About

Turanay Caner is an associate professor of strategic management at the NC State Poole College of Management. Her research focuses on problem-solving at both firm and individual levels, performance feedback and strategic actions, characteristics of strategic alliances, firm knowledge portfolios, and invention and new product innovation. She has published her work in reputable journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Journal of Engineering and Technology Management. Additionally, Turanay serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management Studies, American Journal of Business, and Review of Business: Interdisciplinary Journal on Risk and Society. She teaches strategic management courses in undergraduate and MBA programs and has also contributed to the Executive in Residence Program at St. John’s University, where she provided joint business consulting to companies and nonprofit organizations in New York City. Prior to earning her doctorate, she gained industry experience in the financial services and electronics sectors in the U.S. and Turkey.

Research topics

• Social Science
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Business
• Political Science
• Economics
• Knowledge management
• Engineering
• Microeconomics
• Engineering ethics
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Management science

Selected publications

• Routines of Resilience: How Organizational Routines Shape Enterprise Response to Societal Disruptions

  Administrative Sciences · 2026-02-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this study, we adopt the lens of routines, a core construct in the theory of organizations through which to view how enterprises respond to societal disruptions. Organizational routines refer to the established, repetitive patterns of activity performed by groups and individuals within an organization. Examples include standard operating procedures, patterns of communication and coordination, and distinctive decision protocols. Informed by the lens of routines, we investigate a significant adaptation triggered by the global COVID-19 pandemic, arguably one of the most consequential disruptions in the recent past: hybrid work. We propose that hybrid work—where employees alternate between remote and in-person work arrangements—represents a fundamental transformation in organizational work routines. Simultaneously, however, there is significant variation in its retention—some firms institutionalized hybrid work as a durable routine, while others reverted to pre-pandemic, on-site models. To investigate this variation, we adopted an empirically grounded quantitative discovery approach—specifically, an abductive design using archival data—to examine how organizational work routines change and persist in response to external events. We suggest that the persistence of new routines that emerge in response to societal disruptions is shaped by internal organizational characteristics, especially the information processing capacities that shape how firms interpret and respond to external events.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Getting Published in, and Reviewing for, <i>Group &amp; Organization Management</i>

  Group & Organization Management · 2026-02-05

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Supply Management Criteria to Reassess if Suppliers Are Strategic: An Engaged Scholarship Approach

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article

  Based on engaged scholarship, this study empirically advances our understanding of the weighting of decision criteria used by procurement executives to assess strategic suppliers’ on-going attractiveness in practice, and the extent to which the decision criteria that they apply are consistent with three theoretical perspectives: transaction cost economics, capability theory, and social capital theory. Using a policy-capturing technique, we examine the relative weights placed on decision criteria that significantly explain and predict when suppliers are reassessed as attractive strategic suppliers. We find empirical evidence that all three theoretical perspectives significantly contribute to executives’ reassessments of strategic supplier attractiveness. By employing engaged scholarship methods involving academics and practitioners applying multiple theoretical perspectives, we illustrate how knowledge can be developed, addressing the dual hurdles of relevance and rigor for theory and practice.

  PublisherDOI

• The Future of Sustainable Employment: New Contexts, New Challenges

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article

  The nature of work has undergone significant transformation over the past decade, shaped by technological advancements, shifting societal values, and the global disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. These forces have introduced remote and hybrid work models, altered organizational routines, and prompted critical discussions about the sustainability of these changes. This symposium examines the evolving landscape of work, focusing on the future of sustainable employment practices. Key themes include the integration of social equity and employee well-being into the broader sustainability agenda, exploring how organizations balance economic objectives with ethical considerations and job stability, the long-term implications of remote and hybrid work, the changing of organizational routines during societal disruptions (such as COVID-19), and the concept of 'flexpertise' as a framework for understanding how workers can adapt to dynamic expertise demands while achieving positive outcomes for themselves and their organizations. Exploring Sustainable Employment: The Intersection of People, Policies, and Organizational Dynamics Author: Johannes Marcelus Kraak; KEDGE Business School Crisis, Sustainable Employment, and the (In)equitable Future of Work Author: Layla Jayne Branicki; Author: Senia Kalfa; Macquarie University Author: Stephen Brammer; University of Bath Identifying and Measuring Work Values for Embedding Remote Work in Return to Work Trajectories Author: Elizabeth Beekman; Radboud University Nijmegen Author: Hannah Katharina Peetz; University of East Anglia Author: Brigitte Claessens; Radboud University Nijmegen Author: ; Author: Debby Beckers; Radboud University Nijmegen Routines of Resilience: How organization routines shape enterprise response to societal disruptions Author: Turanay Caner; North Carolina State University Author: Ravindranath Madhavan; University of Pittsburgh A system dynamics approach to the processes by which adaptive leaders promote career sustainability Author: Lonneke Frie; Radboud University Nijmegen Author: Marieke Gombault; The Hague University of Applied Sciences Author: Dulci Altorf; The Hague University of Applied Sciences Author: Beatrice Isabella Johanna Maria Van Der Heijden; Radboud University Nijmegen

  PublisherDOI

• What Comes After Black Swans and Gray Rhinos? An Organizational Perspective of Disruption

  Group & Organization Management · 2023-09-12 · 2 citations

  article1st author

  The interface between organizations and their environments greatly interests organizational scholars. A key research stream—how changes in the external environment produce changes within organizations—is especially relevant in today’s turbulent economic and political context. We develop a theoretical model that considers external events and organizational routine changes as key components of disruption. We first draw on event system theory to derive and describe the external event dimensions of magnitude, coupling, clustering, and space, presented in a circumplex model. Then, we use an information-processing lens to theorize how those dimensions directly and contingently influence organizational routine change. We discuss our model’s implications for the effective management of organizations amid constant disruption.

  PublisherDOI

• Interdisciplinary Problem Solving in Hybrid Organizations: The Implications of Scientific Reputation and Disciplinary Knowledge Diversity

  IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management · 2023 · 4 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Sociology
  • Knowledge management

  This research extends the problem-solving perspective of the knowledge-based view by examining the interdisciplinary publication outcomes of individual scientists in hybrid organizations. Whereas prior literature has focused on problem-solving activities in hierarchies (firms), hybrid organizations, including federally funded research programs involving interdisciplinary science, have emerged to address societal issues ranging from public health to climate change. To understand what might contribute to scientists’ performance in such hybrid settings, in this article, we theorize and empirically examine how scientists’ overall scientific reputation and their access to and familiarity with various disciplinary knowledge domains influence their publication output in interdisciplinary journals. We focus specifically on 169 researchers in the eight Nanomedicine Development Centers funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Our analysis reveals that scientists’ scientific reputation is positively related to their subsequent number of publications in interdisciplinary journals. However, scientists’ disciplinary knowledge diversity has a more nuanced association with their number of interdisciplinary publications, contributing more when moderate than when high or low. These findings will help hybrid organizations such as universities and research institutes understand how individual attributes contribute to interdisciplinary research.

  PublisherDOI

• The Economic Sentiment, Performance Relative to Aspirations, and Firms’ Acquisition Behavior

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Economics
  • Microeconomics

  Prior management literature based on the behavioral theory of the firm has not yet examined the relationship between positive economic sentiment and firms’ acquisition behavior. Furthermore, it has not revealed how performance relative to aspirations –both positive and negative- moderate this relationship. Drawing on behavioral research from economics, finance, and management, we propose that increases in positive economic sentiment increase firms’ acquisitions by containing relevant domain information on the increasing favorability of the economic conditions for making acquisitions, providing firms with external information that complements the internal information they use to make acquisition decisions, and revealing to them external collective wisdom regarding the markets’ disposition toward acquisitions. We also posit that the effect of positive economic sentiment on firms’ acquisition behavior is contingent on firms’ performance relative to their aspirations. We find evidence to support most of our hypotheses by studying 1,148 firms in 253 industries with 13,192 acquisitions during the 1980 to 2015 period. We contribute to the behavioral management literature by showing that positive economic sentiment is a predictor of firms’ acquisition behavior and that firms’ performance relative to aspirations is an important boundary condition in this relationship.

  PublisherDOI

• Drivers of Firms’ Risk Taking Behavior

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2021-07-26

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Risk-taking and behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) research have not considered how positive economic sentiment influences firms’ risk taking or how it moderates the performance feedback-risk taking relationship. Advocating scope acquisitions constitute evidence of firms’ risk taking behavior, we develop theory that posits positive economic sentiment directly affects the number of scope acquisitions firms make, and moderates the relationship between firms’ performance feedback and their scope acquisitions. Using data from the US economic sentiment index and 635 firms in 154 industries making 6,216 scope acquisitions between 1980 and 2015, we find support for our hypotheses. We contribute to the literature by recognizing positive economic sentiment as a boundary condition that influences firms’ risk taking behavior in studies of behavioral theory of the firm

  PublisherDOI

• Interdisciplinary R&amp;D Performance: The Role of Knowledge Variety, Dissimilarity &amp; Complementarities

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  As the technological underpinnings of many industrial sectors have advanced, R&D programs targeting “frontier science” often require collaboration across scientific disciplines. This research considers how experience with interdisciplinary R&D can enhance a scientist’s publication performance. We draw on the theoretical grounding of complementarities to understand the payoffs to interdisciplinary collaboration. In the research stage, we anticipate complementarities to arise from the interactions of multiple disciplines to broaden the opportunity set of possible scientific outcomes. In the development stage, interdependencies across disciplines are assumed to be the basis of the relevant complementarities. In both stages, because of the presence of these complementarities, we expect scientists to exhibit an “impassioned commitment” to their R&D projects, which in turn, increases their productivity including their publication count. By assessing the publication performance of 169 scientists who participated in a government-funded interdisciplinary research program in nanomedicine, we find their knowledge variety as well as the dissimilarity of their knowledge when compared to their collaborators are positively associated with their publication performance. We consider knowledge variety and dissimilarity as critical antecedents to interdisciplinary R&D. We hope that funding agencies can apply lessons from our findings to improve R&D effectiveness when interdisciplinary collaboration is required.

  PublisherDOI

• How CEOs Shape Knowledge Utilization: A Micro-foundation of Organizational Problem Solving Capacity

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2019-08-01

  articleSenior author

  The knowledge-based view contends that firms solve complex problems effectively because they support efficient knowledge transfer and recombination. However, a liability of hierarchy, the tendency within organizations to over-utilize familiar knowledge sources, can compromise the usefulness of firms’ solutions. CEOs are in a position to mitigate this liability, through their influence on knowledge utilization. We theorize that CEOs with business and science occupational backgrounds enact their roles in distinctive ways, as reflects differences in their ontologies, methodologies, and epistemologies. Science CEOs tend to encourage and enable utilization of diverse knowledge from outside the organization, by emphasizing community-specific value concepts as they articulate a firm’s purpose, person-centered notions of expertise as a basis for allocating decision authority, and the capacity of science to reveal objective truths as a reason to collaborate. Business CEOs tend to foster and support the utilization of diverse knowledge from inside the organization, by stressing priorities consistent with firm-specific value concepts, using team-centered notions of expertise to inform decision-making, and motivating collaboration via the need to craft compelling subjective truths. We find evidence consistent with our theory, in the context of large pharmaceutical manufacturers’ drug discovery activities.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Beverly B. Tyler

  Virginia Tech

  8 shared

• Susan K. Cohen

  University of Pittsburgh

  6 shared

• John E. Prescott

  University of Pittsburgh

  4 shared

• Griffin M. Weber

  3 shared

• Melissa M. Appleyard

  Portland State University

  3 shared

• J. Bryan Fuller

  2 shared

• Ravi Madhavan

  2 shared

• Kim Hester

  Arkansas State University

  2 shared