Our flagship research project funded by this grant concerns a series of three sub-projects exploring how a social organization (NGO) in India - called Gyan Shala – created social impact for 45,000 children, through its frontline workers: teachers in slums in various states in India. In a first, longitudinal qualitative project, we explored teachers’ ideological and other non-pecuniary motivations in India, as well as gender- and poverty-based constraints. This, in turn, formed the basis of extensive development of new theory and hypotheses about what motivates – and constrains – frontline workers (FLWs)’ behaviour in social organizations addressing Sustainable Development Goals (such as poverty, SDG1, and education, SDG4). In a second longitudinal qualitative project we explored long-term effects of this social organization on its students. Both qualitative projects were combined to develop one quantitative project. The combined research led to our mixed-methods paper. The project was presented at a number of top-level academic conferences and workshops (Academy of Management Meeting, SIOP, research workshops/seminars) and has now been submitted to the general top management journal, the Academy of Management Journal.
The paper provides important new insights into how FLWs of social organizations – female para-teachers working in slums in India - are subject to poverty- and gender-related constraints, but at the same time are able to overcome these constraints by shaping their behaviour in meaningful ways, going beyond the call of duty (in the classroom and in the community); what motivates them (moral duty, identification with the local community), and how this influences their social impact, from the perspective of what students (slum children) ‘have reason to value to be and to do’ (Amartya Sen, 1992) in life.
Another key project concerns leadership styles of social enterprises, how these influence team processes, and in turn, enterprises’ economic and social performance, using mixed-method research. In the qualitative project, we studied social enterprises in an incubator in India, i.e. leadership-follower relationships and how this influenced organizational learning and performance. This qualitative project led to developing new theory, which we tested using three waves of data collection, and using econometric model testing. Again, leading to a mixed-method paper, which will now be submitted to a top management journal. This research provides new insights into how and why leadership styles influence team processes in social enterprises, and in turn their financial and social performance.
Our final successful longitudinal qualitative project was at BRAC in Bangladesh at the Educational Division of BRAC, exploring how teachers proactively shape their work in the face of Covid. We developed new process theory on how these FLWs (teachers) adapted and shaped their jobs facing the pandemic. In fact, our new process models show how two different types of FLWs shape their behaviour in different ways: either in response to the organization (BRAC) or, alternatively, the communities in which they worked. Each type of teacher had its own pattern of social interactions, emotions, and way of interacting with colleagues, at the initial stage of responding to the pandemic, and over time, as gradually new tasks, skills, and social relationships emerged, in turn influencing their eudaimonic well-being and perceived social impact (in different ways).
A core element of our approach and methodologies is that we do mixed-methods research in emerging economies. This means that we do first qualitative longitudinal qualitative research, which is then used for theory development/theoretical model building, which is then tested using longitudinal survey data (3-5 waves of quantitative data collection, depending on whether we only test the model, using econometric testing - when 3 waves is typically sufficient for reasons of causality - or develop new measurement scales to be part of the model as well, in which case new scales need to be developed using additional, independent samples. The idea is that, rather than 'blindly imposing Western/Northern theories on Southern contexts' we inductively explore - inspired by existing/Western theories, how these need to be adjusted/complemented to be valid in the local setting. It comes at a cost: projects do take 3-4 years - and under Covid conditions a bit more - to develop. This also means that we completed the final mixed method papers towards the end of the grant period, with some submitted and others to be submitted to top management journals. We do have presented earlier versions of papers - although during Covid times, when our projects got in later stages, traveling to conferences disappeared, for instance, at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, at SIOP (an annual top micro-OB conference in California, prof. Coyle Shapiro, 2020, 2021), at smaller external workshops (Academy of Management workshop, Durham, prof. Barkema, 2018), internal seminars, and we have also at several occasions used leading scholars in the field as 'friendly reviewers' on earlier versions of papers (e.g. prof. Jone Pearce, University of California; prof. Jane Dutton, University of Michigan, dr. Uta Bindl and prof. Ute Stephan, King's College, prof. Jeff Thompson, Brigham Young University, etc., which greatly helped the development of papers at early stages and before submission. However, the combination of the type/length of projects, and Covid limitations, has limited traveling to conferences and formal presentations there; we do think that the friendly reviews have compensated for that, and we fully expect - in view of the rigor and novelty - that our papers will emerge in top management journals.
