COVID-19 may not only pose threats but also provided opportunities for innovation and growth for many high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study investigates the relationship between entrepreneurial passion (EP), dynamic capability (DC) for innovation and product innovation performance in SMEs during COVID-19. Hierarchical regression and bootstrapping methods were employed per the survey data of 195 Chinese SMEs. The results reveal that EP is an imperative antecedent of DC and product innovation. DC also positively mediates the relationship between SMEs’ product innovation performance and top managers’ EP. In addition, this mediation effect of DC becomes more pronounced when firms are facing more opportunities. These findings advance the existing literature by specifying the process top managers use to cultivate product innovation within SMEs in times of crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influencing mechanism of shared leadership (SL) on taking charge behavior (TCB) based on cognitive–affective system theory. Specifically, the current study intends to build a model of perceived insider status and emotional intelligence that mediate the relationship between SL and TCB from a dual cognitive–affective perspective. Further, given the nature of SL that develops through social interactions, we propose and examine the moderating role of social media use in the relationship between SL and TCB. We used multilevel and multi-sourced data to test the theoretical model and used a social network approach to measure SL in teams. Our findings provide a significant contribution to the literature in that this paper shows perceived insider status and emotional intelligence as a crucial dual mediating mechanism through which SL influences TCB and affords fresh thoughts for IT-related contextual conditions.

While individuals’ proactive career behaviors (PCBs) are critical to sustainable career outcomes, knowledge of how and when PCBs translate into these outcomes is limited. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory and the socially embedded model of thriving, this study examines the psychological process through which PCBs translate into two sustainable career outcomes (i.e., subjective career success and perceived employability). Based on data collected from 228 participants in a Chinese company, our findings reveal that PCBs positively predict subjective career success and perceived employability by fostering thriving at work. Furthermore, the indirect association between PCBs and perceived employability via thriving at work is strengthened when participants’ perception of humble leadership is high. This study extends our knowledge by identifying a psychological mechanism that explains how employees’ PCBs translate into sustainable career outcomes and enriches our understanding of the boundary conditions of PCBs by identifying humble leadership as an important factor.

Prior studies have treated employees’ remedial voice as a single-stage phenomenon. However, it is problematic because, in reality, employees often respond to mistreatment in a sequence. This paper aims to add new insights by empirically testing a three-stage process model to explain employees’ remedial voice. Also, this study intends to test important factors in the employees’ remedial voice decision-making process. Based on data obtained by surveying 382 Chinese employees, we found that mistreatment severity, mistreatment source, and employees’ external job opportunities are related to employees’ remedial voice. Our data provides support for a three-stage-process model for remedial voice. We contribute to the gaps in the existing research which largely views employees’ remedial voice as a single ‘snapshot.’ The study also deepens understanding of what factors affect employees’ remedial voice.

This paper studies the relationship between slack and research and development (R&D) investment by addressing the role of the founder as the ‘microfoundation’ among Chinese newly listed firms. We propose a contingent approach to understanding the slack-R&D investment relationship by examining the influence of the founder’s human capital and social ties, which is distinguished into political and managerial ties. Our results show that the founder’s human capital, measured by its educational level, strengthens the relationship between absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources and R&D investment. We also find that the founder’s managerial ties strengthen the relationship between resource slack and R&D intensity, whereas political ties weaken that link. Our results demonstrate the founder’s crucial role in underpinning resource utilization in newly listed firms and emphasise the importance of social ties in driving firms’ R&D activities in emerging economies.

This study explores how employees’ flow experience at work emerges, is sustained, and continuously grows over time. Based on the job demand-resource model, we propose the intraday upward spiral of flow: Challenging demands and job resources activate employees’ flow experience, further encouraging them to seek more challenges and resources. Furthermore, drawing on the perseverative cognition theory and spill-crossover model, we propose the inter-day upward spiral of flow: The antecedents (or consequences) of flow can overflow from work to the family domain and result in employees’ positive rumination, thus promoting the next-day flow experience. Our diary study generated 1,208 data points from 142 employees over 10 working days. We found that in the morning, challenging demands and job resources positively affected the participants’ flow, further encouraging them to pursue more challenging demands and job resources in the afternoon and thus enter this state again. Moreover, the afternoon’s challenging demands and job resources promoted the respondents’ problem-solving pondering at night, which further increased their next-morning challenging demands, job resources, and, thus, their flow. Through this study, we expand the emerging literature on positive organizational behavior and provide information for practitioners on how to build and sustain employees’ peak states.

We provide a meta-analytic examination of the CEO overconfidence–firm performance relationship. Our results support a positive relationship between these focal variables. Drawing from trait activation theory and national cultural differences literatures, we find that cross-cultural effects moderate the focal relationship. More specifically, we find that the CEO overconfidence–firm performance relationship is stronger in high assertive, low institutional collectivistic, low in-group collectivistic, high future-oriented, high gender egalitarian, high performance-oriented, low power distance, and low uncertainty avoidance cultures. Consistent with the resource orchestration literature, we also find that entrepreneurial orientation mediates the focal relationship between CEO overconfidence and firm performance. Taken together, our results present a more nuanced picture of the CEO trait–firm performance relationship. In the future, researchers may consider examining additional CEO traits as well as additional contextual factors including internal, as well as environmental, factors.

Although practitioners and scientists agree that user adoption of new technologies is a key success factor in digital transformations, little is known about how specific management factors are related to user behavior. In particular, the temporal nature of digital transformation projects is largely neglected. Therefore, we propose a systematic, theory-based framework for the management of digital adoption (MDA) and derive specific process-oriented hypotheses for content-, process-, and context-related management factors, their relationships to user adoption, and underlying psychological processes (e.g., performance expectancy or social influence). We applied the MDA framework in the context of a large digital transformation project in a logistics company in a two-wave research design. We tested the process-oriented hypotheses based on latent change score analysis among 1,095 users. The results support the assumption that changes in management factors, largely mediated by changes in the psychological processes, lead to changes in user behavior.

Modern challenges require modern solutions. The recent introduction of gamification in businesses’ organisational processes represents a change of route for managerial and accounting practices. In this context, the challenges addressed by the United Nations Agenda 2030 are still marginal and difficult to achieve for many businesses. Following the experience of an innovative small-medium enterprise named ‘AWorld’, this study aims to explore how gamification can be both a tool of contribution and accountability towards sustainable development goals. Specifically, by tracking the progress and offering rewards, gamification can provide a tangible incentive to motivate sustained engagement and behaviour change. A case study has been developed and insights collected and triangulated through an interview with the corporate president. Findings revealed how incorporating gamification in the small- and medium-sized enterprises context is a valuable way to promote sustainable development goals and foster a sense of communal responsibility towards sustainable behaviours among employees and external individuals.

In an era of hypercompetition, research and development (R&D) investments are vital for organizations to stay competitive. This microlevel study draws on dynamic managerial capability (DMC) theory to explore the mechanisms contributing to competitive advantages. It posits that DMCs enhance firm performance by increasing R&D spending, and explores the moderating role of slack resources due to their effect on resource availability. Employing hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping methods on a longitudinal sample comprising 31 German DAX firms, the findings robustly demonstrate that DMCs facilitate firm performance by fostering R&D expenditures and confirm the moderating effect of specific slack resources. However, only internal but not external slack resources amplify the relationship between DMCs and R&D intensity. Overall, this study emphasizes the critical role of managers’ microlevel capabilities in determining firm performance and sheds light on how different slack resources influence the relationships between DMCs, R&D intensity, and firm performance.

Existing studies agree that owner dynamic capabilities are crucial in dynamic environments. Based on a systematic literature review of 44 research with CiteSpace and the content analysis method, this study aims to elucidate the dimensions and key factors of owner dynamic capabilities. Owner dynamic capabilities are studied in the context of a construction project due to their resource-constrained, goal-urgent, and uncertainty characteristics. Cognition capabilities, resilient change management capabilities, integrated organization capabilities, and strategic innovation capabilities are identified as the dimensions. Critical factors have also been analyzed at different levels. This study proposes a discriminatory framework of owner dynamic capabilities that combined organizational ambidexterity and resilience. Moreover, this study contributes to the clarification of the concept of owner dynamic capabilities and the enrichment of their knowledge hierarchy. Practitioners can track the main contradictions that owners are currently facing against the actual situation and seek strategies.

To understand the extent to which employees choose to improvise under authoritarian leadership, we applied social information processing theory to examine the mechanisms and boundary conditions of such leadership’s influence on subordinates’ perceptions of managerial intolerance of errors and their improvisation from the perspective of negative leadership. Data from a multi-wave questionnaire survey of 319 frontline teams analysed using SPSS and Mplus revealed that authoritarian leadership can have an inhibitory effect on subordinates’ improvisation due to perceiving managerial intolerance of errors. Even so, the negative mediating effect is significantly weakened by the moderating effect of a leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship and task complexity. That is, when the level of the LMX relationship or task complexity is high, it mitigates authoritarian leadership’s indirect inhibitory effect on subordinates’ improvisation via their perceptions of management’s intolerance of errors.

While previous research has identified the performance implications of leaders’ positive implicit followership theories (IFTs, i.e., personal expectations regarding followers’ positive characteristics), this study focuses on the effect of leader–follower congruence in positive IFTs on followers’ job performance. To test our predictions, we conducted two complementary studies. The results of Study 1 (an experiment, N = 200) show that leader–follower congruence (versus incongruence) in positive IFTs is positively related to followers’ relational identification with the leader, which, in turn, is positively related to followers’ job performance. Moreover, followers’ uncertainty avoidance strengthens this relationship. These findings were replicated in Study 2 (a three-wave survey, N = 223) through polynomial regression and response surface analysis. This study improves our understanding of IFTs by showing that leader–follower congruence in this domain is related to followers’ outcomes.

This article draws on status characteristics theory to explore the mechanisms of individual-level boundary-spanning behavior on employee creative performance, as well as the mediating role of informal status and the moderating role of Zhongyong thinking. The results of a two-wave questionnaire survey of 202 employees show that boundary-spanning behavior has a significant positive relationship with employees’ creative performance, informal status mediates the link between boundary-spanning behavior and creative performance of this employee, Zhongyong thinking plays a moderating role between employees’ boundary-spanning behavior and their informal status, and Zhongyong thinking also moderates the mediating role of informal status between boundary-spanning behavior and employee creative performance. In this paper, a moderated mediation model is established to enhance the understanding of the effects and mechanisms of individual boundary-spanning behavior, as well as to provide some constructive insight into how boundary-spanning behavior can be effectively employed in management practice within the Chinese context.

Grounded in the organizational legitimacy perspective, this study examines the influence of formal institutional distance (FID) on the entry mode choice of Japanese cross-border acquirers. By disaggregating the FID variable using the Worldwide Governance Indicators, we provide a nuanced understanding of the relationship between FID dimensions and acquisition behavior. We find that out of the six disaggregated FID measures, three dimensions significantly impact acquisition decisions. Specifically, FID related to ‘regulatory quality’ and ‘control of corruption’ negatively affects the likelihood of full acquisitions, while FID related to the ‘rule of law’ positively influences full acquisitions. Our findings challenge the use of aggregated measures and highlight the importance of considering institutional variations. Japanese acquirers demonstrate a preference for higher control in uncertain legal environments. This study contributes to the literature by offering insights into the specific FID dimensions that drive the choice between partial and full acquisitions for Japanese firms.

Previous research has primarily focused on the impact of basic psychological needs frustration on parenting styles and its effect on children. However, there is a lack of research on the impact of basic psychological needs frustration in mothers, particularly those who work full time. To fill the gap, this study explores how frustration of needs experienced by full-time working mothers in the family context relates to their experience of maternal stress and family-to-work conflict and the moderating role of financial motivation to work. In a three-wave study of 168 full-time working mothers, we discovered a positive correlation between basic psychological needs frustration and maternal stress, which in turn led to family-to-work conflict. These relationships were more pronounced among mothers with lower financial motivation to work, as opposed to those with higher. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research and suggesting areas for future study.

Research on interorganisational collaboration is longstanding however the role leadership plays in such collaborations is often neglected. Using grounded theory, we present a process model of ‘leadership by cavea’ whereby the relationships across organisations involved in a collaborative project were structured according to hierarchies of privilege, determined by the inherent power of ‘bonding’ social capital. While it emerged that cultural capital was a more valuable resource, this was recognised too late in the leadership process for it to make a necessary contribution. Our findings demonstrate that when seeking to practice collaborative leadership across organisations, individuals and the organisations they represent must be aware of the power they hold and wield, even needing to share or relinquish power to ensure that hierarchies of privilege do not hinder efforts to achieve mutual goals.

This study examines research performance indicators and builds a structural overview of topics related to cultural differences in global virtual teams (GVT) in the period 2000-2020. A bibliometric analysis of 151 academic articles on the topic of cultural differences in GVTs, retrieved from Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases, was applied with the Bibliometrix package in R. The analyses reveal findings regarding the cultural differences in GVTs research, in particular, the most valuable sources, prolific authors, the geography of the research, as well as main scientific articles. The main research themes and their evolution were determined, as well as potential research directions. According to the revealed most relevant themes, the trend of the stream of research is heading towards individual dimensions of the topic, indicating a moved research focus from the organizational level of management and psychology to the individual one.

This research uses signaling theory to combine the perspective of investment results with existing venture capital (VC) standards and reexamines the factors that influence the attractiveness of innovative internet tech startups to VC from the perspective of equal opportunity startups. Taking the financing status of 310 startups in China's sharing economy as an example and using regression analysis, we empirically test the influence of entrepreneur and firm characteristics on attracting VC. Our results show that among founder characteristics, the entrepreneur's entrepreneurial experience alone is insufficient to attract VC. Industrial experience and political background have a positive influence on attracting VC. Among firm characteristics, market-entry order and business group (BG) affiliation positively influence attracting VC. This is a new and relevant discovery. In the Chinese market, investors are more inclined to provide financial support to entrepreneurs or startups that have already gained legitimacy from the government or business groups.