The three faces of organizational cronyism: a systematic review and configurational typology

Abstract

Abstract Organizational Cronyism (OC) refers to the preferential treatment of individuals based on personal relationships rather than merit and is often considered a harmful form of workplace favouritism. However, existing research presents a more complex and fragmented picture, with OC exerting a differential impact on cronies and non-cronies across different leadership, cultural, organizational and governance contexts. Through a hybrid systematic review and thematic analysis of 61 studies, this paper clarifies how OC has been conceptualized, distinguishes it from adjacent constructs and develops a configurational understanding of its multifaceted nature. The central contribution of the review is a typology that repositions OC from a single phenomenon with mixed effects to a configurational construct with three analytically distinct faces: corrupt favouritism, social capital cronyism and adaptive coping cronyism. This typology demonstrates that OC’s consequences depend on combinations of leadership styles, cultural legitimacy, institutional safeguards, and actors’ positions as cronies or non-cronies. By integrating six themes from the literature, the review highlights how OC can simultaneously operate as a source of injustice, exclusion, and performance loss; as a relational resource that generates trust and coordination; and as a coping mechanism in contexts marked by weak support, uncertainty, or structural disadvantage. This paper contributes to HRM and OB scholarship by sharpening the conceptual boundaries of OC, explaining the conflicting findings in the literature through a configurational lens, and offering a theory-driven agenda for future research on OC as a dynamic, multilevel, and context-sensitive phenomenon.