3. TOWARD AN ANALYTIC BASIS FOR INFLUENCE STRATEGY IN COUNTERTERRORISM

This article examines the embeddedness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications in strategic planning. By drawing on the idea that talk and texts about CSR are an essential part of responsibility practices, I study how CSR aspirations—responsibility-related organizational self-descriptions, goals, and ideals that the organization cannot yet live up to or that the organizational constituents deem necessary to maintain—are intertwined with strategy texts and strategic episodes. Conducting a qualitative case study on a series of biennial strategy processes over a 20-year period, I show how CSR aspirations are established in authoritative strategy documents during stakeholder interactions, elaborated in consecutive strategic episodes, extended to new business areas, and evaluated in subsequent communications. These findings contribute to the CSR and strategy literature by showing how (a) aspirational talk can be established and perpetuated through recurrent communicative processes, (b) stakeholder engagement in CSR issues can influence strategy texts and how strategy texts become a part of intertextual organizational communications, and (c) strategic context can be conducive to progressive performativity.

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Influence strategies and work outcomes: effects of attributions

Chinese Management Studies ◽

10.1108/cms-09-2018-0673 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 967-984

Author(s):

Melody P.M. Chong ◽

Xiji Zhu ◽

Pingping Fu ◽

Ling Ying Sarinna Wong

Keyword(s):

Job Performance ◽

Organizational Citizenship Behavior ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Work Outcomes ◽

Citizenship Behavior ◽

Influence Strategies ◽

Content Type ◽

Authoritarian Leadership ◽

Influence Strategy ◽

Positive Effect

Purpose Previous research on influence strategies has almost exclusively indicated negative relationships between assertive influence and employee work outcomes; the purpose of this study is to argue that an assertive influence strategy can also lead to both positive and negative work outcomes, when subordinates hold different attributions towards the leaders’ motive of using assertive influence (hereafter “the cause”). Design/methodology/approach The empirical study was based on data collected from 930 employees in China. The authors developed hypotheses to test the mediating effects of three types of perception in the relationship between an assertive influence strategy and five outcomes, and additional analyses on persuasive and relational influence strategies are also conducted. Findings Results show that when subordinates attribute the cause to their ability (internal attribution), an assertive influence has indirect positive effect on felt obligation, organizational commitment, job performance and organizational citizenship behavior; when subordinates attribute the cause to the poor relationship with their superiors (relational attribution), an assertive influence has indirect negative impact on most outcomes except for job performance; when subordinates perceive that the cause is to the superiors, such as authoritarian leadership (external attribution), an assertive influence has indirect positive effect on job performance. Practical implications The study highlights the importance of subordinates’ perceptions during the leadership influence processes. Originality/value This study was the first to examine the mediation relationship between three types of influence strategies and five organizational outcomes based on a large sample of front-line staff in China. The findings of the study also enrich the literature of leadership and attribution theories.

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