Why are some work teams happier and more productive than others? Because their members agree to interact in ways that promote well-being in themselves and others, says James Ritchie-Dunham, clinical associate professor of strategy at Texas McCombs.

Ritchie-Dunham is co-lead of the Leadership for Flourishing project, an ongoing study of well-being in the workplace across 59 countries, and a lead author for the Global Flourishing Study, an interdisciplinary, five-year initiative to survey over 200,000 people across 22 countries and 1 territory on six continents. The study is now gathering a third wave of data. Nature Portfolio published dozens of papers on the first wave in April.

Based on the first two data sets, Ritchie-Dunham discusses what flourishing looks like on the job and what managers can do to foster it.

In markets where producers drive the creative process, high-status producers can opt for more radical changes for their artists’ image, whereas middle-status producers are likely to shift their artists’ image to follow popular categories. The new research, published in Strategic Management Journal, uses Korean pop music — or K-pop — to demonstrate how the status of entertainment agencies affects how idol groups shift categories, an effect that is also limited by the artists’ gender.

The research — from Heeyon Kim of Cornell University, Yoonjeoung Heo of Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, and Chi-Nien Chung of Hong Kong Polytechnic University — expanded on prior studies that explored the limitations of category shifting for artists. Instead, the team considered how, when social actors shift categories over time, they develop multifaceted identities, which can offer substantial advantages to the artist.