Mary Crossan

• Crossan, M. M.; Furlong, B.; Austin, R. D., 2022, "Make Leader Character Your Competitive Edge", MIT Sloan Management Review
• Crossan, M. M.; Nguyen, B.; Sturm, R. E.; Vera, D.; Ruiz Pardo, A.; Maurer, C. C., 2022, "Organizational learning through character-based judgment", Management Learning
  Abstract: We introduce character into organizational learning by building theory about how strength of individual character enhances organizational learning and how unbalanced or weak character undermine organizational learning. Bringing character into organizational learning theory helps to elucidate the type of judgment (i.e. character-based judgment anchored in all dimensions of character) that is missing but required in organizational learning to resolve organizational learning dilemmas that have persisted in the field. In connecting character to organizational learning, we rely on the multi-level processes of the 4I framework of organizational learning as scaffolding to theoretically introduce the processes of character activation, character contagion, and character embeddedness and discuss how the different character configurations and processes enhance organizational learning across levels in an organization.

  Link(s) to publication:

  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13505076221100918

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13505076221100918

• Monzani, L.; Seijts, G. H.; Crossan, M. M., 2021, "Character matters: The network structure of leader character and its relation to follower positive outcomes", PLOS One, September 16(9): e0255940 - e0255940.
  Abstract: We investigated the relationship between self-ratings of leader character and follower positive outcomes – namely, subjective well-being, resilience, organizational commitment, and work engagement – in a public-sector organization using a time-lagged cross-sectional design involving 188 leader – follower dyads and 22 offices. Our study is an important step forward in the conceptual development of leader character and the application of character to enhance workplace practices. We combined confirmatory factor analysis and network-based analysis to determine the factorial and network structure of leader character. The findings revealed that a model of 11 inter-correlated leader character dimensions fit the data better than a single-factor model. Further, judgment appeared as the most central dimension in a network comprising the 11 character dimensions. Moreover, in a larger network of partial correlations, two ties acted as bridges that link leader character to follower positive outcomes: judgment and drive. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

  Link(s) to publication:

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255940

• Crossan, M. M.; Ellis, C.; Crossan, C., 2021, "Towards a Model of Leader Character Development: Insights from Anatomy and Music Therapy", Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, August 28(3): 287 - 305.
  Abstract: Leader character has emerged as a critical foundation for leadership. In spite of the view that leader character can be developed, there has been limited holistic attention to what it takes to develop character. Character requires conscious development, and that conscious development not only requires an understanding of what character is, but how the anatomy of character enables and inhibits character development and expression. By anatomy, we refer to the four underlying anatomical systems – physiology, affect, behavior, and cognition (PABC) – that function independently, and in an inter-related manner, to support the development of character. For illustration, we offer the practice of listening to music as a means to develop character, highlighting the links between the PABC systems and character development.

  Link(s) to publication:

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15480518211005455

• Crossan, M. M.; Cote, S.; Virgin, S., 2021, "Elevating Leader Character Alongside Competence in Selection: A Case Study of Canada Revenue Agency", Organizational Dynamics, July 50(3): 100752 - 100752.
• Dong, J.; Liu, R.; Qiu, Y.; Crossan, M. M., 2021, "Should knowledge be distorted? Managers’ knowledge distortion strategies and organizational learning in different environments", Leadership Quarterly, June 32(3): 101477 - 101477.
  Abstract: Organizational learning provides a sustainable competitive advantage for an enterprise facing a highly volatile environment, and managers’ knowledge sharing strategies are of vital importance to organizational learning. This study systematically evaluates the effects of managers’ knowledge distortion types (i.e., misrepresentation and omission), distortion levels, and distortion preferences in a formal organizational context under various environments. Multi-agent simulation results demonstrate that a slight level of managers’ knowledge misrepresentation and a high level of managers’ knowledge omission are beneficial in a closed system. With increasing turnover rate, both misrepresentation and omission are detrimental. Moreover, in an open system with environmental turbulence, misrepresentation is valuable to performance, while omission is neutral. In general, misrepresentation plays a leading role in the simultaneous combination of two distortion strategies. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. Organizational learning provides a sustainable competitive advantage for an enterprise facing a highly volatile environment, and managers’ knowledge sharing strategies are of vital importance to organizational learning. This study systematically evaluates the effects of managers’ knowledge distortion types (i.e., misrepresentation and omission), distortion levels, and distortion preferences in a formal organizational context under various environments. Multi-agent simulation results demonstrate that a slight level of managers’ knowledge misrepresentation and a high level of managers’ knowledge omission are beneficial in a closed system. With increasing turnover rate, both misrepresentation and omission are detrimental. Moreover, in an open system with environmental turbulence, misrepresentation is valuable to performance, while omission is neutral. In general, misrepresentation plays a leading role in the simultaneous combination of two distortion strategies. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

  Link(s) to publication:

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101477

• Nguyen, B.; Crossan, M. M., 2021, "Character Infused Ethical Decision Making", Journal of Business Ethics: 1 - 21.
  Abstract: Despite a growing body of research by management scholars to understand and explain failures in ethical decision making (EDM), misconduct prevails. Scholars have identified character, founded in virtue ethics, as an important perspective that can help to address the gap in organizational misconduct. While character has been offered as a valid perspective in EDM, current theorizing on how it applies to EDM has not been well developed. We thus integrate character, founded in virtue ethics, into Rest’s (1986) EDM model to reveal how shifting attention to the nature of the moral agent provides critical insights into decision making more broadly and EDM specifically. Virtue ethics provides a perspective on EDM that acknowledges and anticipates uncertainties, considers its contextual constraints, and contemplates the development of the moral agent. We thus answer the call by many scholars to integrate character in EDM in order to advance the understanding of the field and suggest propositions for how to move forward. We conclude with implications of a character infused approach to EDM for future research.

  Link(s) to publication:

  https://link-springer-com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/article/10.1007/s10551-021-04790-8#article-info

• Pettit, K.; Crossan, M. M., 2020, "Strategic renewal: Beyond the functional resource role of occupational members", Strategic Management Journal, June 41(6): 1112 - 1138.
  Abstract: Research summary In this qualitative study of strategic renewal at a North American news organization we reveal that the treatment of occupational members as resources in strategy literature is necessary, but insufficient. Their activities are critical for organizational survival and competition but also the work needed to maintain their occupational identity. Furthermore, the prevailing research evidence that occupational members impede strategic renewal is incomplete. Our study challenges the narrow view of occupational members as resources that constrain strategic renewal by illustrating how occupational identity ‘work’ is instrumental in facilitating and disrupting strategic renewal. Our findings emphasize the importance of adopting broader definitions of work than the functional definition used in strategic renewal research. We also highlight how the activities of non‐managerial actors contribute to strategic renewal. Managerial summary During times of change, research highlights how occupational members such as doctors, nurses, engineers and academics, disrupt and resist change. Our study demonstrates that the same cause of disruption — sustaining their distinctive occupational identity — is critical in facilitating strategic renewal. For managers, we illustrate how and why this occurs and provide practical guidance to leverage this understanding while managing change in occupationally‐dominated organizations.

  Link(s) to publication:

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smj.3115

• Tang, J.; Crossan, M. M.; Rowe, W. G., 2019, "Dominant Leaders: Heroes or Villains?", Organizational Dynamics, March 48(1): 1 - 7.
  Abstract: Power is an essential part of organizational life, especially in the upper echelons. In particular, strategic leadership researchers and practitioners have long been puzzled by the question of whether dominant leaders defined as leaders (e.g., CEO) with dominant power relative to their colleagues in the leadership team are good or bad. On one hand, it has often been considered that dominant leaders tend to restrict information flow and increase politics within the leadership team and thereby negatively affect strategic decision making and organizational performance. On the other hand, there has long been a heroic portrait of dominant leaders (especially in troubled situations), arguing that dominant leaders are more apt to make tough (i.e., fast, unilateral) decisions and thus positively affect organizational performance.

  Link(s) to publication:

  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2017.10.001

  https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1Ydax_23MHAU8A

• Seijts, G. H.; Byrne, A.; Crossan, M. M.; Gandz, J., 2019, "Leader Character in Board Governance", Journal of Management and Governance, March 23(1): 227 - 258.
  Abstract: Despite the critical leadership role that corporate boards play in organizations, the character of their members has been neglected in research studies. We used a multi-method data collection approach to explore whether current directors in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors believe that leader character plays an important role in board governance, particularly with regards to how boards make decisions, recruit new members, lead their organizations, and work together to perform their fiduciary and other responsibilities. Despite the perceived importance of leader character as reported by highly experienced corporate directors, we found that leader character is not commonly attended to in board conversations as a means to purposively improve the way boards operate. We outline practical implications of our findings as well as offer a call to action for future research on character in the context of board governance with the intent to improve governance in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors and hence to foster sustained excellence in organizations.

  Link(s) to publication:

  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10997-018-9426-8

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10997-018-9426-8

• Byrne, A.; Crossan, M. M.; Seijts, G. H., 2018, "The Development of Leader Character Through Crucible Moments", Journal of Management Education, April 42(2): 265 - 293.
  Abstract: © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017. Business schools strive to develop leadership excellence in their students. In this essay, we suggest that educators should find ways to help students develop and deepen leader character, a fundamental component of exemplary leadership. Frequently, business school students have preconceived ideas of leadership, often neglecting leader character. We argue that educators can and should teach students that leader character is pivotal to leadership excellence and that they should actively develop students’ leader character. The foundational learning theories of Piaget and Kolb provide a useful framework to help achieve the development of leader character. We propose that leader character development arises from using accommodation learning strategies of crucible experiences, paired with assimilation learning methods of critical reflection, and further developed through equilibrium learning strategies where students can incorporate new information and work toward their personal character growth. While numerous teaching approaches can be used, we describe an experiential course, codesigned with members of the Canadian Forces, using these learning strategies to foster leader character development.

  Link(s) to publication:

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1052562917717292

• Tang, J.; Crossan, M. M., 2017, "Are Dominant CEOs the Saviors of Troubled Firms?", Long Range Planning, December 50(6): 782 - 793.
  Abstract: This study examines the appointment of dominant CEOs for troubled (i.e., poorly performing) firms and its implications for firm strategy and performance. With a sample of firms from the U.S. computer hardware and software industries that experienced CEO succession during the period 19942001, we found that troubled firms were more likely to appoint dominant CEOs than non-troubled firms. Newly appointed dominant CEOs undertook less strategic change than non-dominant CEOs in troubled situations, but undertook more strategic change in non-troubled situations. However, they performed no better than non-dominant CEOs with regard to post-succession firm performance whether in troubled or non-troubled situations. The results suggest that a heroic portrait of dominant CEOs in troubled situations might have impacted the practice of CEO appointment, but it appears to be a myth lacking a solid empirical basis.

  Link(s) to publication:

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2016.03.002

• Crossan, M. M.; Byrne, A.; Seijts, G. H.; Reno, M.; Monzani, L.; Gandz, J., 2017, "Toward a Framework of Leader Character in Organizations", Journal of Management Studies, November 54(7): 986 - 1018.
  Abstract: While the construct of character is well grounded in philosophy, ethics, and more recently psychology, it lags in acceptance and legitimacy within management research and mainstream practice. Our research seeks to remedy this through four contributions. First, we offer a framework of leader character that provides rigor through a three-phase, multi-method approach involving 1,817 leaders, and relevance by using an engaged scholarship epistemology to validate the framework with practicing leaders. This framework highlights the theoretical underpinnings of the leader character model and articulates the character dimensions and elements that operate in concert to promote effective leadership. Second, we bring leader character into mainstream management research, extending the traditional competency and interpersonal focus on leadership to embrace the foundational component of leader character. In doing this, we articulate how leader character complements and strengthens several existing theories of leadership. Third, we extend the virtues-based approach to ethical decision making to the broader domain of judgment and decision making in support of pursuing individual and organization effectiveness. Finally, we offer promising directions for future research on leader character that will also serve the larger domain of leadership research.

  Link(s) to publication:

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/joms.12254

• Furlong, B.; Crossan, M. M.; Gandz, J.; Crossan, L., 2017, "Character’s Essential Role in Addressing Misconduct in Financial Institutions", Business Law International, September 18(3): 199 - 224.
  Abstract: This article examines one of the critical causes of misconduct that has persisted in the global financial services industry despite the warning flags raised from the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the very public shaming of major financial institutions that have violated various regulatory regimes. The authors argue that many acts of misconduct are consequences of failure of judgement owing to weaknesses in leader character. By so doing, the article pivots away from the prevailing popular wisdom that such acts of misconduct are consequences of the moral or ethical shortcomings of 'bad' people. Rather, it takes the view that these acts of misconduct are usually the result of poor judgements made by people with underdeveloped character dimensions working in organisational cultures that allow or encourage them. The authors contend that lawyers could and should play an important role in preventing such misconduct, if they had a better understanding of the effect that character has on executive decisions.
• Sturm, R. E.; Vera, D.; Crossan, M. M., 2017, "The Entanglement of Leader Character and Leader Competence and its Impact on Performance", Leadership Quarterly, June 28(3): 349 - 366.
  Abstract: Whereas the micro- and macro-oriented leadership literatures have often studied leader competencies necessary for effective performance, the role of leader character in relation to competencies and performance has been to a large extent neglected. Our work seeks to shift the scholarly dialogue by introducing the concept of character-competence entanglement, which reflects the binding between character and competence over time. The highest degree of entanglement represents the deep and more persistent interconnection and mutually-reinforcing effect between highly-developed leader character and highly-developed leader competence, whereas in cases of low entanglement, character can be activated temporarily in a particular context to help strengthen the relationship between competence and performance. Our core proposition is that high character-competence entanglement will lead to extraordinary performance over time. In addition, we emphasize that relying on naturally-occurring learning opportunities and the processes of learning-by-living both outside and inside the organization will positively impact the development of character-competence entanglement.

  Link(s) to publication:

  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.11.007

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