Through the use of a narrative-interview approach and contingency theory as research methods, this study explores the teleworking behaviors of N = 41 public managers when remotely managing and leading their organizations as virtual bureaucracies during the Covid-19 lockdown. Its findings suggest that their role set was underscored by communal and supervisory tasks. Managers were confronted with environmental challenges of emotional nature (e.g., anxieties). But they also associated teleworking with improving their work-life balance and staffing work process. Simply put, teleworking was perceived with having both positive and negative organizational outcomes. Drawing from the implications of these findings, this study proposes recommendations for future research.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019)-induced changes in the workplace present a timely opportunity for human resource management practitioners to consider and remediate the deleterious effects of noise, a commonly cited complaint of employees working in open-plan office (OPO) environments. While self-reports suggest that OPO noise is perceived as a stressor, there is little experimental research comprehensively investigating the effects of noise on employees in terms of their cognitive performance, physiological indicators of stress, and affect. Employing a simulated office setting, we compared the effects of a typical OPO auditory environment to a quieter private office auditory environment on a range of objective and subjective measures of well-being and performance. While OPO noise did not reduce immediate cognitive task performance compared to the quieter environment, it did reduce psychological well-being as evidenced by self-reports of mood, facial expressions of emotion, and physiological indicators of stress in the form of heartrate and skin conductivity. Our research highlights the importance of using a multimodal approach to assess the impact of workplace stressors such as noise. Such an approach will allow HR practitioners to make data-driven recommendations about the design and modification of workspaces to minimize negative effects and support employee well-being.

Resistance to organizational change has too often been portrayed in a limited way, usually as a negative behavioural response of first-level employees. While the academic literature has identified a number of dimensions of resistance, it has not assembled them in one study. Therefore, the aims of this article are firstly to explore resistance to change as a more complex multi-dimensional concept, secondly to examine how actors at various hierarchical levels react to organizational change and thirdly how they construct the meaning of the term resistance. The findings of a qualitative study shed considerable light on the range of ways in which change participants at different levels reacted to a change and how they interpreted their own responses and those of others.

In business the future is not predetermined, and the unexpected often happens. So how should entrepreneurs (and businesses) try to address that future uncertainty? This paper suggests that there are two main options:

1. 1. The often-preferred approach seeks to reduce uncertainty by forecasting and planning, using ‘left-brained’ logic and analysis.

2. 2. The alternative way seeks to live with, and to benefit from, uncertainty by using ideas derived from exploration, effectuation, antifragility and ‘trial and error’.

This paper compares the two approaches and considers their rationales and potential effectiveness. It suggests that forecasting and planning has many drawbacks and is often not the best way to operate in uncertain conditions. Nevertheless, it is often advocated and its thinking seems to have been adopted as the default philosophy for business. Therefore if, as has been suggested, uncertainty is the norm, do we need to advocate adopting a different way of thinking?

As a transformative service, aged care has the capacity to create uplifting changes and improvements to the quality of life for individuals and communities. Recent studies have, however, highlighted the pressures faced by aged care workers and the impact that these pressures have on employee wellbeing and quality of care. This paper explores the relationship between employee wellbeing and service quality. We present a model for the aged care sector which suggests that by identifying and implementing appropriate HRM strategies both employee wellbeing and service quality will be enhanced thus ensuring that this transformative service meets the needs of its many stakeholders. Essentially, we argue that employee wellbeing is directly linked to service delivery outcomes and overall business performance and that HR practices that address issues such as learning and development, employee voice and involvement and workplace health and safety play a significant role in enhancing and maintaining employee wellbeing.

This work aims to determine whether family firms have differential characteristics that make them better incubators for ethical behavior from the perspective of stewardship theory. Results show that the psychological and situational factors that stewardship theory points to as determinants in the construction of principal–steward relationships are more evident in family firms than in non-family firms. These factors result in the behavior of owners and non-family employees becoming more ethical – with all the benefits this implies for these firms.

Organisations are increasingly investing in complex technological innovations such as enterprise information systems with the aim of improving the operations of the business, and in this way gaining competitive advantage. However, the implementation of technological innovations tends to have an excessive focus on either technology innovation effectiveness (also known as system effectiveness), or the resulting operational effectiveness; focusing on either one of them is detrimental to the long-term enterprise benefits through failure to achieve the real value of technological innovations. The lack of research on the dimensions and performance objectives that organisations must be focusing on is the main reason for this misalignment. This research uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative, three-stage methodological approach. Initial findings suggest that factors such as quality of information from technology innovation effectiveness, and quality and speed from operational effectiveness are important and significantly well correlated factors that promote the alignment between technology innovation effectiveness and operational effectiveness.

As several previous studies have shown, the provision of work–life benefits (WLB) varies between organisations; while some organisations provide a comprehensive range of WLB, others do not. Our research aims to identify and examine the influences on the provision of WLB in an organisation. Recognising the potential for different goals and agenda, we propose that it is necessary to understand the perspectives of WLB held by managers and by employees. To inform our research, we have drawn upon the complementary theoretical bases of strategic choice theory, stakeholder theory and the resource-based view of the firm. Using multiple methods of data collection and including management and employee perspectives, qualitative case studies were undertaken with two Australian subsidiaries of large multinational firms. We develop and refine a framework that identifies the influences on the provision of WLB. This framework is a useful guide for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand and manage WLB.

This research is aimed at analyzing the relationship between the underlying dimensions of boundaryless (boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference) and protean (self-directed and values-driven) career attitudes and subjective career success, within today's complex and dynamic organizational context in which careers are unfolding. Drawing on a sample of 150 Spanish professionals from the Catalonia region, which enabled hypotheses testing by means of hierarchical regression analysis, the research results suggest that self-direction in managing one's career and vocational development is instrumental in achieving subjective career success. Organizational mobility preference was found to be negatively associated with individuals' perceptions of the success achieved in their careers. Furthermore, the study suggests some future research lines that could draw more light upon the hypothesized relationships.

With a basis in conservation of resources theory, this study investigates how social adaptive behavior might mediate the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational politics and their turnover intentions, as well as a buffering role of their emotional regulation skills as a critical personal resource. Data collected from employees in the food sector reveal that beliefs about dysfunctional political games spur turnover intentions, driven by employees' unwillingness to adjust themselves to the actions of their organizational colleagues. This mediating role of social adaptive behavior, or its lack, is less salient when employees have a greater ability to control their own emotions though. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints a key mechanism—a reluctance to accommodate other members' preferences—by which perceived organizational politics can escalate into a desire to leave the organization. It also reveals how this mechanism can be better contained by employees' ability to remain calm, even in difficult situations.

Modern digital life has produced big data in modern businesses and organizations. To derive information for decision-making from these enormous data sets, a lot of work is required at several levels. The storage, transmission, processing, mining, and serving of big data create problems for digital domains. Despite several efforts to implement big data in businesses, basic issues with big data remain (particularly big-data management (BDM)). Cloud computing, for example, provides companies with well-suited, cost-effective, and consistent on-demand services for big data and analytics. This paper introduces the modern systems for organizational BDM. This article analyzes the latest research to manage organization-generated data using cloud computing. The findings revealed several benefits in integrating big data and cloud computing, the most notable of which is increased company efficiency and improved international trade. This study also highlighted some hazards in the sophisticated computing environment. Cloud computing has the potential to improve corporate management and accountants' jobs significantly. This article's major contribution is to discuss the demands, advantages, and problems of using big data and cloud computing in contemporary businesses and institutions.

Customer relations provide a valuable link between customers and the companies who produce the products they buy and the services they use. Every organisational member carries out actions which reflect the existence of counter-knowledge (i.e., obsolete knowledge and inappropriate knowledge structures) which in turn can lead to detrimental effects on customers. A decision to reorientate counter-knowledge takes an extended period of time to produce significant results as this process involves the integration of existing capabilities with newly acquired knowledge. Crucially, however, it also involves the unlearning of capabilities which are no longer relevant. Unlearning is the process by which firms eliminate old logics and behaviours and make room for new ones. With the development of this paper, we intend to address the following question: How can managers help to correct counter-knowledge in order to foster customer relations? These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 164 small and medium enterprises in the Spanish construction industry. Our results show that an unlearning context (i.e., the examination of lens fitting, the framework for changing individual habits and the framework for consolidating emergent understandings) is an important solution for the process of counteracting the negative effects of counter-knowledge (e.g., misunderstandings and misconceptions). The results also shed light on a tangible means for managers to enhance customer relations through unlearning practices.

Although the use of intuition in managerial decisions has been documented, many questions about the intuitive process and its antecedent stages remain unanswered, in particular the role of affective traits and states. The study reported in this article investigates whether decision makers who are more attuned to own emotions and experience a particular mood have an easier access to intuition. Our findings indicate that emotional awareness has indeed a positive effect on the use of intuition, which appears to be stronger for women. Surprisingly, positive and negative mood seem to influence intuition according to their intensity rather than positive/negative distinction.

Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this article investigates the relationship between job control (a critical job resource) and idea championing, as well as how this relationship may be augmented by stressful work conditions that can lead to resource losses, such as conflicting work role demands and psychological contract violations. With quantitative data collected from employees of an organization that operates in the chemical sector, this study reveals that job control increases the propensity to champion innovative ideas. This effect is especially salient when employees experience high levels of role conflict and psychological contract violations. For organizations, the results demonstrate that giving employees more control over whether they invest in championing activities will be most beneficial when those employees also face resource-draining work conditions, in the form of either incompatible role expectations or unfilled employer obligations.

In this special issue, we have collected 13 articles that offer new vantage points for research on dynamic capabilities. We offer a selection of thought-provoking papers that advance current thinking on dynamic capabilities and provide directions for new inquiries using the dynamic capability framework. The microfoundations of dynamic capabilities have increasingly received interest. This special issue offers a range of conceptual methodological approaches to deepen our understanding of the issues surrounding the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities.

The knowledge-based view of the firm portrays knowledge assets as the basis of sustainable competitive advantage. However, leveraging the knowledge available to the firm is not straightforward. The transfer of best practices within the firm or the replication of a certain routine poses challenges for managers. Causal ambiguity of knowledge makes it difficult to transfer practices into other contexts within the firm. In this paper, a new framework is proposed that identifies four antecedents to causal ambiguity: complexity, tacitness, relevance to the existing knowledge base, and the locality of knowledge. The paper concludes with the implications of the framework.

Is organizational slack good or bad for firm performance? Research addressing this question has obtained mixed results. Such studies have focused mainly on the impact of environmental conditions on the slack–performance relationship. In this study, instead of focusing on the uncontrollable external environment, we consider actions determined by firms internally, in particular strategic planning. Using data from 183 US firms, we explore the connection between organizational slack and firm performance with different levels of strategic planning. The results suggest that at low levels of strategic planning the slack–performance relationship is linear, while at high levels of strategic planning this relationship is inverse U shaped. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

This paper sets out 99 case studies of insider attacks that took place in the UK. The study involved interviewing investigators, heads of security, information technologists, law enforcement, security officers, human resource managers, line managers, and coworkers who knew the insider. The analysis elucidates how to identify insiders and pathways to these attacks. It also highlights examples of archetypal insiders, in addition to the ‘disgruntled employee’ (e.g., ‘the show off’, ‘the career criminal’, ‘the addict’, etc.). In contrast to other studies, this study highlights multiple pathways to an attack. A conceptual model is set out that considers indicators (both physical and cyber) that might be monitored in an insider risk detection programme. The model stressors need to continuously seek out methods to close down opportunities as well as to monitor behavioural change. It also elucidates potential deterrence and prevention strategies for organisations to consider in an ethical and legal manner.

This research provides a better understanding of the factors driving the choice of governance structures and human resource management (HRM) practices within services franchising arrangements. A qualitative multiple case study approach was favoured so as to obtain a clearer picture of the main issues and parameters. Nineteen franchisors using predominantly pure franchising, predominantly pure company-owned, plural, and predominantly multiple unit growth strategies were interviewed. Major contrasts have been identified, suggesting that system size, industry maturity and the nature of market demand impacts upon the choice of system governance structure. Generally, less mature and smaller networks rely upon predominantly single unit franchising strategies and less sophisticated HRM practices to foster local market innovation, build brand value and support rapid unit growth, while predominantly company owned strategies are favoured in environments of low competition and minimal demand uncertainty. In comparison, more mature systems use hybridised franchising forms and sophisticated HRM strategies to accommodate the competing demands of local market innovation, systemwide adaptation and system uniformity.

This study empirically examines the role of market dynamism and a firm's relational capability in the development of dynamic capability. A moderated hierarchical regression method has been used on the survey data of 218 Indian firms to test the objectives of the study. The findings suggest that relational capability (namely, customer linking capability and strategic partnering capability) is an important driver of dynamic capability. However, the effectiveness of relational capability is dependent on the market dynamism; particularly, when competition intensifies, the impact of customer linking capability declines, whereas the impact of strategic partnering capability on dynamic capability becomes stronger. Furthermore, the finding suggests that even though environmental uncertainty represents an important element of market dynamism, it is a driver, rather than a moderator, of dynamic capability. The study contributes to the extant literature by explicitly specifying the relational capability as a specific competence to develop dynamic capability under different market conditions.