The planning-performance literature suggests that there is a weak positive correlation between strategic planning and financial performance. This study has been undertaken to determine whether this weak positive correlation is true for Australian firms.

Strategic planning for the purposes of this study is arranged in three levels of planning complexity. A sample of 77 listed firms was surveyed to determine their level of planning complexity, and this was correlated with the firm's financial performance over a three year period.

A range of statistical tests did not reveal any significant correlation between strategic planning at any of the three levels and the financial performance of the firm. This negative finding is generally in line with other recent studies conducted in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

However, positive correlations were found with several subjective performance measures, suggesting that respondents generally believe that strategic planning is helping their company.

We explore how relational identification (RI) complements the influence of relational exchange within work role-relationships. In two temporally-lagged studies, we examine the contribution of RI, after accounting for relational exchange quality (REQ), in predicting organizationally-relevant behaviors and attitudes – namely, (1) interpersonal citizenship behaviors (ICBs; person-focused and task-focused), (2) job satisfaction, and (3) affective organizational commitment. Across samples of ‘non-professional’ (N = 152) and ‘professional’ (N = 197) employees, we found that RI (after accounting for REQ) significantly predicted outcomes. Indeed, we found RI to be the only predictor (after accounting for REQ) with affective commitment (‘non-professional’ sample only), person-focused ICBs (both samples), and task-focused ICBs (both samples). We discuss potential approaches for better specifying both identification and exchange as well as their unique and interactive effects within work role-relationships as well as managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions.

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.

This study examined the intermediate role job satisfaction and organizational commitment play between leaders' perceived use of power and followers' performance. Based on a sample of 365 cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy, this study found followers' job satisfaction and commitment mediated the positive relationships between their leaders' use of expert, referent, and reward power and the followers' organizational citizenship behavior. Further, while the use of legitimate or coercive power were both related negatively to followers' in-role job performance, these relationships were not mediated by the followers' job satisfaction or organizational commitment. This study then discusses the practical implications of these findings, highlights its theoretical contributions toward understanding power's direct and indirect relationships with performance in the leadership dynamic, and recommends future research avenues to leverage and build upon these findings.

We investigate how a leader's perception of a follower's behaviours may impact the follower's perception of a leader's behaviours which in turn may relate to a leader's rating of the LMX quality. Multilevel multisource data were collected from 315 leader–member dyads in 27 military teams. At the dyadic level, a leader's perception of a follower was related to the follower's assessment of a leader's behaviours, which in turn, was positively related to how the leader rated their LMX quality. Finally, the leaders' emotional reappraisal moderated the link between a follower's perception of the leader's behaviours and leader rated LMX quality. LMX research continues to interrogate the role of the follower in the leader–follower process. The study sheds further light on how followers contribute to the leadership process.

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.

In this paper, we elicited and examined mental models of human resource professionals, regarding the interrelationships of important elements in shaping competitive strategy, for consensus or systematic variation, testing for HR's distinctive contribution at the strategy table. In order to examine their mental models, we collected empirical data from a stratified non-probability respondent sample of HR professionals in three stages: semi-structured informant interviews; free list and rank ordering tasks; and drawing exercises. Performing consensus analysis of respondents' mental models, we found that: First, as a group, HR professionals lack a robust, integrated HR strategic perspective; second, consensus views of labor relations practitioners and business unit generalists emerge as most distinctive and most people-focused. As one of few scholarly empirical examinations of HR practitioners' mental models on their view as strategic partners, this study challenges the normative calls among scholars and professional organizations for HR's participation in strategy formulation.

One of the most important strategic issues for managers involves deciding the size of the organisation. Factors which influence this decision include economic, social and political change. The boundaries of the organisation are thus not fixed, and are in part contingent upon the particular characteristics of the environmental context. Theoretical progress in the discipline of strategic management, as far as it relates to matters of organisational size (and structure), requires that serious consideration be given to the analysis of the dynamics of vertical integration which is available in the New Institutional Economics literature. One of the most interesting strands in this literature is the Transactions Costs Economics developed by R.H. Coase and O.E. Williamson. This paper provides an overview of the Coase-Williamson theory of vertical integration. It then uses this theory as a point of departure in conducting an empirical discussion of decisions to integrate vertically taken by one of the world's largest mining enterprises, The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, during the first 30 years of its existence. The paper seeks to demonstrate that theorising in strategic management is enriched if analytical (albeit critical) attention is paid to advances in the economics of organisation.

This paper describes commissioned research on how a Wānanga, a Maori focused post school institution in New Zealand, perceived its strategic options following the publication of the Labour-led government's Tertiary Education Strategy 2007–2012 and the Statement of Education Priorities 2008–10 (Ministry of Education 2006). The research used a Delphi panel process that looks for consensus answers to specific research questions: How should the Wānanga respond to the policies sketched in the Tertiary Education Strategy and the Statement of Education Priorities? What is the range of issues that may need to be addressed as a result of this new policy framework? What options does the Wānanga have in addressing these issues? The Delphi process enabled a clear set of priorities to be established: provide quality teaching and learning reflecting Māori values and practices; develop a consistent internal philosophy based on tikanga and āhuatanga Māori; and provide second chance education for Māori and other learners.

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.

Partnerships are increasingly important to firm product innovation. They also increasingly involve parties that are attached to different institutional logics. We examine the effect of firm and partner attachments to the same and different institutional logics. Findings suggest that when partners are attached to the same institutional logic, new product development performance is positively influenced. However, when partners are attached to different institutional logics, new product development is negatively influenced. When controlling for attachment to different institutional logics, partnerships with private companies are more beneficial than partnerships with government research institutions.

Despite the continued popularity of outsourcing amongst managers and management researchers alike, signifi cant questions arguably remain as to the adequacy of the typical framing of the outsourcing decision. An extensive review of the literature revealed a skewed, partial and fragmented conceptualisation of the option, further exacerbated by a concerning tendency effectively to rank quantitative outcomes over qualitative outcomes, even ex post. In this article it is argued that a critical analysis of the theoretical frameworks that underlie this body of work suggests a more realistic conceptualisation of outsourcing, both for management researchers and management decision makers.

The uncertainty and insecurity generated by COVID-19 has greatly reshaped work styles, bringing employees more strain and less engagement and subsequently making human resource management (HRM) more challenging. There has been a growing interest in employee work engagement in the field of HRM. This study utilized positive psychology and the job demands-resources model to explore the mediating mechanism between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employee work engagement. Based on survey data from 71 senior HR managers and 288 employees of 71 China's manufacturing state-owned enterprises, multilevel structural equation modeling shows that HPWS is positively related to work engagement. Employee-perceived internal marketability fully mediates the relationship between HPWS and work engagement. The key result of this paper is that employee-perceived internal marketability is seen as a core personal psychological resource that can be developed through HPWS to benefit both employers and employees.

Having a sense of calling toward one's work has key benefits for both the employee and the employer. Yet, little is known about whether and what kind of work climate facilitates employees' senses of calling, hindering efforts toward positive changes from managers and organizations. This research introduces the concept of ‘career calling climate’ and describes the development of a scale (i.e., Career Calling Climate Scale) to measure the level of support that a work unit provides for its employees' pursuit of a calling. We established the scale's validity and reliability using survey responses from participants of various occupations and age. To provide evidence of its predictive validity, we examined career calling climate's relation with career callings using a sample of 189 healthcare employees nested in 34 work units. Results suggested that career calling climate predicted individuals' career callings. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Addressing major global environmental and social challenges requires transformation of the private sector. Small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute 90% of private organisations globally, resulting in calls for research into the strategic roles SMEs can play in shaping sustainable futures through adopting sustainable business models (SBMs). The purpose of our study is to understand the factors that allow SMEs to successfully adopt SBMs. We used an exploratory qualitative approach drawing on interviews with SMEs implementing SBMs. Our findings extend contemporary insights by revealing the important role of the external support (‘enabling’) environment, and identifying—potentially transformative—capabilities that can help steer SMEs’ transitions to SBMs. These include persistence, tenacity, flexibility, adaptability, and a willingness to learn and fail. They enable SMEs to successfully operate in times of uncertainty and rapid changes in the external environment, and respond to new requirements through changes to their business models.