The paper advances into a new field of multi-disciplinary inquiry called scandal scholarship. The general thrust of this scholarship should be to understand what factors are determinative to the management of scandals in organizations. The specific focus of this paper is to address the question: what options do organizations have in the immediate period following public exposure? First, a typology gleaned from relevant literatures, attempts to classify the variable ways troubled organizations attempt to extricate themselves from scandal. The typology, in its naïve form, was then applied to a recent case of corporate wrongdoing of international significance. As a result the framework was refined to achieve stronger congruence between case realities and classification. With more development this typology may be able to forecast the scandal management strategies of troubled organizations through an identification of the remedial responses they deploy. This would be great assistance to those who must engage with the troubled organization such as regulators and stakeholders.

This paper advances the resource dependence and social networks literature by investigating a board's structural social capital created as a consequence of interlocking directorates. Using approaches and measures developed by social network analysis we compare the interpersonal directorship networks of the top 250 companies in the United States and Australia. We find that the smaller, sparser Australian network is only marginally less compact and connected than the larger US network at the firm level of analysis. However, at the director level of analysis the US network is much larger and more connected than its Australian counterpart. As a result, we argue that scholars studying the resource dependence role of boards should consider using measures of interpersonal links as well as traditional measures of inter-firm links.

This research aims to complement resource-based view with a cluster approach in identifying which elements, both internal to the firm and locally available, improve firms’ export performance. While in the resource-based view exporting firms are contingent upon the development of intangible resources, from a cluster approach exporters exploit local externalities, mainly related to local information, knowledge and resource spillovers. We present empirical evidence from the Iberian ham cluster in Spain, which confirms the relevance of intangibles such as R&D and marketing promotion, but also of cluster linkages with local institutions – technological centres, universities and use of Designation of Origins – in improving export performance. Contrary to expectations, employee education, organizational experience, and information and knowledge-based spillovers from proximate exporters have no significant effect. These findings suggest that an augmented framework may improve the predictive elements of export performance in clusters.

The paper contributes to debates on non-profit strategy, first by arguing that intellectual capital (IC) can be utilised as a non-profit strategic management conceptual framework and second by highlighting nuances in the meaning and significance of IC. In responding to the public management agendas of government, non-profit organisations (NPOs) have had to commercialise their strategies. On the basis of data from in-depth interviews with 35 senior non-profit managers across 22 large Australian social service non-profit organisations (SSNPOs), the analysis confirms that IC assists SSNPOs in managing the social–commercial divide, but that managers' understandings of the IC concept are often different to those contained in the IC literature. IC scholars suggest that IC is synergetic with its components being inter-dependent. The managers perceived that very few inter-relationships existed between IC components. Implications of the theory—practice divide for non-profit strategy are discussed. Research limitations and future research direction are presented in the paper.

Block (or intensive) teaching is used by many management schools, but the factors that drive students to choose (or avoid) block subjects are not well understood. This paper reviews the research findings on intensive teaching and analyses the factors which predict student choice between different teaching formats, based on an analysis of qualitative and quantitative survey data. If studying one subject at a time, a majority of students appear to prefer a less intensive format. However the results show that three factors influence students' likelihood to choose the block format: their experience with the format, their perception of their ability in a particular subject and their concurrent subject load. There are also subject specific differences in student preferences. Implications for block scheduling and for actions to address perceived disadvantages of the block method are addressed.

Leadership research largely ignores the really big issues facing our species, such as climate change, the now rapid growth of new technologies that are already transforming the world of work, and the possibility that an insufficiently reformed banking system will inflict a worse crisis on us than it did in 2008. We also have a proliferation of leadership constructs that often look remarkably like those they are trying to replace. There is much heat but little illumination. The dominant methodologies that the field employs are part of a wider crisis in management studies where many of our claimed results are invalid and/or unreliable, unreproducible and offer little guidance for practice. I conclude that radical changes are needed if we are to play a serious role in improving the world in which we live. Let's take Ken Parry's lead, and make a difference.

Anchored in conservation of resources theory, this study considers how employees' experience of job stress might reduce their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), as well as how this negative relationship might be buffered by employees' access to two personal resources (passion for work and adaptive humor) and two contextual resources (peer communication and forgiving climate). Data from a Mexican-based organization reveal that felt job stress diminishes OCB, but the effect is subdued at higher levels of the four studied resources. This study accordingly adds to extant research by elucidating when the actual experience of job stress is more or less likely to steer employees away from OCB – that is, when they have access to specific resources that hitherto have been considered direct enablers of such efforts instead of buffers of employees' negative behavioral responses to job stress.

As a concept stemming from practice, business development has received scarce academic attention. In this paper, we explore core business development activities of micro-firms and the challenges they perceive in conducting them. Based on interviews with 30 micro-firms, we identify three core business development activities that leverage the firm’s resource base, complemented by three support activities that secure and organize the firm’s resources. We find the business development activities to be tightly related to the three practices of leveraging, securing and organizing resources. We also identify three important contextual influences on business development in micro-firms: industry, age and if the firm is in an incubator. Our findings contribute to developing a conceptualization and theorization of business development for micro-firms, which is relevant as the vast majority of companies worldwide are micro-firms, but many never embark on a growth path. Based on our results, we outline practical implications, for example, how companies could overcome their perceived lack of time and an agenda for future research encouraging further studies comprising micro-firms with different qualities.

Drawing from social exchange theory, this study proposes the effects of perceived leader narcissism on employees' voice behaviors (promotive voice and prohibitive voice) via organizational justice depending on the conditions of employees' trust in leader. Through investigating 257 employees and conducting a scenario study in China, this research shows that perceived leader narcissism is negatively related to prohibitive voice. The relationships between perceived leader narcissism and voice behaviors are moderated by trust in leader, and perceived leader narcissism is positively related to employees' voice behaviors when trust in leader is low. Results also show that organizational justice mediates the relationships between perceived leader narcissism and voice behaviors. The indirect effect of perceived leader narcissism on voice behaviors via organizational justice is moderated by trust in leader. This study has important implications for explaining the relationships between perceived leader narcissism and employees' voice behaviors and contributes to the social exchange theory by illustrating trust in the partner in exchange relationship as a boundary condition of norm reciprocity violation.

The governance and effectiveness of the healthcare sector is paramount due to its impact on human well-being and the size of this sector of the economy. Astute governments and healthcare boards need to know how to improve the governance of the sector. Therefore, this review draws together the theoretical and empirical literature from both the corporate and healthcare governance literature to determine the state of knowledge that can confidently guide those who either perform board roles as directors or who create governance structures. It concludes by suggesting that further theoretical work and research are necessary, and that the focus of both needs to be broader to take into account the complexity of the sector.

Professor Steven Poelmans is a leading international expert on the frontiers of work–family research contributing to theoretical and practice advancements. He is the Academic Director of the International Centre of Work and Family (ICWF) at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, which has worked for more than a decade with numerous organisations in Spain, Latin-America, and various countries around the globe to create a family-responsible environment. In this conversation, Steven Poelmans responds to questions from Thomas Kalliath and Paula Brough (Guest Editors) on a range of theoretical and practice issues currently facing the field including measurement of work–life balance, work–life balance theory, engagement with industry, the role of organisational culture and strategic management in influencing work–life balance.

Future time orientation is essential if an employee is to be motivated to conduct activities that generate long-term rather than immediate gain, and which may involve risk. Given that feedback seeking requires the employee to slow down and seek input, it is surprising that little is known about the relationship between future time orientation and feedback seeking. Drawing upon psychological ownership theory and construal-level theory, we hypothesized a positive influence of future time orientation on feedback seeking from various sources (i.e., supervisors and co-workers). We also hypothesized job-based psychological ownership as a newly identified motive of feedback seeking and employed it to explain how future time orientation exerts influences. Tested with data from a sample of 228 subordinate–supervisor dyads from China, the results revealed that (1) future time orientation was positively related to feedback seeking from supervisors and co-workers and (2) job-based psychology ownership mediated the relationship between future time orientation and feedback seeking.

The emotional intelligence construct is still the focus of substantial controversy. In this paper we contribute to the current debate regarding the factors that comprise the emotional intelligence construct. While some authors argue that emotional intelligence consists of a number of social and emotional competencies including self-motivation (Goleman 1995; 1998), others maintain emotional intelligence abilities are restricted to abilities that directly link emotions to cognition (Mayer & Salovey 1997). This latter view does not include motivation as a factor, but acknowledges it as a separate, related function. We conducted an empirical study to test these two different conceptualisations. One hundred and thirteen individuals completed measures of emotional intelligence and McClelland's (1987) three motivational needs. Structural equation analyses clearly supported Mayer and Salovey's (1997) conceptualisation that motivation is a factor related to emotional intelligence but is not a component part of the emotional intelligence construct. Implications are discussed.

Although organizational learning types like adaptive and generative learning are considered to follow different processes, a general framework of organizational learning that includes them has remained elusive. In order to do so, we propose a framework that embraces them and incorporates facets such as consciousness and emotions, which are strongly related to organizational learning but had not been included in any model. These facets are essential in the framework as they bind the process together and represent a sequence and progression through the learning process.

The interplay of the board of directors (BOD) and the chief executive officer (CEO) in strategy-making has been the subject of some debate in the literature. Some experts argue the BOD should take a strong role in strategy-making while the alternative point of view is that the CEO is the key man or woman. In a qualitative study with 16 interviews of leading Australian industry figures, the CEO is found to be the key player in modern strategy-making. The findings identify how the BOD, individual directors and the CEO can combine to add value to the organization, in particular how these organization members can team up and interact to achieve a faster, more flexible strategy cycle. The modern organization focus needs to be on giving more emphasis to the empowerment, interaction and creativity of the CEO and top management team. The BOD should focus on questioning, criticizing, refining and enabling the strategy proposed by the professional managers. However, the study indicates these findings are subject to exception and variation in relation to factors including specialist knowledge, track record of performance, personality attributes, personal power, and political and influencing skills. The major focus of attention of the BOD and CEO is the strategic-thinking related activities in strategy-making. Strategic planning still has an important role in formalizing strategy content, usually in a regular cycle.

This study investigates how the transition to remote work during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is experienced by employees. We investigate to what extent perceived work stressors relate to psychological strain through perceptions of social support, work–life conflict, and adjustment to remote work. The findings expound the mechanisms underlying psychological strain in the context of sudden organizational change. Specifically, this study shows that both challenge stressors and hindrance stressors have negative impact on adjustment to remote work, whereas hindrance stressors are more strongly negatively related to social support. The study further demonstrates that there is hardly any buffering impact of job control, work structuring, and communication technology use on the implications of these work stressors. These findings contribute to our theoretical understanding and provide actionable implications for organizational policies in facilitating employees' adaptation to remote work.

Although the characteristics of top managers is an important factor associated with competitive advantage, and managerial resources are recognized as a firm’s major resource, there is limited research concerning the role of top manager’s capabilities in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and international performance. Based on the upper echelons perspective and resource-based view, the present study aimed to analyze top manager’s cultural intelligence as an internal contingency of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and international performance. The study’s theoretically derived research model was tested using survey data obtained from 206 small- and medium-sized enterprises. The findings suggested that the extent to entrepreneurial orientation was related to a firm’s international performance was contingent on the level of three dimensions of cultural intelligence (metacognitive, cognitive, and motivational). Furthermore, as the level of all four cultural intelligence dimensions of top managers increased, the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and international performance increased in strength. The implications of the present findings for future research and practice were discussed.

This study examines the relationship between behavioral courage and job performance, and explores the possible effects of organizational level and gender on this relationship. With a sample of managers from mid- to large-sized for-profit organizations in the United States, we found that behavioral courage was positively associated with job performance. Our results also revealed significant differences in supervisors’ ratings of behavioral courage between employees at low and high organizational levels. The effects of behavioral courage on job performance did not vary by organizational level. In turn, the moderating effect of gender on the association between behavioral courage and job performance was supported. The study results provide important theoretical and practical implications in the fields of organizational behavior, leadership studies, and human resource development. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

Research investigating Karasek's (1979) Demand–Control Model (D-CM) has produced mixed results relating to the stress-buffering effects of job decision latitude, or job control, on employee adjustment. Cited reasons for these mixed results include the way control is operationalised and also the potential effects of secondary moderators in the relationship among job demand, job control, and employee adjustment. Towards addressing these issues, the present study assessed the secondary moderating effects of subjective fit with organisational culture and values in the D-CM. Participation in decision-making was used as the measure of job control. Moderated multiple regression analyses revealed three significant interactions in a sample of 119 employees. The results revealed a three-way interaction between role overload, participative control, and subjective fit on physiological symptoms and psychological health. Further analyses demonstrated a significant interaction between role conflict, participative control, and subjective fit on intentions to leave. In all interactions, participative control buffered the negative effects of the stressors on levels of employee adjustment only when employees' subjective fit with the organisational values was high. The theoretical importance and practical implications of the results are discussed.

This study investigates the universality of transformational leadership with respect to employee perceptions and three outcomes: job satisfaction, self-rated health, and well-being. We do so among employees of different national and cultural backgrounds, yet within a shared national and sectorial setting. Our study has a repeated measures design based on survey data from 2,947 employees (2,836 natives Danes and 111 immigrants) in the Danish elder care sector. While we find no difference between native Danes and immigrants in their perception of transformational leadership, we find that transformational leadership is not a universal predictor of outcomes. Although transformational leadership predicts change in none of the outcomes for immigrants, it does predict change in job satisfaction and well-being for native Danes. Based on our findings, we suggest applying a combination of universalistic and contingency paradigms when leading composite employee groups.