Papers by Linda Jakob Sadeh
Conflict Resolution Quarterly , 2024
We live in an era dominated by political fervor, escalating social divisions, and increasing pola... more We live in an era dominated by political fervor, escalating social divisions, and increasing polarization, posing challenges to diverse organizations. In this paper, I delve into the impact of mega‐threats—external societal events with wide media coverage that evoke intense negative emotions—on organizations promoting diversity and inclusion. I explore how organizations can sustain resilience, acting as safe spaces where individuals from diverse identities and ideological perspectives feel a sense of belonging and can maintain their unique voice. Drawing on a 15‐month ethnographic study of an organization navigating the protracted national conflict between Palestinians and Jews, I uncover a two‐pronged organizational strategy. This strategy, balancing demographic representation with a commitment to avoiding the national conflict and maintaining neutrality, successfully preserves diversity, as well as crucial elements of inclusion, such as employees' sense of security and, at times, belonging. However, it falls short in cultivating resilience in the voice component, potentially leading to lower well‐being, increased avoidant work behaviors, and compromises in organizational cohesion. Avoidance also compromises organizational learning, preventing the development of capacities to address potential threats. The research contributes to the knowledge on organizational resilience in the face of mega‐threats, urging organizations to move beyond harmony‐focused approaches and address conflicts proactively for sustained diversity and inclusion.
Organizational Research Methods, Apr 22, 2024
This article proposes a framework for reflexive choice in qualitative research, centering on soci... more This article proposes a framework for reflexive choice in qualitative research, centering on social interaction. Interaction, fundamental to social and organizational life, has been studied extensively. Yet, researchers can get lost in the plethora of methodological tools, hampering reflexive choice. Our proposed framework consists of four dimensions of interaction (content, communication patterns, emotions, and roles), intersecting with five levels of analysis (individual, dyadic, group, organizational, and sociocultural), as well as three overarching analytic principles (following the dynamic, consequential, and contextual nature of interaction). For each intersection between dimension and level, we specify analytical questions, empirical markers, and references to exemplary works. The framework functions both as a compass, indicating potential directions for research design and data collection methods, and as a roadmap, illuminating pathways at the analysis stage. Our contributions are twofold: First, our framework fleshes out the broad spectrum of available methods for analyzing interaction, providing pragmatic tools for the researcher to reflexively choose from. Second, we highlight the broader relevance of maps, such as our own, for enhancing reflexive methodological choices.
Proceedings - Academy of Management, Aug 1, 2024
De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 31, 2023
Journal of Management
Although diversity initiatives are considered prominent vessels for addressing inequality and des... more Although diversity initiatives are considered prominent vessels for addressing inequality and despite massive investments in them, inequality inside organizations persists. Assessments of diversity initiatives often center on economic inequality and view organizations as closed systems to explain why they fail. Building on a 19-month field-level ethnography of the diversity field in Israel targeting Palestinian employment, we examine political inequality and show how it is perpetuated even as economic inequality is dealt with. Our findings reveal that the field is complicit in creating a chasm between the economic and political spheres by positioning diversity initiatives as a means to tackle economic inequality. The field’s infrastructure and dominant discourse reinforce this chasm and thereby make political inequality invisible, generating false consciousness. Our study challenges the preoccupation of diversity scholarship with universal best practices, suggests avenues for assess...
Journal Of Management , 2023
Although diversity initiatives are considered prominent vessels for addressing inequality and des... more Although diversity initiatives are considered prominent vessels for addressing inequality and despite massive investments in them, inequality inside organizations persists. Assessments of diversity initiatives often center on economic inequality and view organizations as closed systems to explain why they fail. Building on a 19-month field-level ethnography of the diversity field in Israel targeting Palestinian employment, we examine political inequality and show how it is perpetuated even as economic inequality is dealt with. Our findings reveal that the field is complicit in creating a chasm between the economic and political spheres by positioning diversity initiatives as a means to tackle economic inequality. The field's infrastructure and dominant discourse reinforce this chasm and thereby make political inequality invisible, generating false consciousness. Our study challenges the preoccupation of diversity scholarship with universal best practices, suggests avenues for assessing and managing diversity initiatives while taking stock of political inequality, and directs future research to delve into the relationship between the economic and the political in organizations and our societies.
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015
Organizations are embedded within multiple environments, and thus are confronted with multiple, a... more Organizations are embedded within multiple environments, and thus are confronted with multiple, at times contradicting logics. Complying with one might require the violation of another. Although this is prevalent, very little is known about the ways organizations respond and cope with such tensions at the intra-organizational level of inquiry. While many claim to be studying institutional complexity on the organizational level, they usually center on individuals or on the organization-within-the-field, neglecting intra- organizational dynamics. The proposed symposium consists of five empirical papers that explore how organizations respond to institutional complexity from within, examining these responses through various lenses, including [1] organizational practices, [2] organizational members' identification (subjectification), [3] decision making, and [4] emotional processes. Following the presentation, Anne-Claire Pache, a major contributor to the study of organizational complexity at the intra-organiz...
De Gruyter, 2023
What type of intergroup contact should be pursued to fulfill the promise of workplaces as peacebu... more What type of intergroup contact should be pursued to fulfill the promise of workplaces as peacebuilding spaces, where ongoing contact between groups in conflict lead to changes in attitudes, emotions and power-relations? Answering this question, I build on two separate studies: a 15-month-ethnography in an organization that applies the Joint-Projects Model and an interview-based research, in a work context that applies the Confrontation Model. I found that contact based on the Joint-Projects Model allowed for a harmonious encounter between the sides most of the time, blurring national boundaries, yet maintaining societal power-relations and negative, concealed emotions that erupted in political or violent times. Contact based on the confrontation model has changed members' worldviews and perceptions yet reproduced the discourse of conflict and hindered work-relationships, making its adoption by other work organizations less likely. I discuss the implications of these findings for practitioners and future research.
Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2022
The polarization between wealth and poverty around the world often intersects with the polarizati... more The polarization between wealth and poverty around the world often intersects with the polarization between hegemonic and excluded societies. The hi-tech sector, which may serve as a gateway to social and economic mobility, reflects the same polarization, with immigrants, native populations, and other minorities lacking access to participate in it.
The common methodologies for integrating excluded communities into the hi-tech industry are based either on training, or on diversity and inclusion practices. Despite these efforts, and small-scale success stories, the barriers for integrating excluded communities into hi-tech remain high.
In this article we introduce an innovative model aimed at generating mass participation of excluded communities in hi-tech, which may be implemented in various contexts in the world. The Archemidian point of the model is that the technology industry can be a driving force for inclusion if we turn the inclusion paradigm on its head: bringing the hegemonic industry to the excluded community rather than trying to bring the excluded community to the industry, while cultivating a supportive environment for both potential candidates and firms. We elaborate on the model's four major components and on examples from organizations that implement them. We also illustrate a holistic implementation of the model, which has ignited changes in employment patterns of an excluded community (Palestinian citizens of Israel) in the (Israeli Jewish) hegemonic high-tech industry.
Obviously, Tech Inclusion alone cannot transform societies. Problems of inequality and exclusion demand systemic solutions that go beyond the model. However, in places with prosperous tech industries, the Tech Inclusion model allows for more populations to share the wealth that these industries render. It offers a way to work against the growing gap between the paralyzing poverty of excluded communities, and the phenomenal wealth that tech industries generate.
Academy of Management Journal
The theoretical puzzle of how organizations deal with contradicting logics has been extensively i... more The theoretical puzzle of how organizations deal with contradicting logics has been extensively investigated during the past two decades. This stream of research has focused on the cognitive, but h...
Academy of Management Journal, 2019
The theoretical puzzle of how organizations deal with contradicting logics has been extensively i... more The theoretical puzzle of how organizations deal with contradicting logics has been extensively investigated during the past two decades. This stream of research has fo-cused on the cognitive, but has overlooked emotions and power, which are fundamental to the lived experience of logics, and to their constitution. Drawing on a 15-month ethnography of "Together," a Jewish-Palestinian organization in a mixed city in Israel, we explore how the organization succeeds in challenging societal dominant notions of ethno-nationalism by stimulating universalistic notions, and how it occasionally fails to do so, as ethno-nationalism creeps in. Our findings indicate that emotional control allows organizations to deal with contradictory logics and achieve their desired constellation , while unbidden emotions disrupt local efforts and enable changes in desired constellations of logics. Further, systemic power mediates the very experience of logics and the prospects of changing their constellation: Social asymmetry necessitates harder emotion work on behalf of the underprivileged, differentiating their experience of logics, and limiting the extent to which emotional eruption is a viable option. Thus, our study highlights the intersection of logics, emotions, and power, and how logics are managed and failed to be managed.
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Papers by Linda Jakob Sadeh
The common methodologies for integrating excluded communities into the hi-tech industry are based either on training, or on diversity and inclusion practices. Despite these efforts, and small-scale success stories, the barriers for integrating excluded communities into hi-tech remain high.
In this article we introduce an innovative model aimed at generating mass participation of excluded communities in hi-tech, which may be implemented in various contexts in the world. The Archemidian point of the model is that the technology industry can be a driving force for inclusion if we turn the inclusion paradigm on its head: bringing the hegemonic industry to the excluded community rather than trying to bring the excluded community to the industry, while cultivating a supportive environment for both potential candidates and firms. We elaborate on the model's four major components and on examples from organizations that implement them. We also illustrate a holistic implementation of the model, which has ignited changes in employment patterns of an excluded community (Palestinian citizens of Israel) in the (Israeli Jewish) hegemonic high-tech industry.
Obviously, Tech Inclusion alone cannot transform societies. Problems of inequality and exclusion demand systemic solutions that go beyond the model. However, in places with prosperous tech industries, the Tech Inclusion model allows for more populations to share the wealth that these industries render. It offers a way to work against the growing gap between the paralyzing poverty of excluded communities, and the phenomenal wealth that tech industries generate.
The common methodologies for integrating excluded communities into the hi-tech industry are based either on training, or on diversity and inclusion practices. Despite these efforts, and small-scale success stories, the barriers for integrating excluded communities into hi-tech remain high.
In this article we introduce an innovative model aimed at generating mass participation of excluded communities in hi-tech, which may be implemented in various contexts in the world. The Archemidian point of the model is that the technology industry can be a driving force for inclusion if we turn the inclusion paradigm on its head: bringing the hegemonic industry to the excluded community rather than trying to bring the excluded community to the industry, while cultivating a supportive environment for both potential candidates and firms. We elaborate on the model's four major components and on examples from organizations that implement them. We also illustrate a holistic implementation of the model, which has ignited changes in employment patterns of an excluded community (Palestinian citizens of Israel) in the (Israeli Jewish) hegemonic high-tech industry.
Obviously, Tech Inclusion alone cannot transform societies. Problems of inequality and exclusion demand systemic solutions that go beyond the model. However, in places with prosperous tech industries, the Tech Inclusion model allows for more populations to share the wealth that these industries render. It offers a way to work against the growing gap between the paralyzing poverty of excluded communities, and the phenomenal wealth that tech industries generate.