which the issue is framed. I develop a model linking two types of issue frames (adversarial vs collaborative issue frames) with two types of field structures (centralized vs fragmented). The model explains how the likelihood of field change and type of field change vary across four configurations of these issue frames and field structures. In particular, I highlight four types of field change that entail different re-distribution of power within a field (weakening vs reinforcing the field's elite; aligning vs polarizing fragmented actors). Overall, I contribute a much called-for comparative approach to institutional fields, explaining how the effects of issue frames on field change vary across different fields.
Keywords: frames, institutional change, institutional field, institutional theory, issue
The transition to part-time: How professionals negotiate 'reduced time and workload' i-deals and craft their jobs
Charlotte Gascoigne and Clare Kelliher
Human Relations, first published October 9, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717722394
Abstract
For professionals working in demanding environments, the negotiation of part-time or workload reduction idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) may be challenging, with negative consequences for career progression. Yet there are few studies of part-time i-deals specifically, or empirical studies of their development process. This article examines the process of achieving a part-time i-deal, drawing on interviews with 39 part-time professionals in two organizations, each located in the UK and the Netherlands. The article makes two contributions to i-deal theory: first, it defines the four elements of a new category of 'reduced time and workload' i-deal for professionals (perceived suitability of the work, schedule, workload, and career impact); and second, it refines Rousseau's model of the development process, by adding an initial 'private consideration' of options stage, where the feasibility of working part-time is evaluated against alternatives including remaining full-time, or leaving the organization. Third, it identifies as structural constraints two work practices designed for full-time professional work in demanding environments: the routine expectation of unpredictability, and the absence of substitutability in resourcing. Fourth, it shows how, post-negotiation, professionals use informal job crafting, both individual and collaborative, to try to overcome these constraints. The implications for achieving flexible and sustainable careers are discussed.
Keywords: flexible careers, flexible workers, job crafting, job design, part-time workers, professional workers
The politics of cultural capital: Social hierarchy and organizational architecture in the multinational corporation
Orly Levy and B Sebastian Reiche
Human Relations, first published October 9, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717729208
Abstract
How is social hierarchy in multinational corporations (MNCs) culturally produced, contested and reproduced? Although the international business literature has acknowledged the importance of culture, it gives little consideration to its role in constructing social hierarchies and symbolic boundaries between individuals and groups within MNCs. We take a Bourdieusian approach to understanding the role of cultural capital in structuring the social hierarchy in the MNC under two contrasting organizational architectures: hierarchical and network architecture. We argue that cultural capital serves as an instrument of power and status within the MNC, influencing access to valuable resources such as jobs, rewards and opportunities. Our framework further suggests that the transition from hierarchical towards network architecture sets in motion a high-stakes political struggle between headquarters and subsidiary actors over the relative value of their cultural capital in a bid to preserve or gain dominance and to determine the 'rules of the game' that order the social hierarchy in the MNC. We elaborate on this political struggle by theorizing about the relative dominance of cultural versus social capital, the content and relative value of firm-specific and cosmopolitan cultural capital, and the convertibility of cultural capital into other forms of capital under hierarchical and network architectures.
Keywords: Bourdieu, cultural capital MNC, multinational corporation, organizational architecture, social capital, social hierarchy
Configuring shared and hierarchical leadership through authoring
Flemming Holm and Gail T Fairhurst
Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717720803
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717720803
Abstract
How does organizing proceed when leadership is both shared and hierarchical? Who sets the context, how and when do people share influence, and who produces authoritative texts for going forward? Using the lens of authoring claims and grants (Taylor and Van Every, 2014), we display the complex relationship between shared and hierarchical leadership in meeting interactions in a Danish municipality attempting to implement shared leadership. Our findings suggest that issues of time and timing are fundamental to understanding their interrelationship. We highlight discursive devices such as 'bookending,' including the creation of authoritative texts, which render the shared and hierarchical leadership configuration an ambiguous space that requires interrogating the nature of leadership attributions. Finally, we demonstrate the relevance of leadership as a concept for both hierarchical and shared decision-making situations.
Keywords: authoring, authoritative texts, authority, ethnography, hierarchical leadership, shared leadership
The role of intermediaries in governance of global production networks:
Restructuring work relations in Pakistan's apparel industry
Kamal Munir, Muhammad Ayaz, David L Levy and Hugh Willmott
Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717722395
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717722395
Abstract
This article locates the reorganization of work relations in the apparel sector in Pakistan, after the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quota regime, within the context of a global production network (GPN). We examine the role of a network of corporate, state, multilateral and civil society actors who serve as intermediaries in GPN governance. These intermediaries transmit and translate competitive pressures and invoke varied, sometimes contradictory, imaginaries in their efforts to realign and stabilize the GPN. We analyse the post-MFA restructuring of Pakistan's apparel sector, which dramatically increased price competition and precipitated a contested adjustment process among Pakistani and global actors with divergent priorities and resources. These intermediaries converged on a 'solution' that combined and enacted imaginaries of modernization, competitiveness, professional management and female empowerment, while also emphasizing low costs and female docility. We highlight the intersection of economic, political and cultural dynamics of GPNs, and reveal the gendered dimensions of GPN restructuring. We theorize the role of these actors as a transnational managerial elite in GPN governance, who led a restructuring process that preserved the hegemonic stability of the GPN and protected the interests of western branded apparel companies and consumers, but did not necessarily serve the interests of workers.
Keywords: cultural political economy, development, employment, gender in organizations, global governance, Gramsci
Mind the gap: Grass roots 'brokering' to improve labour standards in global supply chains
Sarah J Kaine and Emmanuel Josserand
Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717727046
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717727046
Abstract
While governance and regulation are a first step in addressing worsening working conditions in global supply chains, improving implementation is also key to reversing this trend. In this article, after examining the nature of the existing governance and implementation gaps in labour standards in global supply chains, we explore how Viet Labor, an emerging grass-roots organization, has developed practices to help close them. This involves playing brokering roles between different workers and between workers and existing governance mechanisms. We identify an initial typology of six such roles: educating, organizing, supporting, collective action, whistle-blowing and documenting. This marks a significant shift in the way action to improve labour standards along the supply chain is analysed. Our case explores how predominantly top-down approaches can be supplemented by bottom-up ones centred on workers' agency.
Keywords: governance, implementation gap, labour standards, migrant labour, supply chains
History, gendered space and organizational identity: An archival study of a university building
Yihan Liu and Christopher Grey
Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717733032
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717733032
Abstract
How do buildings contribute to an organization's sense of what it is? In this article, we present the findings of a major archival study of an iconic university building to answer this question. Founded in the 19th century as a college for women, the building is analysed as a gendered space that embodies meanings that are selectively deployed and adapted by the present-day, now co-educational, university. By bringing together concepts of space and history so as to examine 'space in history' we show how over long periods of time what buildings 'say' about an organization change so that the past is both a legacy and a resource for shifting organizational identity.
Keywords: archive methods, Founder's Building, gender, history, Lefebvre, organizational identity, Royal Holloway, space
Committing to refugee resettlement volunteering: Attaching, detaching and displacing organizational ties
Kirstie McAllum
Human Relations, first published October-03-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717729209
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717729209
Abstract
As members of local host communities, volunteers play an important role in effective long-term refugee resettlement. This study investigated the nature of volunteer commitment by organizational volunteers who were assigned a front-line role in organizing material assistance and providing information about cultural practices for newly arrived refugees. Using interview data from volunteers, organizational representatives, and organizational recruitment and training documents, the study found that volunteers' commitment was structured by the presence and absence of volunteer coordinators, the organization's clients and volunteers' significant others. While insufficient ties to the organization or strong, competing ties from significant others led volunteers to detach themselves from the organization, overly strong affective ties with refugees displaced organizational ties, leading to volunteers' organizational exit. This study problematizes an individual-centric, psychological notion of commitment; instead, it situates commitment as a collective communicative process whereby relevant stakeholders negotiate the relationships that tie them together. It thus expands the range of voices present in decisions about commitment and provides new data on how organizational and relational others impact sustainable volunteer management.
Keywords: commitment, nonprofit organizations, not-for-profit organizations, refugee resettlement, turnover, volunteers
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is included in the FT50 list of journals (effective from January 2017) used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings. It is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015 and Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal (Source: 2016 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2017):
2-year impact factor: 2.622 Ranked: 4/96 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 58/193 in Management
5-year impact factor: 4.027 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 50/186 in Management
Read the journal's mission statement.