International Studies of Management & Organization

Exploring business leader capabilities through the lens of Acceptance, Adaptation, and Advancement

Throughout history, successful leaders have grasped the significance of acknowledging and embracing the realities they confront, whether it's understanding market trends, addressing team dynamics, or optimizing available resources. What separates good leaders from great ones is their ability to adapt these realities through innovative strategies and flexible approaches. True progress can be achieved by continuously pushing the boundaries, embracing new ideas and technologies while still adhering to proven management practices. In a world of constantly shifting business landscapes, these tried-and-true concepts remain steadfast in guiding leaders towards success. This special issue, arising from the 2025 INDAM conference, encourages management scholars to revisit time-tested management concepts through three theoretical lenses: acceptance, adaptation, and advancement, offering new insights into their application.

Indian ancient wisdom finds a particular contemporary significance in the modern global business scenario. In the context of emerging economies, specifically India, extensive research needs to be done to understand how Indian business leaders use these three concepts of acceptance, adaptation, and advancement for sustainable business. This special issue calls for studies conducted in this area either with specific case studies or other methodologies.

Research papers covered under the following topics (but not restricted to these topics alone) are welcome to be submitted for this special issue. 

• How do leaders facilitate innovation in organizations that are not very flexible in terms of change?
• What are the different strategies used by leaders to facilitate organizational learning?
• How do leaders play a role in facilitating knowledge management across the organization?
• What experiences of leaders enable them to accept reality and face challenges?
• How can leaders enable innovation advancements in organizations with digital divide?
• What characteristics (personal/professional) of leaders facilitate acceptance, adaption and advancement?
• Does industry specific experience or multiple industry experience influence a leader’s capability to accept, adapt and advance?
• Does gender have a role to play in these capabilities?

References:

Bock, A. J., Opsahl, T., George, G., & Gann, D. M. (2012). The effects of culture and structure on strategic flexibility during business model innovation. Journal of Management studies, 49(2), 279-305.

Ghorban, R., & Gholipour, K. (2018). Investigating the impact of strategic flexibility on organizational innovation. International Review of Management and Marketing, 8(3), 1.

Jia, R., Hu, W., & Li, S. (2022). Ambidextrous leadership and organizational innovation: The importance of knowledge search and strategic flexibility. Journal of Knowledge Management, 26(3), 781-801.