Cambridge Judge Business School Addenbrookes building.

An extraordinary achievement: 5 articles by Cambridge Judge faculty are published in latest ‘Academy of Management Journal’

11 July 2022

The article at a glance

Topics ranging from marginalisation to entrepreneurship are featured in the prestigious journal, reflecting the research excellence and breadth of Cambridge Judge Business School.

Category: Insight

Five different articles co-authored by four Cambridge Judge Business School professors are included in the latest issue of the prestigious ‘Academy of Management Journal (AMJ)’, reflecting the world-leading research excellence of Cambridge Judge.

Cambridge Judge placed first for Business and Management studies in the latest Research Excellence Framework conducted by the UK government, announced in May.

The June issue of the ‘Academy of Management Journal’, the six-per-year publication’s latest issue (Volume 65, Issue 3), includes articles co-authored by four Cambridge Judge faculty:

  • Jennifer Howard-Grenville, Diageo Professor in Organisation Studies
  • Shahzad Ansari, Professor of Strategy & Innovation
  • Mark de Rond, Professor of Organisational Ethnography
  • Matthew Grimes, Professor of Organisational Theory & Information Systems.

Multiple articles published in ‘Academy of Management Journal’ demonstrates research excellence

Mauro Guillén
Professor Mauro Guillén

These five articles are among 12 articles and an introductory article published in the June ‘AMJ’ issue, which were drawn from 144 submissions to a Special Research Forum organised by the journal’s editors.

“To place five different articles by four faculty members in the ‘Academy of Management Journal’ demonstrates the excellence and relevance of Cambridge Judge Business School research,” said Professor Mauro Guillén, Dean of the Business School. “The selectivity of the ‘Academy of Management Journal’ and rigour of its review process means that it is a great achievement for a business school to place a single article in the AMJ’s pages, so to place five articles in one issue is truly extraordinary. I am very proud of the Business School and our fine faculty.”

The Academy of Management Journal is the flagship empirical and theoretical journal in the management field. It has a very low acceptance rate for submitted papers, and publication in its pages can be pivotal for scholars seeking tenure at business schools and other higher education institutions. The AMJ is published by the US-based Academy of Management, which holds its 2022 annual meeting in Seattle next month.

Five articles co-published by Cambridge Judge faculty

The articles co-authored by Cambridge Judge faculty in the June AMJ issue are:

1. Joining societal conversations on management organisations

Jennifer Howard-Grenville.
Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville

A lead article by Editors of the ‘Academy of Management Journal’, including Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville, outlining the main priorities of the current AMJ editorial team and introducing the 12 articles in the June issue that reflected the Special Research Forum (SRF).

“Our goal with this SRF was to publish a collection of high-quality empirical studies that make meaningful contributions to ongoing societal debates about managerial and organisational problems and investigate topics that may have been neglected in the field but significantly impact the lives of people inside and outside organisations,” says the article, entitled “From the editors – joining societal conversations on management and organisations”.

“Such topics—including those on socioeconomic status and class, diversity and inclusion, community impact of organisational practices, movement of workforce across borders, and organisational implications of national conflicts—are studied in adjacent fields, but often are not central to management scholarship in journals like AMJ.”

2. From sheltered to included: the emancipation of disabled workers from benevolent marginalisation

Shahzad Ansari.
Professor Shahzad Ansari

An article co-authored by Professor Shahzad Ansari entitled “From sheltered to included: the emancipation of disabled workers from benevolent marginalisation”, which takes a fresh look at the subject of disability. The study notes that while our society imposes certain stereotyped definitions of what it means to be disabled, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Based on a six-year study of a sheltered workshop in Germany, the study concludes that the key to overcoming deeply entrenched invisible forms of unconscious marginalisation lies in a collaborative process that overcomes an “infantilising identity” for disabled people, and prompts many of them to become “internal activists”.

3. To catch a predator: the lived experience of extreme practices

Mark de Rond.
Professor Mark de Rond at Camp Bastion

An article co-authored by Professor Mark de Rond reflecting his research while embedded over an extended period with a gang of paedophile “hunters”. The study, entitled “To catch a predator: the lived experience of extreme practices”, deploys the concept ‘way-of-being’ to explain these hunters’ use of extreme practices, which includes the controversial live streaming of ‘stings’. Another co-author of the study is Adrian Marrison, a PhD candidate in the Organisational Theory & Information Systems subject group at Cambridge Judge.

“Our study contributes to the policing challenge of mitigating hunting’s harmful effects by facilitating more constructive mutual engagement. This offers a possible pathway for addressing the broader challenge posed by epistemically closed, social media–enabled communities that act out their concerns in ways that disregard our common humanity,” the study says.

4. Remaking capitalism: the strength of weak legislation in mobilising B Corporation certification

Matthew Grimes.
Professor Matthew Grimes

An article co-authored by Professor Matthew Grimes entitled “Remaking capitalism: the strength of weak legislation in mobilising B Corporation certification”, which looks at how various efforts to remake capitalism into a “more just, sustainable and inclusive system” interact.

The study looks specifically at the effects of benefit corporation legislation in 36 US jurisdictions on B Corporation certification, which is a designation that a firm meets certain thresholds related to accountability and transparency in such areas as supply chain practices and employee benefits.

“We find that new certifications and recertifications both increase in jurisdictions with such legislation and these effects are amplified or attenuated depending on corporate sustainability norms in the region,” the study says. “Taken together, our findings contribute to the intensifying societal conversation regarding the prospects for remaking capitalism, illustrating how even weak legislation can contribute to systems change.”

5. Living up to the hype: how new ventures manage the resource and liability of future oriented visions within the nascent market of impact investing

An article co-authored by Matthew Grimes entitled “Living up to the hype: how new ventures manage the resource and liability of future-oriented visions within the nascent market of impact investing”.

The article outlines how hype is a “collective vision and promise of a possible future, around which attention, excitement, and expectations increase over time”, and how hype can serve as a “cultural resource” to drive early stakeholder support to entrepreneurs. Yet hype can also limit ventures’ flexibility during the entrepreneurial process. So the study develops a theory of “hype management” that can allow new ventures “sufficient flexibility to convert hype into a sustained entrepreneurial opportunity”.