Call for papers – Journal of Organizational Behavior

Special Issue in Journal of Organizational Behavior

Working from everywhere: The future of work and inclusive organizational behavior (IOB)

Call for papers

Guest Editors: Andri Georgiadou (University of Nottingham, UK); Banu Ozkazanc-Pan (Brown University, USA); Mustafa Özbilgin (Brunel University, UK).

Background and Rationale for the Special Issue

Digitalization has been transforming the ways individuals interact in the workplace, their expectations from their employers, in the same way as how, when, and where work is conducted (Georgiadou & Antonacopoulou, 2020). Undoubtedly, due to the unforeseen disruption caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, work from everywhere has become the new normal for millions of employees around the globe (e.g. Ozkazanc-Pan & Pullen, 2019; 2020).

In fact, COVID-19 has brought to surface the need for the workplace’s digital transformation, new skills for human resources, but also new ways of managing crises (Branicki, 2020). At the same time, however, it brought to the fore the significance of cultivating and promoting inclusive organizational behavior (IOB), highlighting what the organization could garner through digitalized forms of inclusion and the challenges that the organization is called upon to face if people are excluded from the organizational culture (Caligiuri, De Cieri, Minbaeva, Verbeke, & Zimmermann, 2020). We introduce IOB as the study and application of inclusively oriented human resource capacities that can be developed, measured, and effectively managed for improving the workplace performance of today and future. What organizations are now undergoing is not merely a recession, but rather an absolute shift in the organizational culture, with enduring consequences on their structure and strategy. Even though we cannot anticipate how long this will last and what the new reality will look like, investing in IOB is certainly a fundamental principle that can help organizations grasp the opportunities and tackle the upcoming uncertainties and challenges. Actors in the field of IOB will have varied degrees of change agency (Nentwich, Özbilgin, & Tatli, 2015) through which they mobilize their competencies to change organizational cultures and structures.

The COVID-19 outbreak has already had a profound impact on the work experiences of millions of people all over the world, as it cultivated fear and uncertainty (Restubog, Ocampo, & Wang, 2020). Challenges such as the ability to effectively use technology, solo working in social isolation, work at home whilst undertaking caring duties, but especially the lasting effects on wellbeing (Zacher & Rudolph, 2020), has turned spotlight on the importance of IOB, as a value more necessary than ever. Whether with employees sharing the same physical space or collaborating within a virtual work environment, organizations are called upon to incorporate technology into their workflow as one of the norms to follow and of the main pillars of the redesigned future of work (Bondarouk & Ruël, 2009). The empowerment, support, and inspiration, however, that are now more essential than ever for employees to remain connected to the objectives, mission, and vision of the organization, highlight the importance of IOB.

Objectives of the Special Issue

With this special issue we seek to advance existing knowledge on why and how managers promote, think, and feel about IOB, as well as on the consequences of these decisions on others and on themselves (e.g., for their own careers and wellbeing). We hope that the special issue will encourage research from a wide range of contexts and draw on several OB themes.

An indicative but not exhaustive list of questions that we are interested in addressing includes:

• How is inclusive organizational behavior conceptualized? What are its dimensions, what levels of analysis can it operate at, and how is it differentiated from similar constructs, especially when employees work from everywhere? What are the digital forms of IOB?
• What is the relationship to inclusive organizational behavior as a construct and the wider social, cultural, and physical context of the organization or the location of employees?
• What are the antecedents of inclusive organizational behavior in organizational contexts? What is the process by which these antecedents translate into inclusive organizational behavior? How can organizations further develop these antecedents?
• What are the barriers or challenges to inclusive organizational behavior? How can organizations identify these and overcome them, especially in the digital workplace?
• Are some employees more inclusive than others? What impact does inclusiveness have on their emotions, attitudes, and behavior within digital workplace contexts?
• Can inclusive organizational behavior be developed at the workgroup level? If so, how and with what outcomes and boundary conditions?
• Is inclusive organizational behavior important for leaders, and if so, what aspects, why, how, and under what conditions?
• What are the new ways that IOB could be enabled through technology and digitalization?
• Can inclusive organizational behavior possibly harm employees, work groups and organizations? If so, what antecedents and conditions lead to such negative outcomes?
• How are inclusive organizational behavior tools being used in business school programs, why, and with what effects on educational outcomes? What are the implications for improving management education and development?
• What methodological tools can be used to better measure inclusive organizational behavior in the digital workplace?

This list is not exhaustive. The key requirement is that the paper makes a new contribution to our understanding of the actor perspective to inclusive organizational behavior. We especially encourage papers that include empirical investigations of these issues, but we will also consider strong theoretical or conceptual papers that stimulate the research agenda on inclusive organizational behavior.

Submission Instructions

This call is open and competitive. Submitted papers must be based on original material not under consideration by any other journal or outlet. For empirical papers based on data sets from which multiple papers have been generated, the editors must be provided with copies of all other papers based on the same data. The editors will select a number of papers to be included in the Special Issue, but other papers submitted in this process may be recommended for submission in other issues of the journal.

The timeline for the Special Issue is as follows:

March 1 – April 1, 2022: Submissions window

June 1, 2022: First decisions to authors

October 1, 2022: First revisions due back

January 15, 2022: Second round decisions to authors

March 15, 2023: Second revisions due back

July 15, 2023: Finalize decisions on manuscripts

The deadline for special issue submissions is April 1^st, 2022. The special issue is intended for publication in 2023. To submit a manuscript, please visit the website https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10991379 and select Manuscript Type as Special issue from the drop-down menu. Please direct questions about the submission process, or any administrative matter, to the Managing Editor at JOBedoffice@wiley.com. For other questions related to the Special Issue, please email guest editors directly: Andri Georgiadou (andri.georgiadou@nottingham.ac.uk), Banu Ozkazanc-Pan (banu_ozkazanc-pan@brown.edu), and Mustafa Özbilgin (mustafa.ozbilgin@brunel.ac.uk).

References

Bondarouk, T. V., & Ruël, H. J. (2009). Electronic Human Resource Management: challenges in the digital era. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20(3), 505-514.

Branicki, L. J. (2020). COVID-19, ethics of care and feminist crisis management. Gender, Work and Organization, 27, 1-12.

Caligiuri, P., De Cieri, H., Minbaeva, D., Verbeke, A., & Zimmermann, A. (2020). International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research and practice. Journal of International Business Studies, 1-17.

Georgiadou, A., Metcalfe, B.D., von Lockette, N.D., Groutsis, D. and Ozkazanc-Pan, B. (2021) Gender, embodiment and identity in organizations. Gender, Work & Organization, 28(5). https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12745

Georgiadou, A. and Antonacopoulou, E. (2021) Leading Through Social Distancing: The Future of Work, Corporations and Leadership from Home. Gender, Work & Organization, 28, 749-767. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12533

Nentwich, J. C., Ozbilgin, M. F., & Tatli, A. (2015). Change agency as performance and embeddedness: Exploring the possibilities and limits of Butler and Bourdieu. Culture and Organization, 21(3), 235-250.

Ozkazanc-Pan, B. (2019). Diversity and future of work: Opportunities for all or inequalities abound? Management Decision, https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-02-2019-0244

Ozkazanc‐Pan, B., & Pullen, A. (2020). Gendered labour and work, even in pandemic times. Gender, Work, and Organization, 27(5), 675.

Restubog, S. L. D., Ocampo, A. C. G., & Wang, L. (2020). Taking control amidst the chaos: Emotion regulation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 119 (103440).

Zacher, H., & Rudolph, C. W. (2020). Individual Differences and Changes in Subjective Wellbeing During theEarly Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Psychological Association, 1-13.