Matt Hisrich

If you have ever heard of post-rock as a musical genre, you have likely also heard (or asked) the almost inevitable follow-up question, "What is post rock?" This brief paper utilizes the work of director Paul Schrader to compare transcendental style in film to that in post-rock.

Ethical lapses in higher education continue to make national headlines despite the significant toll on reputation, enrollment, and fundraising such public scandals can levy.  To foster ethical behavior and decisions among employees, college leaders must be able to influence the ethical work climate, which can be understood as employee perceptions of ethical standards that impact ethical behavior and decisions.  This study focused on the identification of change management strategies that senior academic administrators at U.S. colleges can implement to cultivate an ethical work climate supportive of ethical employee behavior and decisions.  Following an evidence-based management approach, this dissertation used a systematic review with realist synthesis and a theoretical lens that incorporated ethical leadership, ethical work climate, change management, moral disengagement, and a typology of ethical lapses in higher education.  Study findings confirmed that ethics institutionalization in the work culture of an organization is the primary change management strategy by which college leaders can cultivate an ethical work climate that supports ethical employee behavior and decisions.  Further, ethical leadership and change management are interrelated interventions to establish an ethical work culture, which is a necessary antecedent to an ethical work climate.  Specific change management mechanisms positively related to ethical employee behavior and decisions include ethics training, ethics codes, accountability, mastery goals, corporate social responsibility, supervisory support, social norms, and quality-related human resources practices.

This research project seeks to gain insight into non-traditional ministries that are not rooted in a particular place but instead connect primarily through social media and travel. To do this, the project focused on three unique examples that while by no means exhaustive of the trend nonetheless provides a good range of experience and approaches.

The goal was to find examples where the project in question is for the individual that person’s vocational call, not simply a hobby or one aspect of a larger ministry effort. Questions focused on the discernment of call, the nature of the individuals involved both directly and indirectly in the ministry, the logistics of building a network of interest such that it is – or may become – financially sustainable, and what the future may hold for each them, their projects, and ministry more broadly.

The research team consists of three members: Matt Hisrich, Director of Recruitment and Admissions for ESR; Andy Henry, a current MDiv student at ESR; and Julie Rudd, ESR graduate and pastor of Wilmington Friends Meeting in Wilmington, Ohio. Interviews were conducted through video conferencing in July of 2016.

The advent of online education was only the launching point for a revolution of resourcing theological education for one small ATS seminary. Technology continues to ripple outward into all parts of the institution’s operations. As technological innovation continues, seminaries face opportunities for continued change of operation and delivery of services. As is to be expected, these new opportunities surface questions that will require answers as schools balance mission and survival.

It is not inconceivable that liberation theology can add to the richness of the theological landscape and should not be ignored as such. Nonetheless, as proponents of this view, Rieger and Sung would be more convincing if they displayed a greater depth of economic knowledge.

Join us for a panel discussion and Q&A session with those working to develop virtual recruitment tools specific to the unique needs of ATS members. The goal will be for admissions and recruitment staff from all seminaries and theological schools to learn from existing efforts and begin to build upon those efforts to better reach the targeted audiences our schools serve.

Earlham School of Religion (ESR) recently conducted a series of in-person, phone, and online surveys with young adult Friends from across the country and across the spectrum of Quakerism. This workshop will offer participants the chance to learn about key findings from these surveys, how they mesh or depart from the so-called “rise of the nones,” and how ESR seeks to respond in helpful ways to these trends. There will be opportunity for open discussion about the implications, how meetings and other organizations are experiencing change, and how we might together develop positive approaches to changing needs and understandings of faith.The expected outcome is that participants will have a better sense of broad changes taking place in the U.S. faith landscape – particularly among younger Americans – as well as data specific to those from a Quaker background. From here, the hope is that participants will be able to share how they are already responding creatively to these shifts and begin to brainstorm and develop additional innovative responses within each of their own unique contexts.

In this workshop, participants will wrestle with the influence of psychology, theology, culture, and history upon their understanding of who Jesus was and is in their lives. Along the way, we will explore together the positive role our human creativity and imagination plays with regard to this understanding both personally and in community.

What would it look like to take the ideas in The
Evolution of Faith seriously and put them into
practice organizationally among Friends? Recent
developments in Indiana Yearly Meeting provide
one lens through which to view such changes taking
place right now. In this workshop, participants
will have the opportunity to discuss these developments
but also think more broadly about how
the organizational structures of the faith bodies in
which we participate reflect an important aspect
of how we put our faith into working practice.
With this in mind, we can begin to analyze what
elements detract from or contribute to that process
and what changes might bring about greater health
and vitality."

Many trace the origins of Socially Responsible investing, or SRI, to Quaker divestment from the slave trade in the 18th century. For those seeking to remain true to Quaker principles, is it possible to simplify investments in an era of mutual funds, corporations, and complex global markets? Matthew, an ESR student and author, will share some of the basic economics of SRI and invite discussion about ways to live out this core Quaker testimony in our own financial decisions.

This paper is a rapid evidence assessment (REA) of 15 sources (14 published articles and one book chapter) that report on leadership in open innovation management contexts to examine the possible interconnections with a weak leadership framework.

This larger framework emerges out of the tradition of weak theology. In this tradition, divine engagement with humanity is invitational rather than forced. Weakness as a form of agency is therefore understood as a positive attribute.

Weak theology can be operationalized within an organizational leadership context by drawing upon complementary leadership and management theories including chaos theory, nonrational escalation of commitment, dispersed knowledge, consensus-based decision making, followership, and authentic, processual, and servant leadership. The basic operational assumptions emerging out of these gathered theories in a weak leadership framework include community building, consensus-based decision-making, dispersed knowledge, noncoercion, nonhierarchy, and nonomniscience. The REA examines each of these in relation to open innovation and demonstrates significant connections with four – community building, nonomniscience, dispersed knowledge, and nonhierarchy – while not ruling out the possibility of significant connections to the remaining two linked premises following further investigation.

Practitioners and researchers interested in exploring the operation of open innovation in a weak leadership framework are encouraged to test both of these premises (as well as those with less significant connections) as explicit components of weak leadership to build further evidence for their relative efficacy.   

Keywords: innovation management, leadership, open innovation, rapid evidence assessment, weak theology

“Where chaos begins,” writes James Gleick in his influential 1987 book on the subject, “classic science ends” (p. 3). This is because chaos theory turns the mechanistic, causal order of much of Newtonian scientific understanding on its head. It is a bold statement, and one that has significant implications not simply for the natural sciences, but for the social sciences as well – including management. Gleick offers up several definitions of the concept, but one that hints at both the promise and potentially terrifying nature of the theory is: “systems liberated to randomly explore their every dynamical possibility… a cornucopia of opportunity” (p. 306). A significant challenge then becomes whether and how to translate the insights from developments in physics into improved outcomes in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is thus to answer the research question (RQ): What practical lessons can managers take from the application of Chaos Theory to the organizational environment?

Open innovation as a paradigm “represents little more than the repackaging and representation of concepts and findings presented over the past forty years,” argue Paul Trott and Dap Hartmann in their 2009 critique (p. 715). The authors even go so far as to say that open innovation is a misrepresentation of reality and may leave managers who attempt to adopt it frustrated and disillusioned (pp. 716, 731). Coined by Henry Chesbrough in his 2003 book of the same name, open innovation (OI) contrasts with a closed approach that handles all innovation development internally. Instead, OI involves “searching for interesting ideas far beyond their organizational boundaries…[and] leveraging their internal ideas outside their own business by using external channels to market” (Vanhaverbeke, Van De Vrande, & Chesbrough, 2008, p. 251). Chesbrough’s book is highly influential, having been cited over 4,775 times in journal articles since its publication (Scopus, 2017). But that very popularity is exactly what Trott and Hartmann find objectionable, and they encourage the research and management community to apply greater scrutiny. Given the theory’s current and likely continued influence, however, it is worthwhile to explore the practical insights that be drawn from its approach – even if qualified with the caveat that it may be reductionist. In that vein, the purpose of this paper is to answer the research question (RQ): Does open innovation remain a valid theory applicable to contemporary management situations despite critiques of its originality and conceptual honesty?

Crystal Pepsi. New Coke. The Ford Edsel. These are well-known examples of high-profile innovative product launches that all failed miserably (Gilbert, 2016). Could these new product innovation disasters have been averted? Potentially, although they were likely all subject to the dangers of escalation bias. Escalation bias or escalation of commitment is defined as “continuing to commit resources to a project despite much negative feedback or when evidence suggests that this is unwise” (Boulding, Guha, & Staelin, 2016, p. 3460). In other words, because of a desire to not lose face or to see a new innovation through, individuals and companies may knowingly send good money after bad. The results can be incredibly costly and deeply embarrassing.

So, what can companies do to avert such disasters? In their 2008 article, Vanhaverbeke, Van De Vrande, and Chesbrough suggest that employing a real options approach offers firms the ability to explore new opportunities on a trial basis without committing fully to them. They define real options as “investments that can be characterized as sequential, irreversible investments made under conditions of uncertainty” (p. 252). Janney and Dess – whose framework Vanhaverbeke et al. rely upon – offer a complementary definition, saying that a real option is “a decision that creates the right, but not the obligation, to pursue a future decision” (2004, p. 60).

The purpose of this paper is thus to answer the research question (RQ): How can a real options approach be employed to lessen escalation bias in product innovation management?

This paper is a systematic review of ten published articles that report on results from research conducted on first-year undergraduate student persistence at liberal arts schools in the United States. The paper employs a realist synthesis approach to identify the evidence-based factor most strongly associated with first-year persistence into the second year: academic and social integration. Based upon this finding, school administrators are encouraged to carefully weigh existing research in light of their institutional context before committing resources to particular first-year programming interventions to achieve this goal, and to focus these efforts around building relationships between first-year students and advisors, instructors, peers, and current students. Further, they should incorporate evidence-based practice to examine the ongoing effectiveness of any interventions undertaken. 

Keywords: liberal arts, higher education, persistence, retention, freshmen

This paper is a systematic review of ten published articles addressing the topics of Contingency Theory and Situational Leadership Theory in the context of higher education in the United States. This is important to leaders in higher education because while these have been oft-cited theories in management textbooks and trainings for decades, it is helpful to have clarity about their current status in the academic research literature and actual use in practice. The paper employs a realist synthesis approach to review the state of the literature and identify possible positive behavioral mechanisms resulting from contingent and situational leadership approaches. These include: encouragement and mentorship of emerging female leaders; targeting students with the greatest need for advising; and adaptive approaches to cultural differences and crises. Based upon these findings, school administrators are encouraged to carefully weigh existing research in light of their institutional context before committing resources to specific interventions based upon their organizational priorities. Further, they should incorporate evidence-based practice to examine the ongoing effectiveness of any interventions undertaken. 

Keywords: systematic review, contingency theory, situational leadership theory, leadership, higher ed, education, women in leadership, academic advising, crisis leadership, authentic leadership, processual leadership

This paper is a rapid evidence assessment of five published articles that report on chaos theory in the organizational environment historically, as well as two published case studies of the theory within the past five years, to determine how insights from the theory might inform a weak leadership framework. Operationalizing chaos theory as leaders involves a willingness to set aside notions of a mechanistic, cause and effect world for an understanding of the organizational environment that better reflects the fluid and dynamic nature of reality. The paper identifies six key themes from the literature: adaptability, operating on the edge of chaos, nonhierarchy, nonlinearity, open and iterative communication, and uncertainty. These six themes are shown to align with the basic premises of a weak leadership framework. This larger framework emerges out of the tradition of weak theology, where weakness is understood as a positive attribute. Its basic premises include: community building, consensus-based decision-making, dispersed knowledge, noncoercion, nonhierarchy, and nonomniscience. Chaos theory as a component of weak leadership within the organizational environment allows for the development of a model of the chaordic organizational state – one that remains in motion as it moves to temporary states of order rather than falling prey to either complete chaos or total stagnation. Practitioners and researchers are encouraged to test this model in operation in a variety of settings to examine its ongoing effectiveness in response to change and crisis. 

Keywords: chaos theory, leadership, organizational environment, rapid evidence assessment, weak theology

This paper provides a brief overview of the concept of “Weak Management.” Weak Management involves redefining the idea of weakness as a positive rather than a negative leadership style.

This approach uses John D. Caputo’s concept of Weak Theology as a springboard. In his book "The Weakness of God," Caputo reframes the nature and action of God as invitational and transformational rather than primarily as the possessor of ultimate power. In reference to the crucifixion of Jesus, for instance, he states that “The logos of the cross is a call to renounce violence, not to conceal and defer it and then, in a stunning act that takes the enemy by surprise, to lay them low with real power, which shows the enemy who really has the power” (2006, p. 44).

Applying this concept in the management sphere, it is possible to pull from multiple theoretical streams to develop a counter to the dominant image of the “strong leader” or “Great Man” (and it has been understood as men only in the past) – an image that may invite leaders to engage in counterproductive behavior that undermines organizational health. In contrast, a Weak Manager is one who is able to facilitate successful outcomes without reliance upon coercion or positional authority rooted in a hierarchical power structure.

The overarching framework of Weak Management rests upon a foundation of the following theoretical streams: 1) Chaos Theory and Nonrational Escalation of Commitment; 2) Dispersed Knowledge and Consensus Decision-Making; 3) Servant Leadership and Followership; and 4) Authentic and Processual Leadership.

Politics, power, and change. While theorists and practitioners may disagree on how pervasive these elements are within organizational life, they will nonetheless impact every organization at some point and for some may be constants. Managers seeking to bring about or respond to change cannot afford to ignore how political dynamics and power relationships can impact outcomes. But where to begin? The research literature on these subjects is vast, and it is itself subject to differing interpretations that can change over time. The goal of this paper is to present a reasonably concise historical overview of major theoretical contributions to the subject over the bulk of the 20th century. While by no means comprehensive, readers should be able to gain a broad understanding of key ideas, major authors, and the practical value to their management efforts.