The glass cliff phenomenon, which denotes the greater tendency of women than men to be placed on precarious leadership positions, has attracted huge scholarly interest since the notion’s inception. By framing women-held upper echelons roles as “cliff”, the glass cliff scholarship thus far has concentrated on uncovering how systematic biases towards women extend into higher-end labor markets, manifested as the “think crisis, think female” association in director appointment process and a greater exposure to courtesy stigma in consequence to their affiliation with crisis-stricken firms. This paper adopts a different angle to explore the potential upsides of glass cliff assignments. Based on a large-scale matched sample of Chinese listed firms, our analyses reveal that 1) preferential selection of women to top corporate ranks is not universal but rather contingent on the configurations of crisis situations and that 2) directorships in distressed firms may increase directors’ future employability but this effect is largely enjoyed by men. Our findings contribute to the glass cliff literature in two ways. First, we clarify the boundary conditions of the glass cliff phenomenon. Second, we show strong evidence of double standards for competence.

Relying on institutional theory, we contribute to the growing literature on corporate political activity (CPA) and board gender diversity (BGD) by examining the impact of CPAs on BGD. We utilized an extensive international sample to find that the firms engaged in CPAs, such as lobbying and political contributions, tend to appoint more women to the board. More gender-diverse boards stem from the strong social reputation benefits associated with BGD and are so needed by policymakers in helping the firm. By integrating the informal institutional element of culture, we found that the positive effect of CPA on BGD is negatively moderated by gendered culture as captured by grammatical gender marking as an important contingency factor. Additionally, we show that the social reputation of the firm mediates the impact of CPA on BGD. We subjected our results to a battery of empirical robustness tests, including causality analysis.

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) creates environmental pressures on organizations affecting employees’ behavior and their willingness to contribute to companies’ success. Moreover, within the context of geopolitical instability, firms may encounter additional enforcements resulting in reconsideration of existing managerial practices as the responses to new realities. We apply Organizational Citizenship Behavior concept (OCB) to discuss how AI pushes organizations to revise OCB determinants strengthening these efforts by environmental disruptions using the data from 101 firms that operate in the sanctioned Russian market. Specifically, we discuss how the AI-enhanced OCB’ determinants effect firm performance and innovation capabilities of companies operating in the geopolitical disruptive context. We argue that double-loop pressures create unique research settings enabling us to unpack emergent interplay between different sources of environmental pressures and organizational responses related to employees’ behaviors. One of the most significant contributions is the redefinition of determinants of OCB in terms of dual-loop pressures. Additionally, the research illustrates the significant impact of AI-enhanced OCB on organizational innovation and performance.

How do expatriates leverage their social capital (SC) to achieve long-lasting career success (CS) in an increasingly digital world? This study addresses this question by integrating three theoretical perspectives on SC: the nature, structure, and content of social ties. Furthermore, the paper discusses the increasing role of digitalisation of social ties expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a thematic analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews of expatriates, we report how SC plays a pivotal role in shaping their CS. The study also observes how digitalisation has transformed SC, emphasising its implications in the international career context. From this exploration, the importance of ‘e-bridging SC emerges.’ We further delineate how digitalisation catalyses the emergence of digital ‘career brokers mechanisms’ connecting expatriates to diverse and dispersed social groups and the ‘digital affordance-driven ties’ that guide expatriates in gauging the worth of those groups for their careers.