The March-April 2026 Issue Is Live
. . . as is the Org Science AI Task Force (barely)
Spring is here, and as some of us are saying goodbye to the snowy mountains, others are welcoming that brief heaven that is peonia season—a flower only to be rivaled by Ranunculus asiaticus and the english rose.1 It’s been a busy crazy month here at the journal as our AI task force (Alex, Claudine, Sharique, and I) dived (or perhaps sunk) deep in the data lake of artificial intelligence in research. Ever produced a full paper in a month? I hadn’t, but I’m guessing from our data that someone reading this is thinking “of course, didn’t you get my three submissions last month?” And yes we did, shortly followed by a senior editors email asking about the peculiar writing. My secret for producing a paper within a month is not having AI doing the writing—it’s working with an exceptional set of coauthors/editors.2 And very little sleep. And (legal) stimulants. And evidently incomplete sentences too. Mostly, it was the coauthors leading the project. Anyway, there will be more on this project here very soon. I outsourced the copyediting to my son, who has his crack team working hard on the improving the writing quality. We’re still waiting on edits. Meanwhile, I’m super late on editorial decisions, which is really not cool. I’ll do better.
The last month also included the Org Science Winter Conference and one of my two week-long classes at Brookings in DC. I’ll write about these next week, but if I were to summarize each in a few words, they would be “the future of work is uncertain” (OSWC) and “this is not looking good” (DC). There’s a silver lining to the uncertainty of future work, which is that we will need a lot of great research to help model the changing nature of organizations. I’ll continue to search for the silver lining in DC when I return on April 8. I expect a lot of “I told you so” from our expert speakers on how things have played out in the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, my request to move the EMBA class to Paris was denied.
But good news! We have a new issue fresh off the press.3 It’s really one of my favorites ever. The lead article, “Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier,” is one of the most important papers on AI and work in the last few years. I believe it was cited 12 times while I was writing this. The new issue is strong throughout. It includes our first paper focused on a dataset/measure as a public good for researchers (“VR Scores”), a qual paper on credentialing and merit pay that I love by Dilan Eren, and a study of artificial certainty by experts when using AI (Leonardi and Leavell).4 Several studies highlight the double-edged nature of emerging tools and practices, from AI improving some tasks while undermining others to diversity and meritocratic policies producing unintended inequalities. Others show how deeply social dynamics, such as political polarization, identity-based bias, and shared experience, shape interactions, opportunities, and outcomes in the workplace. We have perspectives on refugee experiences, formal models, qual, quant, and some very nicely designed experimental work. And today, as millions protest around the United States, we have a paper on street protests in China. Please see below for the articles, their links, and their summaries.
Finally, the deadline for our Special Issue on The Global South is approaching rapidly, so make sure to get your papers in by April 30. We already have our first R&Rs, so we’re excited to see what comes in during the last month. If it’s anything like prior SIs, we’ll get over 90% in the last three days. Which probably just gave Rodrigo a heart attack as he multiplied our nearly 50 submissions already by 10.
I’m landing soon, so I’ll sign off now. I hope you enjoy the issue, and we’ll be back shortly with a bunch of content including new online articles. If you run into a senior editor, make sure you tell them how much you would love for them to write a guest column for our Substack.
As always,
Lamar
The March-April Issue
Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality by Fabrizio Dell’Acqua, Edward McFowland III, Ethan Mollick, Hila Lifshitz, Katherine C. Kellogg, Saran Rajendran, Lisa Krayer, François Candelon, Karim R. Lakhani
AI doesn’t improve work in a smooth, predictable way. It creates a “jagged frontier,” where it can boost performance on some tasks while quietly making others worse. In a large experiment with consultants at Boston Consulting Group, people using GPT-4 worked faster and produced better results on many tasks, but were significantly more likely to get complex problems wrong, revealing both the power and hidden risks of relying on AI at work.
The Refugee Journey: An Exploration of the Role of Organizations and Psychological Processes by Aida Hajro, Milda Žilinskaitė, Cristina B. Gibson
Refugee migration doesn’t end at the border; instead, it is a long journey shaped at every stage by the organizations people encounter, from governments to employers. This research shows how those experiences can leave lasting psychological imprints—both trauma and growth—that ripple across generations, ultimately shaping not just refugees’ lives but the social and economic fabric of entire societies.
VRscores: A New Measure and Data Set of Workforce Politics Using Voter Registrations by Max Kagan, Justin Frake, Reuben Hurst
This paper introduces VRscores, a new way to measure political leanings in the workplace by linking voter registration data to millions of employee profiles across U.S. organizations. Covering over 24 million workers, it offers a far more complete and representative picture than traditional donation-based measures and reveals that many companies look politically very different depending on how you measure them.
The Elephant and Donkey in the Room: Time-Varying Effects of Political Dissimilarity on Social Interactions at Work During U.S. Elections by Max Reinwald, Rouven Kanitz, Peter Bamberger, Julia Backmann, Martin Hoegl
Political differences at work don’t always cause conflict—but they can flare up at key moments. Across multiple studies around U.S. elections, this research shows that political polarization becomes especially disruptive during and after major political events, when people are less empathetic and more likely to clash with colleagues who think differently.
Meritocracy in tech isn’t as straightforward as it seems. This study shows that aspiring developers without computer science degrees interpret “what it takes to succeed” very differently, and those perceptions, shaped by past experiences with employers, lead many to choose strategies that actually limit their chances, reinforcing inequality even in an industry that prides itself on openness.
Knowing Enough to Be Dangerous: The Problem of “Artificial Certainty” for Expert Authority When Using AI for Decision Making and Planning by Paul M. Leonardi, Virginia Leavell
AI can make the future look more certain than it really is. This study shows how experts using advanced simulations can unintentionally create an illusion of “artificial certainty,” where highly realistic outputs are mistaken for truth—unless they actively shape how those results are presented and interpreted to preserve the uncertainty needed for better decision-making.
Unintended Consequences of Closing Pay Gaps Across Multiple Groups: A Formal Modeling and Simulation Analysis of Allocation Methods by David Anderson, Margrét V. Bjarnadóttir, David Gaddis Ross
Efforts to close pay gaps can have unintended consequences. This study shows that when firms focus on minimizing the cost of pay equity, they may end up rewarding a small number of minority women while leaving broader inequalities untouched, highlighting how well-intentioned policies can backfire without a more holistic approach to fairness.
Unsettling Settled Knowing: Reconciling Differences in Expert Practice by Karla Sayegh, Ann Langley, Samer Faraj
When experts from different teams are brought together, the biggest challenge is how they think about doing the work. This study shows that even highly trained professionals can struggle to align their practices, and that real integration only happens when groups agree on what kind of knowledge matters, often sparked by newcomers who expose hidden inconsistencies.
Seeing Both Sides: How Shared Experience Can Improve Entrepreneur Evaluations of Investors Through Perceived Empathy by Dana Kanze
Venture funding is a two-way match shaped by human connection. This research shows that entrepreneurs are more likely to trust and favor investors who have been entrepreneurs themselves, because shared experience builds empathy. This represents an advantage that remains unevenly distributed, as fewer women make the transition into investing.
Tight, Loose, or Denied Holding: How Interpersonal Holding Shapes Innovators’ Responses to Innovation Obstacles by Luke N. Hedden, Beth S. Schinoff, Ned Wellman, Rebecca Blanchard
Innovating requires persistence through distressing obstacles and failures. This study shows that how colleagues respond to someone’s frustration or failure can shape whether they keep pushing forward or give up, revealing that support at work comes in very different forms, and not all of them help innovators succeed.
The Failure to Recognize Anti-Asian Discrimination by Sora Jun, Junfeng Wu, Dejun Tony Kong
Anti-Asian workplace discrimination is often overlooked—not because it doesn’t happen, but because people are less likely to recognize it as discrimination. This research shows that Asian Americans are seen as less “typical” targets of racism, which makes incidents easier to dismiss and helps explain why discrimination is so often underreported and unaddressed.
Teams in Crisis: The Effect of Team Familiarity on Performance Under Conditions of Crisis and Uncertainty by Alexandra Bray, Rohit B. Sangal, Marissa D. King
Teams that know each other well tend to work faster, but that advantage has limits. This study shows that while familiarity helps teams respond more quickly, especially in crises, its benefits weaken in highly uncertain situations, where past experience alone isn’t enough to guide good decisions.
When a Star Shines Too Bright: The Impact of a High-Status Minority Member on Pursuing Diversity Goals by Julia D. Hur, Jun J. Lin
Having a standout minority “star” in an organization can have an unintended downside. This research shows that when a high-status minority member is already present, decision-makers may feel less pressure to improve diversity, leading to fewer efforts to bring in additional minority candidates.
Full of It: Strategic Lying, Epistemic Conflict, and Issue Field Polarization by Lee C. Jarvis, Elizabeth Goodrick, Bryant Ashley Hudson
Lying can be a deliberate strategy to reshape how society thinks and acts. This research shows how “strategic lies” can spark conflicts over what counts as truth, fueling polarization and destabilizing established norms, especially as media amplify and frame these disputes.
Putting Climate into Context: How Culture and Composition Shape the Effects of Diversity Climate by Alison V. Hall, Derek R. Avery, Michele J. Gelfand, Patrick F. McKay
Creating a strong diversity climate can improve performance by making employees more consistently committed to their work. This study shows that organizations get the biggest payoff when that internal culture aligns with both their workforce makeup and the broader cultural environment they operate in.
Race, Sexual Orientation, and Intersectionality in Distributive Negotiation Outcomes for Men by Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios, Julian J. Zlatev
Who you are can shape how others treat you in negotiations and whether you negotiate at all. This study shows that biases tied to race and sexual orientation affect who gets responses and how respectfully they’re treated, with those experiences ultimately influencing people’s willingness to negotiate in the future.
Revolutionary Sparks: Exploring the Resource Spillover Effect of Street Protests on Entrepreneurship by Jeremy Lei Xu, Milo Shaoqing Wang, Shon R. Hiatt, Haemin Dennis Park
Street protests can unlock resources for businesses. This study shows that in developing economies like China, local officials often respond to protests by improving economic conditions, indirectly lowering costs and boosting access to capital for new ventures.
Although it’s hard to beat the scent of lilacs.
I’m eternally irritated that em-dashes have become a tell of AI writing, since I have a long history of over-using them. Hopefully this doesn’t indicate that an AI agents were trained on my papers. God help us if that’s true.
For our doctoral student readers, a press is something we used to produce articles with while we gnawed on mastodon steaks.
More on this artificial certainty from the AI task force in a couple of weeks.