In this special issue, we have collected 13 articles that offer new vantage points for research on dynamic capabilities. We offer a selection of thought-provoking papers that advance current thinking on dynamic capabilities and provide directions for new inquiries using the dynamic capability framework. The microfoundations of dynamic capabilities have increasingly received interest. This special issue offers a range of conceptual methodological approaches to deepen our understanding of the issues surrounding the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities.

This research focused on the role of group cohesion as moderating the psychological manifestations of attachment and caregiving in performing organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Data were collected from 147 employees, who took part in a 9-week training course. Participants completed questionnaires assessing their attachment and caregiving dimensions as well as group cohesion. Participant OCB levels were assessed by their trainers at the end of the course. Anxious individuals tended to express higher levels of OCB-individual under high levels of group cohesion. However, compulsive caregivers tended to perform OCBI under low levels of group cohesion. The results highlight the contribution of Bowlby's relational perspective in work settings and the importance of contextual factors in predicting OCB.

The importance of strategy has led scholars, consultants and managers to explore the term more intensively. From some of the important words used in the definitions of strategy, differences in various approaches to strategy formulation can be analysed and specific approaches can be identified. Keeping this in view, 273 strategy definitions were analysed using major nouns appearing in these definitions. The study obtained six distinct approaches to strategy formulation namely: the planning approach – related to long-term planning and execution to achieve organisation goals; fit approach – concerned with matching internal strengths and weakness with that of external opportunities and threats; emergent approach – involving adapting to change when needed; positioning approach – involving placing company in such a position so that it gains maximum advantage vis-à-vis its competitors; resource-based approach – identifying and utilizing key resources efficiently and finally, stakeholders' approach – protecting the interest of stakeholders. Using Content analysis, this study shows that each of the approaches emerged and dominated at different periods. This study also shows that during the last four decades, the positioning approach has been the most dominant approach followed by the resource-based approach.

This article synthesizes public and private sector accumulated research regarding the relationship between job security and employee work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment). The present meta-analysis of 37 studies (including 45 independent samples) shows that the medium-sized associations between job security and each work attitude variables (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) were found, with true score correlations (ρ) of .327 for job satisfaction, and .253 for organizational commitment. These results highlight the significance of job security at the workplace, in shaping and enhancing attitudes of employee and job security is worth retaining in some form in the public sector, contrary to the logic of at-will employment. This meta-analysis findings also call attention to several important considerations for developing effective public job security policy.

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.

Most research on the factors driving employees to work longer than expected or preagreed has focused on behaviors of work extension and has widely neglected work intensification. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate whether job demands, as well as employees' job-related resources and personal resources (skill discretion, educational level), predict behavioral indicators of work extension (total working hours, overtime) and work intensification (skipping mandatory rest breaks). We use data from the sixth wave of a large cross-sectional and representative German employee survey (N = 10 148). The findings suggest that job demands and skill discretion are positively associated with the different behaviors of working longer. The relationship between work extension and skill discretion is stronger for higher-educated employees than for lower-educated employees. Our findings suggest that specific job demands and resources must be considered simultaneously to explain working longer and to differentiate between behaviors of working longer.

Considering the mixed results of the relationship between job insecurity and job performance, this study investigated the interaction effect of job insecurity and job embeddedness on job performance and examined the mediating role of affective commitment from the perspectives of conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory. A survey of 725 contract employees from two Chinese private manufacturing companies revealed that when employees had high levels of job embeddedness, job insecurity was significantly and positively related to job performance. In contrast, job insecurity was significantly and negatively related to job performance when there were low levels of job embeddedness. Furthermore, the results indicated that affective commitment mediated the interaction effect. The above conclusions not only illustrate the important role of job embeddedness in the relationship between job insecurity and job performance but also provide beneficial ideas and information to organisations and employees for managing job insecurity.

Drawing on affective events theory (AET) and workplace incivility spiral, this study tested a conditional process model to explain, when and how, affective workplace events (workplace ostracism and workplace incivility) affect employees’ emotions and work effort. Data for this cross-sectional study were collected via an online survey from 251 employees at three public sector universities in Quetta, Pakistan. Results indicated that both ostracism and incivility encumber work effort, and that one way via which ostracism negatively affects work effort is by provoking targets’ negative affect (NA). Results also revealed that workplace incivility exacerbated positive relationship of ostracism and NA such that this relationship was stronger when incivility was high and weaker when incivility was low. Moreover, the indirect effects of ostracism on work effort were also contingent on workplace incivility. Practical implications are discussed at the end.

Dynamic capabilities (DCs) are organizations' ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure competences, on which they draw to adapt to changes. Despite a significant stream of literature exploring DCs, the following question remains: how do dynamic capabilities allow organizations to adapt to changes and succeed? To fill this gap, this paper outlines a theory of DCs, based on an analysis of strategic behavior (micro)formation at the individual and collective levels. This theory conceptualizes an evolutionary paradigm in which the intentions of organizational agents are intertwined with environmental influences. It defines DCs as ‘instruments able to entrepreneurially solve problems of evolutionary fitness of organizations.’ In doing so, it advances theoretical conceptualization of DCs and their microfoundations to provide insights into how an entrepreneurially led organization may confront and solve problems and ultimately prosper.

Many studies suggest that leaders should discourage or prevent the spread of negative workplace gossip (NWG), but yet little is understood about the relationship between leaders and their subordinates' NWG. This study interprets the linkage between authentic leadership and two types of NWG via individuals' perceptions of justice based on fairness heuristic and justice views. The data were collected in a three-stage process from a large information technology corporation in China. The findings revealed that interactional justice mediated authentic leadership and NWG's relationship with supervisors and the relationship between authentic leadership and NWG about coworkers. The procedural justice mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and NWG about supervisors, while it didn't mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and NWG about coworkers. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This research investigates how employees' perceptions of role ambiguity might inhibit their propensity to engage in organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), with a particular focus on the potential buffering roles of two personal resources in this process: political skill and organizational identification. Survey data collected from a manufacturing organization indicate that role ambiguity diminishes OCB, but this effect is attenuated when employees are equipped with political skill and have a strong sense of belonging to their organization. The buffering role of organizational identification also is particularly strong when employees have adequate political skills, suggesting the reinforcing, buffering roles of these two personal resources. Organizations that want to foster voluntary work behaviours, even if they cannot provide clear role descriptions for their employees, should nurture adequate personal resources within their employee ranks.

Microfoundations allow the unpacking of processes by which dynamic capabilities are created. Along this line, managerial cognition has been proposed as a variable related to the dynamic capabilities. However, the high number of cognitive variables reported hinders the theoretical contributions. Thus, this study classifies the managerial cognitive variables of chief executive officers (CEOs) into three types of dynamic managerial capabilities: (1) managerial sensing, (2) managerial seizing, and (3) managerial reconfiguration. We estimate the correlation of these managerial capabilities with firms' dynamic capabilities. We use a three-level random effects model to synthesize 101 correlations reported from 2007 to 2021, representing 6,153 CEOs around the world. This meta-analysis reveals a positive relationship between CEOs' managerial cognition and dynamic capabilities, especially with respect to those cognitive variables that support managerial sensing as the perception of opportunities and entrepreneurial alertness.

This study tested the relationship between servant leadership, unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) of employee, trust in managers, and employees' positive reciprocity beliefs (PRB). Data were collected from 392 employees who work in four and five-star hotels in Alanya, Turkey. Structural equation modeling and artificial neural network analyses provided evidence for direct and indirect relationships between servant leadership and employee UPB via trust in manager and PRB. Specifically, trust in manager and PRB strengthened the relationship of servant leadership with employee UPB. These findings suggest that servant leadership could have a previously unexplored dark side in certain contexts. The study enhances the servant leadership and UPB literature. It also suggests certain practical implications for hotel managers to be able to reduce employee UPB. The limitations and future research suggestions of the study are discussed.

Research on top management team (TMT) diversity suggests that diverse backgrounds improve technological exploration. However, this diversity may also cause demographic faultlines that break a team into subgroups and undermine team performance, and the status difference between CEO and top managers may change inter-subgroup dynamics. We predicted that TMT faultline had an inverted U-shape relationship with technological exploration. Further, we predicted that the effects of TMT faultline were more prominent when the CEO is in the minority subgroup than when the CEO was in the majority subgroup. Using a longitudinal sample from the US IT services industry, the results found that TMT faultline exhibited an inverted U-shape relationship with technological exploration only when the CEO was in the minority subgroup, and such relationship disappeared when the CEO was in the majority subgroup.

This study utilizes self-consistency motivational theory to investigate the association between employees' experience of co-worker ostracism and their promotive voice, while also examining the mediating role of organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) and the moderating effect of emotional stability. We collected three-wave data from personnel in North American organizations and found that social exclusion by co-workers hinders employees' expression of constructive views about work-related matters as it dampens their OBSE. We observed that this mediating role of OBSE is mitigated to the extent to which employees have emotional stability, a dispositional feature that helps them control emotions, discipline impulses, and handle challenges. Overall, our study identifies a key mechanism, employees' belief about their self-esteem and proficiency as an organizational member, through which co-worker exclusion hampers promotive voice, and it reveals how their emotional stability might contain this process.

This study examines the effect of perceived organisational politics on organisational silence through the mediating role of organisational cynicism. In addition, it tests the effect of perceived support on this relationship. A quantitative (questionnaire survey) design was used to gather data from 346 employees in three public hospitals in Iraq. The structural equation model was used for data analysis. The results demonstrate that all the major hypotheses were accepted, and important role of perceived support in reversing the positive relationship between perceived organisational politics and organisational cynicism was also highlighted. Furthermore, the mediating role was clear in terms of organisational cynicism and the relationship between perceived organisational politics and organisational silence.

Research has demonstrated that trusting belief in one's ability is critical to coproducer selection; however, the importance of trusting belief in dedication has been ignored. This study aims to explore how reputation (i.e., word-of-mouth, certification, and recommendation) affects trusting belief in a potential coproducer's ability and dedication and examines its mediating effects in coproducing with a potential partner.

Empirical results show significant mediating effects of trusting belief in a potential coproducer's ability from certification, word-of-mouth, and recommendation, which in turn motivate coproduction, whereas certification leads to the motivation for coproduction through trusting belief in a potential coproducer's dedication. The findings refer to a unitary acceptance of ability but a divergent recognition of dedication. The focal party may regard certification as factual without personal distortion, while the recommendation is an evaluation worth considering. In considering dedication, the focal party may be unable to assess the extent of distortion from second-hand information (e.g., word-of-mouth).

Dynamic capabilities are central to firms' strategic decision-making and have received increasing attention in recent years due, in part, to the development of the information society. This research explores how web-based and human information sources interact and advance the development of dynamic capabilities. We use a mixed-methods approach executed in two studies. Study 1 reports insights gleaned from in-depth interviews with 12 senior managers. Study 2 provides the findings from a survey completed by 139 senior managers. The analysis indicates that the use of web-based and human information sources facilitates all dynamic capabilities types – sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. Furthermore, sensing mediates the effects of the information sources on seizing and reconfiguring. This research highlights the strategic potential of using business information sources to advance dynamic capabilities while differentiating between the most commonly used information sources and inspecting their individual and synergistic effects on the advancement of dynamic capabilities.