The COVID-19 pandemic brought about changes in the working world. One of the main strategies to cope with the economic situation during lockdowns was to furlough employees. In the current study, we propose that psychological contract breach and violation between the organization and the furloughed employee act as underlying mechanisms that explain the relationship between the employees' furlough status and the increase in their emotional exhaustion and decrease in affective commitment. Furthermore, we suggest that perceived organizational support can act as a buffer that attenuates the association between furloughed employment status and perceived contract breach. The study was conducted at two points in time: during the first lockdown and 4 months afterward (N = 336). Results supported the predicted indirect sequential associations. However, perceived organizational support served to buffer the relationship between furloughed employment status and perceived psychological contract breach only in the case of employees who continued to work.

In this article we will argue that leaders facing complex challenges can learn from the arts, specifically that leaders can learn by examining how theatre directors direct creativity through creative constraints. We suggest that perceiving creativity as a boundary phenomenon is helpful for directing it. Like leaders who are caught in paradoxical situations where they have to manage production and logistics simultaneously with making space for creativity and innovation, theatre directors need to find the delicate balance between, on the one hand, renewal of perceptions, acting and interaction and on the other, getting ready for the opening night. We conclude that the art of directing creativity is linked to developing competencies of conscious presence, attention and vigilance, whereas the craft of directing creativity concerns communication, framing and choice.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, this study proposes two levels of resource action: shedding resources and adding resources as the main two turnaround approaches. Since firms differ in the way they manage their resources over stages of organizational development, this study further analyzes the link between the RBV and organizational life-cycle model to investigate the contingency role of life stages in the turnaround context. The study sample consists of 72 Taiwan firms had ever experienced a successful turnaround. The results indicate that cost-cutting and investment in training and R&D, which represent respectively a shedding and an adding resource action, enable firms to turn around their deteriorating performance. The results also show that R&D investment is more effective for early-stage firms, while cost-cutting is more useful to firms in the late-stage.

This study explores attitudes towards employability among a small group of individuals who were in career transition as a result of taking voluntary redundancy. Contemporary models of career suggest that much of the responsibility for career and employability has been transferred from the organisation to the individual. This study indicated that, in general, mid-career individuals were yet to recognise this transfer and to take ownership of their employability. When moving from a stable career within a paternalistic organisation to an uncertain job market they were unsure what they had to offer an employer, how to approach job search or how to market their skills and experience. The majority did make a successful career transition but more in the absence of, rather than because of, individual career management strategies.

This paper discusses how transnational knowledge intensive firms manage complexity across multiple locations, integrating various functional specializations and catering to multifaceted customer demands. Practice theory is used to help us understand collaboration among experts across national borders. By exploring what experts do and analyzing their practices transnationally, different configurations to provide services were found. In total, six configuration types are identified: bilateral, trilateral, chain, star, network and co-location. These configurations differently relate to three interdependent axes: coordinated actions, interaction modes and spatial dimensions. The configurations expose the relevant integrative and responsive settings. The paper contributes to the international organization literature by extending, elaborating and providing examples of transnationality; and to practice theory by exposing shapes and qualitative complexity of transnational collaboration and service provision.

Using data from 708 French-Canadian nurses, the present study relies on self-determination theory (SDT) and its proposed motivation mediation model to examine the associations between need satisfaction, work motivation, and various manifestations of psychological wellbeing (work satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intentions). To increase the precision and accuracy of these analyses, we relied on analytic approaches that explicitly account for the dual global/specific nature of both work motivation and need satisfaction. Results revealed that nurses' global psychological need satisfaction, and their specific autonomy and competence satisfaction, were positively associated with their global self-determined work motivation and specific intrinsic motivation. In turn, global self-determined work motivation and specific intrinsic motivation were associated with more desirable outcome levels. Nurses' global need satisfaction and specific autonomy satisfaction were also directly associated with more desirable outcome levels. Our results provided support for a partially mediated version of SDT's motivation mediation model.

Typically most studies of individual employees perceptions of the work place adopt multiple regression models (ordinary least squares [OLS]) which ignore inherent clustering in their data. However, such an approach does not supply unbiased and accurate answers to research questions. This study intends to simulate three data alternatives – weighted, disaggregated (individual level), and aggregated (organizational level) using the OLS and multilevel models to compare the results of different research designs. To answer the research questions, the current study investigates the impact of individual and organizational factors on job satisfaction, using a 2000 USA National Partnership for Reinventing Government survey. This study presents the methodological misuse and measurement errors of the previous research and presents guidelines for future research.

This research examines the impacts of workplace social support, namely organizational support, supervisory support, and co-worker support on job embeddedness, and whether these effects are moderated by work meaningfulness. Using a conditional process model, the current study also investigates how the relationship between workplace social support and turnover intention, mediated by job embeddedness, is affected by the moderator. Data were collected from 1,137 shared service employees in Thailand. Empirical results indicate that job embeddedness mediates the links between perceived organizational support as well as perceived co-worker support and intention to leave, and that work meaningfulness reduces employees' turnover intention by reinforcing the impacts of perceived supervisory support and perceived co-worker support on job embeddedness. The findings contribute to job embeddedness literature by describing moderated mediation mechanisms, through which social supportive constituents affect turnover intention, and guide practitioners by applying an integrated model of organizational practices in managing human resources.

The literature suggests that improving the management skills of owner-managers of SMEs contributes to their survival and growth and that there is considerable scope for further improvement in skills. However, evidence suggests that current support for management development (MD) does not meet the needs of SMEs. Nevertheless, there have been few changes on the supply side with policy makers continuously being concerned about low take-up of training. This study contributes to an understanding of how existing MD activities in SMEs can be better supported. Using Mumford's (1987) typology of MD activities to classify our interview data, findings from interviews with 25 owner-managers suggest two approaches to providing learning support: (1) incorporate structured opportunities for individual reflection and reflection within groups; and (2) address participants' concerns about training and mentoring. These findings have implications for policy makers and are timely given the current economic situation, where previous patterns of growth are being challenged and new ways of supporting MD in SMEs need to be found.

Applying conservation of resources theory, we propose a theoretical model that explains how and when supervisor knowledge sharing affects creative behavior. Specifically, this study examines employee self-efficacy as the core intermediary mechanism and work–family conflict as the boundary condition of the indirect effect of supervisor knowledge sharing on creative behavior via self-efficacy. Drawn from a sample of 147 dyads comprising full-time employees and their immediate supervisors, the results of this study showed support for our moderated mediation model. The findings indicated that supervisor knowledge sharing had a significant effect on creative behavior and this influence is mediated by self-efficacy. Furthermore, our study revealed that work–family conflict attenuated the positive supervisor knowledge sharing's effect on creative behavior via self-efficacy. Implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Extant literature remains inconclusive with regard to optimal structural designs for sustaining effective knowledge flows, boosting innovativeness, and achieving superior performance in organizations. We contribute to the ongoing debate on formal, informal, and ambidextrous configurations in the specific context of small high-tech innovators. Adopting an inductive approach to theory building, we explore the factors that account for the variation in knowledge-focused designs across sample firms. In our study, innovative ventures rely on pure formal and informal organizational designs but also attempt to mix both, suggesting that gains from ambidexterity are not ubiquitous. Our analysis unveils that the pursuit of a given structural configuration results from a set of operating contingencies and a deliberate managerial effort to align firm idiosyncrasies with desired strategic outcomes. We advance a grounded theory of knowledge-focused organizational design in small high-tech innovators and formulate propositions that may be tested in future inquiries in the field.

Globally, organizations are increasingly embracing corporate social responsibility (CSR) to strengthen competitive advantage. Although CSR is recognized to be context-sensitive, the literature is still lacking studies that examine CSR in different contexts, particularly non-western ones. Our study adds to a deeper understanding of CSR in Vietnam by identifying the predictors of CSR attitudes of business students. Vietnam has rich cultural, social, and economic characteristics that offer new theoretical perspectives and insights on the contextual nature of CSR. Our findings showed that CSR attitudes related positively to idealism and student seniority, and negatively to materialism and male students. A positive CSR–relativism relationship was uncovered. Spirituality related positively to the importance of CSR to business sustainability and negatively to CSR's importance to short-term competitiveness. The findings have theoretical and practical implications on the understanding and practice of CSR that would benefit CSR researchers, business organizations, and education institutions.

This paper reports the results of a survey investigating the institutionalisation of business ethics among New Zealand's top 200 organisations. A majority of the respondents indicated that steps were being taken by their organisation to incorporate ethical values into daily operations. However, fewer than a quarter of those surveyed indicated that resources were being set aside to accomplish the objective. The most popular tech-nique for institutionalising ethics was the development of a code of ethics. Training in ethics, ethics officers, and ethics committees were not in common use amongst the companies surveyed. Furthermore, very few organisations indicated that ethical behaviour was specifically rewarded. In contrast, a clear majority indicated that they punished unethical actions and made use of disciplinary processes to regulate employee behaviour. Follow-up interviews with a sample of managers from the organisations surveyed high-lighted a preference for the use of informal processes for the institutionalisation of business ethics.

In order to understand the characteristics of bioentrepreneurs, this paper seeks to identify the entrepreneurial types present in the Australian biotechnology industry by using the four-way psychological typology (Miner 2000) and identifying linkages between the four-way psychological typology and the Big Five model of personality traits. We believe this is a new approach to using psychological typology in the study of entrepreneurship by mapping with the Big Five model of personality traits. Miner's four typological types are ‘personal achievers’ (PA), ‘super sales people’ (SS), ‘expert idea generators’ (EI) and ‘real managers’ (RM). The Big Five factors are extraversion (Ex), stability/emotion stability (Es), agreeableness (Ag), conscientiousness (Co), and openness to experience (Op). By combining the entrepreneurial types and the five-factor personality traits, we can map the linkage relationships as PA-ExEsCoOp; SS-ExAgCoOp; EI-ExEsOp and RM-ExEsCoOp.

In this pilot study, we find there are more ‘personal achiever’ and ‘expert idea generator’ bioentrepreneurs in the biotech industry with the linkage relationships of PA-ExEsCoOp and EI-Ex EsOp, which lead us to conclude there are strong demands for bioentrepreneurs with managerial skills, sales and marketing skills, skills in forming strategic alliance with partners and skills in securing the public and private capitals through finance channels such as public listing and venture capital. This implies that if PA entrepreneurs acquired more agreeableness personality traits and EI entrepreneurs also acquired more agreeableness and conscientiousness personality traits they would improve the ability of their businesses to attract more financial investments and form sustainable strategic alliance with partners in the Australian biotechnology industry.

In Lewis Carroll's classic poem, ‘The Hunting of the Snark’, there is little understanding about what a ‘Snark’ actually might be. There is similar disagreement about the ways in which contemporary universities should be led and managed, and few writers move beyond broad generalisations for action. This is particularly truc for writers analysing higher education from the perspectives of sociological analyses (eg. Meek & Wood 1997) political economy, and institutional theory perspectivcs (eg. Marginson & Considine 2000). Building on recent research by Poole (2000, 2001a), the paper charts current understandings of university governance and leadership, identifies research gaps, and begins to explore how apparently dichotomous managerial choices may be reconciled by university leaders confronting the complexities of managing the enterprise university.

To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care
To pursue it with forks and hope
To threaten its life with a railway-share
To charm it with smiles and soap!
For the Snark's a peculiar creature that won't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted today!
(Carroll 1973)

This paper investigates the effects of environmental pressure, human capital, and social capital on organizational effectiveness and decline using a population ecology perspective. Panel data with 1,553 observations from 398 companies spanning 4 years in Taiwan were used for analyses. Research results indicate that several environmental pressure indicators significantly affect organization effectiveness and decline. Although human capital and social capital did not predict our outcome variables, human capital plays a moderating role in explaining the variation of the relationship between environmental pressure and organizational effectiveness. This paper provides a new perspective that suggests that organizations should accumulate intangible assets to resist the threat of external environmental pressure. The leading consumer electronics company Samsung is a good example supporting our argument that investment in human capital can produce commercial benefits, especially in tough economic times.

The employer–employee relationship is underpinned by a psychological contract, which refers to employee beliefs about the exchange of employee contributions and employer inducements. However, there is limited understanding of how employers can shape psychological contracts to meet employees' needs and aspirations. Meeting these needs starts with an understanding of employees' preferences for psychological contract contributions and inducements. We propose that career stage models can be used to achieve that understanding. Using the career stage models of Dalton, Thompson, and Price (1977) and Super (1957), we derive insights into the preferred contributions and inducements, respectively, at various points of an employee's career lifecycle. These insights will help organizations create desirable psychological contracts and retain valued employees.