This piece is a highlight of the foresight, wisdom, humbleness, role-modelling and leadership of Ken Parry.

How firms’ dynamic capabilities lead to their competitive advantage and improved firm performance has been a core issue and full of debates. In this research, we theorize that dynamic capabilities, which could be defined by three distinct dimensions (sensing capability, integration capability, and reconfiguration capability), facilitate different types of innovation that in turn improve firm performance. Based on a sample of 204 Chinese firms, results from partial least squares structural equation modeling analyses generally support our arguments despite some nuanced differences existing among different dimensions of dynamic capabilities. This study contributes to dynamic capabilities literature by reducing the scarcity of empirical research and by uncovering the mechanisms through which dynamic capabilities influence firm performance.

The literature on capability development has focussed on either the content or process of capability development. Such a partial explanation of the capability development phenomenon has created some flaws in the literature. This paper argues that integrating the content and process of capability development is the way ahead in theorising in this field. Analysis of the methodological development in parallel to theory development reveals the critical role of microprocesses in such integration. To develop an integrative view of capability development we propose a conceptualisation of capability development processes through internal and external strategic fit and emphasise the role of knowledge and innovation processes. We also argue that a critical realism approach is of high relevance to researching such an integrative view.

In this article, we explored the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior with the mediating role of psychological empowerment. We collected data from employees in the information technology and cargo sectors within the United Kingdom and Canada. The results revealed that inclusive leadership was positively related to innovative work behavior both directly and indirectly through psychological empowerment. Cognitive evaluation theory was used to support the findings. Implications of the study were discussed.

According to social exchange theory, the motivation for organizational citizenship behavior can be understood with the help of the frameworks of obligation to reciprocate and expected reciprocity. This study predicts that the true motivation for organizational citizenship behavior could be differentiated conditional on the career plateau. These relationships predict the existence of a U-shaped nonlinear relationship between the career plateau and organizational citizenship behavior. In addition to exploring this relationship, the study attempted to discover the effect of organizational commitment and job involvement on the relationship. As a result, a U-shaped curvilinear relationship is applied between career plateau and four dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior except civic virtue. Commitment and involvement show unexpected moderating effects on those curved relationships.

Ken Parry once asked me why I wanted to take the lead on a particular initiative. This paper summarises the answer I'd like to have given him. Taking the lead is pleasurable in three principle ways: it affirms or modifies self-concept, confirms a degree of control over the external world and promises self-transcendence through relationship with others. The paper proposes three categories: identity, influence and interaction, as the basis of an analytic framework for further research into the pleasures of power.

The purpose of this study is to examine inclusive leadership as a predictor of innovative work behavior with the mediating role of psychological safety. Data were collected from supervisors–subordinates dyads working in textile industry in Pakistan. Our findings suggest that inclusive leadership is a positively related with innovative work behavior, and psychological safety mediates the effect of inclusive leadership on innovative work behavior. The leader–member exchange theory was used to build our theoretical model. We have also discussed theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

The objective of this paper is to understand the influence of emotional intelligence on creativity, considering the mediating roles of job resourcefulness, self-motivation and organizational commitment moderated by individual success. The investigation is based on data from 519 questionnaires collected from a sample of Portuguese workers. Structural equation modeling was used with multigroup analysis.The results show a positive influence of emotional intelligence on creativity and other behavioral variables, and individual success appeared to moderate most of the presented relationships. The sample used in this study is not probabilistic, thus the results are difficult to generalize. This investigation identifies several work-related outcomes of emotional intelligence and highlights its importance and raises new ideas for training programs, namely in the field of soft skills. This investigation is innovative in that we analyze the mediating effects of different variables, like job resourcefulness, on emotional intelligence’s relationship with creativity, moderated by individual success.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether different supervisory styles are relevant in facilitating or inhibiting job crafting, and whether job crafting plays a significant role in promoting self-competence and work performance. Data were gathered from 162 employees in a large manufacturing company. We found a positive relationship between promotive control and job crafting, and a negative relationship between restrictive control and job crafting. Some job crafting behaviors positively affect both self-competence and performance, while others have a negative effect. Our results suggest that organizations interested in promoting job crafting should encourage a promotive style of leadership.

Mutiny is often regarded as a consequence of dire conditions and failed leadership. This reflection on Ken Parry's work suggests it is neither and much more the consequences of a socially constructed world.

This paper adopts an integrative and complementary approach to the universalistic and contingency frameworks for analyzing the effectiveness of high-involvement work practices (HIWPs) in Spanish manufacturers. It focuses on some practices that firms adopt at operational level (decentralization, teamwork, job enlargement, information and knowledge sharing and performance-based compensation) to enhance operational performance (cost, quality, flexibility and delivery) and financial performance (return on asset), dealing with the possible moderating effect of three contextual variables: firm age, firm size and trade union power. Using moderated hierarchical regressions and data from 265 Spanish manufacturers, our results show that three of the five HIWPs considered in our study have direct effects on business performance. We also find that three contextual variables have moderating effects on the relation between HIWPs and business performance. Our paper contributes to the debate over the respective merits of the universalistic and contingency frameworks; it offers a broader view about the type of contemporary human resources practices that are successful in the Spanish industrial sector, and in a European manufacturing context, and may guide managers when assigning their firms’ limited resources to the most relevant human resources practices in each particular setting, considering internal characteristics, such as firm age, firm size and trade union power.

Although previous studies have considered the antecedents and outcomes of absorptive capacity, much remains to be learned on this subject. Firms need to absorb breadth and depth of knowledge and form absorptive capacities that are contingent on various social capitals to improve innovation and performance. The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents and outcomes of the breadth and depth of absorptive capacity from the perspective of social capital theory. Based on a sample of 218 Chinese firms, empirical results suggest that weak tie sources and knowledge breadth can enhance the breadth of absorptive capacity, and that strong tie sources and knowledge depth can strengthen the depth of absorptive capacity. The results also suggest that the breadth of absorptive capacity positively impacts the depth of absorptive capacity, and that both breadth and depth of absorptive capacity are positively related to innovation performance.

Our study extends the relationship between paternalistic leadership and employee creativity by identifying employee organizational identification as a mediator and employee perceived job security as a moderator. Results based on the data of 378 employees from a large bank in China indicated that employee perceived job security moderated the relationship between the morality component of paternalistic leadership and employee creativity. In addition, employee organizational identification mediated the relationship between the morality component of paternalistic leadership and employee creativity. We discuss implications for research on paternalistic leadership and employee creativity.

Developing previous work on charismatic leadership by Boas Shamir and Ken, we investigate the contention that followers of charismatic leaders have an emotional connection with that leader in the form of a ‘sense of belonging’ and links to community. We, therefore, investigate whether there is any evidence of a sense of belonging when people describe those they judge to be charismatic. Using a mixed-methods aesthetic narrative approach, we are able to supply empirical support for the existence of such a relationship and to extend the findings of previous studies by incorporating the connection that the leader has with the community, in general, as an important factor in the leader–follower relationship.

Following its positive outcomes in a state-wide survey, co-managers of the Queensland Cancer Control Analysis Team commissioned discovery interviews to explore these results. Eleven interviews were analysed by positive organisational scholars who drew on depreciating and appreciating organisational dynamics to make sense of Queensland Cancer Control Analysis Team’s high performance. An initial framework was devised, including appreciative, depreciative, and hybrid dynamics, with the latter representing an extension to an existing taxonomy. Findings revealed mainly appreciative and hybrid dynamics. To further understand these, the framework was expanded by reframing the dynamics as positive institutional work. This extension offers an experiential understanding of positive institutional patterns by incorporating the troika of experiential surfacing, agency as inquiry, and inclusion. The value of this framework is threefold, for it can be used as an analytic, a diagnostic, and an intervention tool to enable scholars and practitioners to operationalise positive organisational scholarship to examine, understand, and promote positive organisational experiences.

Using multi-level analysis, the present study proposes that psychological empowerment and perceived organizational support serve as mediators of the effects of human resource management (HRM) bundle on individual innovative behavior. We tested the model using data from 705 employees of 162 firms in China. The results revealed that both psychological empowerment and perceived organizational support partially mediate the relationship between HRM bundle and individual innovative behavior. This study contributes to the understanding of how HRM bundle impact on individual innovative behavior.

This paper examines office design as a spatial context of organizations. Organizations increasingly invest in designing workspaces to support employee creativity, foster company innovation and communicate a positive company image. This paper takes a critical view of this ‘hype’ by describing and analysing images of the headquarters of allegedly ‘creative workspaces’ published on the internet across a broad range of industries and corporations. Our analysis shows how their design follows standardized or stereotypical approaches to nurturing creativity: playfully or artistically designed open spaces, environments reminiscent of home, sports and play, nature, past/future technologies, or culturally aligned symbols. We discern underlying connections between office spaces and creativity, suggesting that creativity flourishes in happy, relaxed and playful communities within close-knit teams. We then identify three contradictions in relation to the existing literature on creativity and workspaces: individually versus collectively produced creativity; professionally designed workspaces versus workspaces created through participation; and planned versus emerging creativity.

While much has been documented about the construction of an individual's personal values, very little attention has been paid to how personal values connect with core aspects of leadership such as purpose, behavior and legacy. Through an expansion of Ken's recent work on this topic, the authors explore the impact of personal values-led leadership. A model of how personal values shape leadership purpose, behavior and legacy is introduced. These dimensions are then illuminated through interview data from senior managers from the financial services sector. The personal value impacts are examined in the context of the literature and implications for organizations and managers are drawn together.

Night School is the 21st novel by Lee Child featuring the action hero Jack Reacher. As the title suggests, the novel performs a didactic function via an organizational comedy. By invoking James Joyce's Ulysses and his use of double plots, we focus our attention on Reacher as a model leader who occupies a middle space between extremes. He rejects type-set mechanistic responses to problems and navigates around the confusion raised through information overload. Reacher's leadership is enacted on the ground and in the moment, taking each new encounter as an opportunity to learn. His style, marked by a healthy distrust of authority and documents, an ability to follow the spirit of the law and staying flexible are all characteristic of a man who is continually aware of his environment, and not side-tracked by metaphysical constructs. The novel's denouement presents an assessment of both Reacher's and our learning.