Forschungsprojekte

Kollaboratives Arbeiten stellt nicht nur während des Studiums, sondern auch im späteren Arbeitsleben eine zentrale Anforderung dar. Eine besondere Herausforderung stellen dabei zunehmend digitale Formen der Zusammenarbeit dar. Daher liegt das Ziel dieses Teilprojekts darin, digitale Arbeitsformen und -methoden der Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Studierenden im Rahmen von Lehrveranstaltungen didaktisch weiterzuentwickeln und zu verbessern.

How Leaders deal with Pro-Social Rulebreaking: Unravelling their Rationales for Response Behavior

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore leaders’ rationales for their responses to pro-social rule-breaking by their subordinates. Pro-social rule breaking describes a violation of formal organizational rules but with a good intention. Demonstrating appropriate leadership behavior in such a situation is a challenging task. On the one hand, leaders are expected to recognize the good intention of their subordinates, on the other hand, they are responsible for ensuring that rules are respected. Our study aims to improve our understanding of this dilemma situation of leaders by identifying key elements that leaders use for the rationalization of their behavior. In doing so, we employed a qualitative experimental design with vignettes. Our findings suggest that leaders generally consider two types of responses: 'clarifying and supporting' or 'clarifying and sanctioning'. Their rationales for these responses are based on two different levels of reflection. At the first level, they will consider cues directly related to the pro-social rule breaking, such as the outcome, the perceived intention, the severity, and the communication of the rule violation. However, these reflections will be mitigated or reinforced by more general cues on a second level like the organizational culture, the leader-follower relationship, and the structural setting.

The Role of Emotion Regulation for Organizational Resilience: A Biographical Analysis of an Elite Paratrooper Unit in the Second World War

ABSTRACT

In our paper we examine the role of emotions for organizational resilience during an extreme context. In situations when organizations have to cope with adversity it is commonly acknowledged that emotions on the side of organizational members come into play. However, little is known how detrimental emotions are regulated in such adverse contexts in order to carry out necessary actions for the organization. Through an in-depth biographical study of an elite paratrooper unit that served during the Second World War, we explore how these emotion regulations take place on a collective level. Our analysis suggests that three regulating behaviors are particularly important, namely situational relativization, role modelling, and compassion.  From a practical point of view, we conclude that organizations can anticipate the emotions of their members and enhance their resilience by enabling the preconditions for emotion regulation, such as confidence and shared identity.

Imagination Matters - The Use of Fiction for the Study of Resilience in Extreme Contexts

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we conceptually explore whether narrative fiction, i.e., movies, TV-Shows, novels, etc., can be used as a data source for the study of organizational resilience in the context of extreme events. In doing so, we deconstruct the putative dichotomy between fictional and factual narratives, arguing that they both share attributes of the other in such a way that fact becomes fiction and fiction becomes fact. Organizational members construct reality in a way that makes sense to them, whereas writers of fiction adhere to the principles of verisimilitude, thus resembling reality in their works.