Considerable attention has focused on tactics firms use when building their sustainability platforms. Less is known, however, about how sustainability goal setting varies globally, especially in developing economies. Accordingly, we examined sustainability goals of 21 of the 50 largest Indian firms and compared them with similar data from a published study that examined 22 of the 50 largest U.S. firms. In total, 679 sustainability goals were analyzed using a triple bottom line framework. We found U.S. firms set more sustainability goals than Indian firms. Firms from both samples set similar numbers of people goals but U.S. firms set more diversity goals. Indian firms were more inclined to set economic and community development goals. We also detected differences across the samples in planet goals associated with emissions and water. Especially significant, Indian firms were much more likely than U.S. firms to specify profit goals. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Perceptions of employee entitlement are reported to be increasing in organizations and have been linked to negative outcomes at work. Employee entitlement is an employee’s belief in deserving preferential treatment or reward without regard to performance. Arguments, however, are emerging that entitlement may also be linked to positive behaviors. In this article, we outline a study that examines the moderating effect of self-monitoring on the relationship between employee entitlement and organizational citizenship behavior and affective organizational commitment. Based on survey data collected from 167 individuals, we found that self-monitoring moderated the relationship between the specific subscales of employee entitlement and organizational citizenship behavior but had no relationship to commitment. Although previous studies have addressed entitlement perceptions as a negative outcome for the organization, in this article we outline the potential for positive outcomes. Limitations and future research directions are outlined.

Policymakers, academics, and practitioners are increasingly discussing non-financial reporting (NFR) initiatives, i.e., reporting initiatives that are related to environmental and social matters. The implementation of NFR initiatives in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is a key topic. Based on a systematic literature review, this article first synthesizes what we know about the mechanisms underlying NFR initiatives implemented by SMEs. A thematic analysis led to the identification and examination of drivers, enabling factors, and challenges for NFR initiatives. Relevant drivers include legitimacy-based motivations, competitive advantage, and stakeholder engagement. Enabling factors include specific guidelines and tools for NFR. Lack of capabilities and lack of standardization are significant challenges. Second, drawing on the thematic analysis and on what we do not know about NFR in the context of SMEs, a novel conceptualization of NFR as a process characterized by three main phases is presented. Last, this article suggests future research opportunities.

This article focuses on a thus far insufficiently explored theme within management sciences, specifically the direct supervision of frontline workers, that is, frontline command. Frontline command can be defined as making decisions in the frontline and ensuring that frontline workers carry out these decisions accordingly. Scholarly knowledge on frontline command is still fragmented and the associated implications for frontline commanders have not yet been described or discussed in depth. This contribution aims to make up for that deficiency. For this purpose we brought together existing insights derived from research into Naturalistic Decision Making and other relevant research which we subsequently present using the FADCM model. This model sets out frontline command in five steps, already described in scholarly literature, and provides, per step, recommendations for frontline command. Finally, we provide associated examples derived from the Dutch firefighting practices.

After nearly three decades of corporate restructurings and reorganizations, the modern firm has continued to resort to reduction-in-force (RIF) strategies. This article presents an overview and a brief historical analysis of some of the most popular RIF concepts that have been adopted by companies and governmental agencies on a global scale since the late 1970s. The research found that most RIF tools have their root in the core-periphery model. While some of the more ‘classic’ RIF strategies have remained popular, the paper showcases two contemporary practices, the traditional (non-selective) layoffs and stealth layoffs, that currently impact the corporate landscape. A discussion of modern-day restructuring and RIF practices is timely given the high levels of layoffs currently occurring in the global automotive, retail, and finance-related industries. In this paper, a particular focus is placed on presenting practical implications of the conduct of RIF for the firm, the managers, and the individual employees.

On-demand and gig economy are names commonly used when discussing issues related to labor in the collaborative economy. Some of the specific digital platforms in this economy, including Uber and TaskRabbit, and Upwork are quite popular. The term digital labor market has been suggested to distinguish the work mediated by these platforms from that of the traditional labor market. The theoretical work conditions and characteristics of this digital labor market are similar to those of negative nonstandard work arrangements. However, more empirical evidence is required because most of the findings about work conditions are based on anecdotal evidence and the analysis of the platforms’ rules. This study collects the characteristics commonly attributed to the digital labor market and analyzes them based on data about 465 workers extracted from two important digital labor platforms. Our results confirm and refine some of the beliefs found in the literature.

In this study, we examine the impact of portfolio configuration on corporate performance in a technological vertical downstream alliance portfolio. First, we explore whether differences in characteristics such as innovativeness, reputation, and bargaining power between a focal firm and its partners affect corporate performance. Second, considering these differences between a focal firm and its partners, we analyze whether an alliance portfolio structure spanning structural holes or a densely embedded network is preferable. We examine 44 leading Korean defense firms over the period 1995–2010 using the two-step generalized method of moments. Our principal arguments emphasize that differences between a focal firm and its partners (in terms of innovativeness, reputation, and bargaining power) affect corporate performance differently. This concept contrasts that of previous studies, which argued that allying with dominant partners is generally better. The arguments also emphasize that the alliance portfolio structure should differ depending on the differences in terms of the three capabilities between a focal firm and its corporate partners.

The scholarship on political skill documents that it is a social savvy, personal style construct, associated with positive personal and organizational outcomes. However, this study takes a counterintuitive view and demonstrates that despite being a positive resource, political skill also has the potential to be used as a self-serving device to achieve one's personal agendas in the form of self-serving counterproductive work behaviors. Borrowing insights from the trait activation theory, this study demonstrates that a context, high in political perceptions, acts as an incentivized condition for politically skilled people to execute its dark side. The results supported the hypothesis and revealed that under high perceptions of organizational politics, political skill will have a significant, positive relation with self-serving counterproductive work behaviors. The study discusses important theoretical and practical implications of these results and extends the domains of political skill and counterproductive work behaviors.

The present research aims to examine the role played by perceived similarities between the workgroup and the organization in the relationships between workgroup identification, organizational identification, and affective organizational commitment. Using two different samples, we found that when perceived similarities were high, workgroup identification was more strongly related to organizational identification and that this relationship carried over to affective organizational commitment. These results were obtained with both a global measure of perceived similarities (Study 1) and a more narrow measure operationalizing perceived similarities in terms of value congruence (Study 2), confirming the generalizability of our results.

The growing trend towards IT outsourcing within the United Kingdom (UK) public sector is analysed. Factors influencing the degree of success experienced in a range of IT outsourcing deals are detailed, and then used as a framework for analysing and discussing two case histories — of selective and large-scale IT outsourcing — drawn from different parts of the public sector. Both examples demonstrate how distinctive public sector contexts influence the direction and degree of outsourcing. At the same time, they highlight a range of managerial and organisational issues raised by moves towards contractual, core competence forms of organising. Selective outsourcing is revealed as effective provided key decisions and actions are taken. The large-scale outsourcing case raises a number of critical issues not just for how it can be conducted in public sector contexts, but also about the efficacy of such arrangements in terms of cost savings, possible over-dependence on a few suppliers, and ability to respond flexibly to changing political requirements and legislation.

This article reports on a case study of a decade-long organizing forms response to the need for groundbreaking innovation while maintaining existing operational performance – the explore–exploit conundrum. Employing ‘grounded research,’ data were collected on the experiences of the Asia-Pacific arm of a multinational professional service firm’s key decision-makers, innovators and entrepreneurs. The findings reveal a three-tiered organizing forms response to the explore–exploit paradox, characterized by a novel combination of heavy exploitation-driven actions alongside deep exploration projects. This case suggests that one successful approach to delivering on both explore and exploit focuses on a productive tension that emerges by enacting innovative organizing forms with contextual awareness. This productive tension was sufficiently powerful to impel individuals to innovate, but also sufficiently contained to avoid interfering with commercial outcomes. An explore–exploit framework conceptualizes organizational changes incorporating complexity and contradiction, without the implicit emphasis on removing or denying the existing tension.

In this study, I propose supervisors’ upward leader–leader exchange relationships as an important boundary condition for the relationship between average leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships and a climate for innovation support at the group level. Specifically, I argue that the effect of resource spillover to poor-LMX subordinates within a work group is an important mechanism that leads to the development of a climate that supports innovation. I test the hypothesized moderated-mediation model by using multisource and multiwave data collected from 590 employees and 75 supervisors. The findings indicate that the indirect effect of team LMX relationships on team effectiveness via a climate for innovation support is more positive under high conditions of leader–leader exchange, whereas the effect is less positive under low conditions of leader–leader exchange. Implications and limitations relevant to developing research around LMX and innovation are addressed.

Responding to the call for more research on cognitive crafting, this study focuses on employees' reframing of their job characteristics to assign higher importance to job resources and downplay the relevance of costly job demands. Furthermore, it examines how these proactive cognitive strategies are embedded in an overall job crafting process, including both cognitive and behavioral aspects, and linked with work engagement. Preliminary results (n = 247) support the conceptualization of cognitive crafting encompassing approach and avoidance aspects targeting resources and demands, respectively. Moreover, three-wave data (n = 84) show that employees' cognitive efforts to highlight the centrality of job resources influence work engagement over time. Importantly, proactively organizing work leads to higher work engagement by prompting cognitive reframing of the relevance of job resources as central to one's work. Differently, cognitive efforts to downplay the relevance of hindering job demands are unrelated to following proactive behaviors and work engagement.

Building on prior research on management fashion, this paper seeks to understand how management consultants respond to the boom-to-bust cycles of competing management fashion trends. Specifically, we examine how US management consulting firms offering total quality management (TQM) services responded to the rise and fall of the rival management practice, business process reengineering (BPR), with an empirical focus on the adoption of BPR services. We find that a consulting firm offering TQM services was more likely to adopt BPR services if the firm’s organizational capabilities and institutional environments were more connected to BPR’s principles than to TQM’s principles. This suggests that management fashions are not simply bandwagon phenomena, but involve resource- and identity-based decision making. We also find that the significance of organizational capabilities increased while that of network influences decreased as BPR’s boom turned to bust. The reversal of well-established institutional accounts of innovation diffusion is explained by reference to the characteristics of management fashion.

Technology that develops rapidly has profoundly affected the business field and reshaped some behaviours of corporations, and the discussion on startup risk-taking behaviour in the new era is still insufficient. Based on social network theory and social capital theory, this article studies how social networks and entrepreneurial ecosystems support startup risk-taking behaviour. This article cuts into this issue through the perspective of coopetition. Based on 737 responses, this article employs regression and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to explore the relationships between networks, ecosystem coopetition, and risk-taking behaviour. Results indicate that networks and coopetition may stimulate startup risk-taking behaviour, and coopetition may weaken the impacts of networks. There are replacement effects between different characteristics of networks, and there are several configurations, which may lead to high-level risk-taking. This article may help us understand startup risk-taking behaviour in the digital era and the positive impacts of ecosystems.

Two gaps appear in the theory of ‘expertise’: expert work as an individual endeavor; and, researchers and managers understanding little of expert practice. To bridge these gaps, ‘collective expertise’ can describe ways of organizing professional expert work in collective settings. This study analyzes ‘collective expertise’ in three Scandinavian cases using ethnographic methods: a product development process at Volvo; a description of computer programmers' work; and an analysis of nano physicists' organizing practices. The empirical results are used to build a ‘collective expertise’ theory, based on seven factors identified as contributing to collective expertise: concrete work routines, minimal structure, generosity and gift giving, narratives and story-telling, aesthetic capabilities, room for individuality, and mixed practice zone.

In the Australian healthcare sector, many changes in the public sector have affected nurse management and thereby, nurses. Yet it is unclear whether such efficiency measures, based on private sector business models, have impacted private sector nurses in similar ways. This paper examines four important issues for nurses: supervisor–subordinate relationships; perceptions of autonomy; role clarity in relation to patients; and job satisfaction. The paper uses an embedded mixed methods research design to examine the four issues and then compares similarities and differences between public and private sector nurses. The findings suggest supervisor–subordinate relationships, patient role clarity and autonomy significantly predict job satisfaction. The private sector nurses reported more satisfaction than public sector nurses with their supervisor–subordinate relationships, plus higher perceptions of patient role clarity and autonomy, and hence, higher levels of job satisfaction. The findings raise questions about whether present management practices (especially public sector) optimise service delivery productivity.

The fundamental nature of humility and prosocial motivation entails transcending self-interest to enact behaviors that benefit others. We theorize that leader humility may enact a self-transcendent contagion effect that will manifest in enhanced follower prosocial motivation. Due to the fundamental nature of humility, this construct holds great promise in understanding how contextual signals (i.e., leader behaviors) shape prosocial motivation in followers. In this study, we find that leader humility impacts follower prosocial motivation through followers' perception of work meaningfulness. Specifically, we found that leader humility is positively related to prosocial motivation. We also found that this relationship is mediated by followers' perception of work meaningfulness, and that this mediation is moderated by followers' perception of relational vitality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Large Australian and Swiss banks have been trimming their workforces since the mid-1990s. With further rounds of downsizing activities predicted, this study sought to identify, examine, and compare the adopted organizational downsizing implementation strategies. The primary purpose of this cross-cultural study was to determine how large Australian and Swiss banks implemented downsizing in their most recent endeavors. The research has revealed three key findings. First, Australian banks primarily adopted workforce reduction strategies, whereas Swiss banks employed a mixture of organization redesign, workforce reduction, and systemic strategies. Second, Australian banks had considerable depth in their downsizing, whereas Swiss banks had more breadth in their overall strategies. Third, Australian banks favored reorientation approaches, whereas Swiss banks embraced reinforcement approaches. It remains unclear as to why large Australian and Swiss banks differed in the selection of implementation strategies and why they diverged in their overall approaches to downsizing. Further research is required to explore aspects that are likely to influence the adoption of downsizing strategies in both Australia and Switzerland.

Values in family firms are influenced by the complex interplay of family and business. Thus, research requires methods that grasp this complexity. This paper presents a fresh methodological approach for family business research with the example of an in-depth analysis of CEOs’ value orientations. Benefits of an integrated use of two qualitative methods – Q-sorts and narrative interviews – which were collected and analyzed for 16 CEOs of family firms are illustrated. Q-method was used to build value patterns, whereas narrative interviews were conducted to reveal how values were contextualized and interpreted. This integrated approach builds qualitative richness in different ways: first, by allowing for a deep understanding of individual experience; second, by providing more contextual insight, and third, by capturing the meaning of abstract values. The approach advanced here can be reproduced for other complex organizational dynamics. Thus, this user-friendly approach is particularly suited for organizational research in a managerial environment.