Harsh criticism meets U.S. firms who are accused of shifting profits offshore to avoid taxes. This study examines the extent of operations in tax havens compared with U.S. companies’ disclosures of geographic operations. This study uses hypothesis testing and change analyses to conclude that firms operating more extensively in tax havens tend to disclose information at a higher level of aggregation. In the future, country-specific reporting is needed to highlight the tax-avoidance activities of firms and prevent firms from hiding tax-avoidance behavior.

Corporations are increasingly facing social pressures to adopt responsibilities such as disaster relief and recovery that traditionally fall upon governments and aid agencies. This study argues that firms with a local presence are more capable than other organizations to act with more efficiency to help areas affected by catastrophes. Using a quasi-experimental analysis, the authors examine every natural disaster and reported aid donation worldwide from 2003-2013 and find that nations that received a substantial proportion of aid from firms with local operations received relief in a shorter time and recovered faster than if they would have received a larger proportion of aid from other sources. This shows how corporations can greatly benefit nations by becoming involved when disaster strikes.

The conflict between groups is woven into the fabric of organizational life, especially when there are strong commitments to identities developed external to the organization. This researcher conducted a 30-month ethnographic study of two professional groups – U.S. Army Commanders and mental health professionals – with the goal of having mentally healthy, mission-ready soldiers. The data led to the development of a model that explains how professional groups with strong identity commitment can overcome conflict to achieve organizational goals. These findings can help to understand managing goal conflict with a micro-level examination of how goal conflict among sub-units is addressed in everyday work.

Hoffman examines crucial questions about the research on climate change, including why people reject scientific consensuses and why climate change is a part of culture wars in politics. This book uses research in the fields of sociology, psychology, and political science to reveal that the climate change debate is largely due to deeply entrenched, contradictory worldviews. Through further scientific education of the public and cultural shifts, the global community can work together to find answers to questions surrounding climate change.

Watch Andy Hoffman talking about his awarded book

This article discusses how male and female-led ventures are often penalized differently, with female-led ventures being penalized due to gender stereotypes. The first study conducted was a field study of 421 business plans and judge pairs from female-led ventures, which showed that female-led ventures with a social impact frame experienced diminished penalties from evaluators. The second lab-study screened 224 participants in a start-up venture, which found that framing a venture in terms of its social impact diminishes the evaluation penalty to which female entrepreneurs are subjected. The researchers concluded that female entrepreneurs who use the social impact framing would be more likely to mitigate the effects of gender bias. In the workplace, this could aid in reducing gender bias and improving gender equality among entrepreneurs.

A high amount of successful Chinese business entrepreneurs hold political appointments with the People’s Congress or the People’s Political Consultative Conference, which prompts the question of why entrepreneurs join political councils. Two studies examine how motives affect successful POE chairs pursue political appointments. The first study surveyed 166 private-firm executives regarding their desires of political involvement, and the second study on Chinese publicly listed firms analyzed their attained political appointment. These studies theorize that pro-self motives drive entrepreneurs to avoid political appointments after their firms gain success, while pro-social motives drive them to seek these appointments as a platform to serve the society. The authors suggest that in the future, the government may open more political channels for Chinese entrepreneurs to fulfill their pro-social motivations to benefit the public and advance social goods.

Personal financial insecurity is a growing concern, which can pose a burden on individuals and the organizations that employ them. This paper argues that financial well-being can influence organizational performance by affecting employees’ ability to do their jobs. The first field study combined survey responses from a target sample of 1,649 full-time drivers with data on preventable accidents, while the second study manipulated financial worry in a lab environment using a driving simulation task. These studies showed that people who are concerned about money have less cognitive capacity, which affects work performance. Implications of this study include the suggestion that employers should act in their self-interest by undertaking initiatives to reduce employees’ financial precarity.

“Work-related driving is an issue with occupational health and safety implications. This study presents and tests an intervention by the Israeli National Road Safety Authority to enhance road safety climate within organizations and its influence on employee driving. In addition, by integrating the literature on organizational climate and work–family interface, the study explored climate spillover and crossover from work to home domain. A longitudinal, with an intervention versus control experimental design, revealed that increasing road safety climate within an organization significantly improves employee driving. Although driving is a life-and-death issue with high costs to organizations, it occurs outside the organization’s physical boundaries, where managers cannot directly supervise. By creating a specific climate, managers may influence employee behaviors within the organization, with potential spillover effects to employee behaviors outside of their work life.”

Corporations are increasingly focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which renders the question of how CSR is perceived by and impacts employees. Four studies were designed to understand the relationship between employee outcomes and perceived CSR, including tests where employees of corporations were given scenarios of how a firm takes action to promote CSR. Results demonstrated that perceived CSR is directly related to employee turnover and can positively affect employee behavior, indicating that firms should clearly communicate CSR goals and practices to employees. Job attitudes such as trust, commitment, and pride can improve and increasing willingness to stay as a result of seeing a firm’s corporate social responsibility and its effectiveness.

This book examines the negative effects of toxic workplace practices on employees, employers, and society.  Research using interviews, press articles, and extensive epidemiological evidence reveals that economic insecurity, long work hours, work-family conflict, and an absence of job control are as harmful to health as second-hand smoke and in the aggregate may cause 120,000 excess deaths  and $190 billion in extra costs annually in the U.S.  The book provides specific guidance on how to measure dimensions of harmful work environments and their effects and what to do to promote employee health and well-being.

Watch Jeffrey Pfeffer talking about his awarded book

“This study examines the conditions under which the retention of first-time workers is facilitated by examining data from a garment factory in India that hires and trains impoverished women workers. Personnel records on a sample of 510 women workers in the factory, and survey data of 50 other first-time workers were analyzed to find that assignment of newcomers to experienced trainers increased retention through the mechanism of improving work readiness. This paper demonstrates the important roles of individual trainers, as well as the importance of understanding when and why training programs facilitate the retention of first-time workers.”

Community founding of cooperatives can experience the long-term effects of a disaster. An analysis of the Spanish Flu, attributed to infected individuals, in Norway and preventative measures to halt its spread was contrasted with spring frost, attributed to nature, to determine if there is an important difference in the effects on communities based on the casual framing of a disaster. This research can be used to expand the reach of civic capacity and understand that sociable communities are more likely to help themselves and more resilient in the face of a disease outbreak or natural disaster. The diversity of organizational forms can provide security to communities and can remediate the effects of disasters that are not only physical events but social constructs.