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This project inquires whether transitioning to adopting sustainable practices involves emphasizing the significance of education and skill development that aligns with employees' knowledge. Additionally, this project explores whether soft skills can act as a means for effective communication, collaboration and ethical decision-making when addressing the intricate and socially interconnected nature of sustainability challenges. Thus, this research explores employee sustainability knowledge and soft skills to gain a more nuanced understanding to provide evidence-based recommendations to enhance organizational sustainability initiatives.

This study used a form of chain-referral sampling with two populations. A two-step cluster analysis with a log-likelihood distance measure and Schwarz’s Bayesian criterion was employed to identify communities of employees with different levels of sustainable practices and soft skills knowledge. A corresponding analysis was conducted to better understand different communities in terms of industry and managerial experience. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using a covariance-based measurement model to establish measurement validity and reliability and to impute latent variables (i.e. constructs) scores.

Aligning human resource (HR) strategies with these identified knowledge communities enables organizations to strategically enhance comprehensive training programs promoting sustainable practices and soft skills. Tailored training and workforce development programs for each community are recommended, with the proposal of active training methods like Lego Serious Play to dynamically engage employees. As organizations increasingly invest in training, this research offers valuable insights for educators and industry professionals to better cultivate and apply soft skills to develop employee sustainability practices and enhance employee development.

Although this study’s findings are not generalizable to the population, they are useful when considering critical sustainability knowledge and soft skills necessary for employees in the hospitality industry. The convenience sample of this study could have been more robust, with participants with greater tenure in the industry or a better understanding of sustainable practices and soft skill competencies. This research used a Qualtrics survey to gather subject responses. This may have caused biases in responding to the survey, such as a central tendency, immediacy, the rater’s knowledge about each criterion or boredom with the survey length.

The practical implications drawn from this study’s findings offer actionable insights for organizations seeking to enhance sustainability practices within their workforce. As one navigates the diverse landscape of employee categories, including sustainable champions, emerging learners and skillful initiators, it becomes evident that a one-size-fits-all approach to training and workforce education is not conducive to cultivating a sustainable culture. In this section, some possible practical strategies tailored to each employee category are suggested, ensuring that organizations can effectively harness the unique strengths and development needs within their workforce.

Using a social cognitive theoretical lens (Bandura, 1977), sustainable catalysts' elevated knowledge levels make them influential contributors to the organization’s sustainability goals, while their adeptness in soft skills positions them as effective communicators, collaborators and leaders in fostering a culture of sustainability. Figure 1b displays this idea. As such, sustainable catalysts were present four times in the effectiveness of the top five soft skills, meaning these sustainable catalysts should be the area of primary focus as they can assist organizations by educating other employees due to their enhanced soft skills and level of sustainability knowledge.

Rooted in social cognitive theory, this study investigated how HR practices can effectively shape sustainability-related workforce development in the workplace. The results identified distinct knowledge communities – sustainable catalysts, skillful initiators, emerging learners and sustainable champions – aligned with quadrants of sustainable practice effectiveness. Aligning HR strategies with these identified knowledge communities enables organizations to strategically enhance comprehensive training programs promoting sustainable practices and soft skills.

This study investigated how sources of information across social media platforms influence fantasy users’ sport consumption and enhance their performance expectancy. Specifically, we examined the effects of social media-related motivation on fantasy users’ playing skills, sense of competition and performance expectancy based on the uses and gratifications theory.

Data were collected from 453 fantasy sport users on social media platforms. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis to assess a measurement model and used serial mediation techniques to examine the relationship between social media-related motivation and fantasy sport users’ performance expectancy.

Results showed that social media-related motivation had significant and positive impacts on fantasy users’ playing skills, sense of competition and performance expectancy. Additionally, we found that fantasy users’ playing skills increased their sense of competition and performance expectancy. A sense of competition was found to positively affect fantasy users’ performance expectancy.

This study provided a valuable contribution to the existing body of knowledge on social media by investigating the influence of social media-related motivation on fantasy sport users. The findings reveal that sharing content-based information on social media platforms plays a vital role in attracting and motivating individuals to engage in fantasy sports. The updated information enhances the playing skills of fantasy users, fosters a sense of competition and improves performance in virtual sport.

This study aims to discern and refine the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the development of customer orientation among banking employees in Morocco. This analysis seeks to enhance understanding about the significance of this emotional skill within the Moroccan banking sector.

The research embraces an interpretivist philosophical perspective to gain insight into the subjective meanings and experiences of study participants. The methodology employed is qualitative, involving data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with 21 front-office bank employees. The analysis of the data was conducted through employing thematic analysis.

The findings of this study conclude that emotional intelligence fosters and stimulates customer orientation for bank employees. The perception, understanding and effective management of emotions – both those of the contact personnel and their customers – enable employees to better comprehend customer reactions. They experience heightened empathy through the impact of accumulated professional experience, adapt their behaviors according to the emotional state of the customer, maintain a positive relationship with them and ultimately gain their confidence.

This study offers clear theoretical explanations and conceptualizations that have identified and linked pertinent literature on the topic. It focuses on a salient subject, investigating how emotional intelligence influences the customer-oriented behavior of front-office bank employees. Notably, this study represents one of the first attempts to explore this relationship within the Moroccan context. As a result, it contributes to the enhancement of managerial practices and human resource policies, thereby fostering a more productive and harmonious working environment.

This study aims to discuss appropriate individual, organizational and macroleveled conditions when it is desired to foster intrapreneurship with nudge techniques.

Conceptual paper.

This paper aims to provide theoretical framework on the relationship between nudges approach and intrapreneurship and offer measurable propositions at different level of analysis for future research.

At the individual level it is theorized that nudges techniques on intrapreneurship will work when: “agents are aware of being nudged”, “choice architect is a well-recognized leader”, “perception of meaningful work is high” and “agents had former experience about being nudged”. At the organizational level it is claimed that the “number”, “type” and “frequency” of nudges plays the prominent role. Lastly, at the macrolevel it is postulated that “cultural adjustments”, “providing education” and “forming networks” sets the ground for pushing masses to intrapreneurial activities via nudges.

Brazil has the second-biggest transplant system in the world. The organ donation rates, however, are still low. To persuade the population towards the theme, media interventions are broadcast regularly. This article analyses how media intervention in the form of advertising campaigns, telenovelas, and news can raise the rates of organ donations in Brazil.

We obtained data from the Brazilian Association for Organ Transplantation (ABTO), the Brazilian Health Ministry (HM), the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Globoplay, and other media sources to build a panel with quarterly data from 2009 to 2019, by state. Then we used fixed-effect panel regression models with healthcare supply and demographics as control variables to ascertain the effect of the media variable on organ donations during this period.

The results indicate that media interventions can increase the number of effective organ donors by up to 1%. The coefficient of media interventions is significant and positive for telenovelas (95% C.I 0.156–0.164), and for news in the following quarter (95% C.I 0.108–0.232), not significant individually for contemporaneous news or government advertising campaigns.

Telenovelas and news presentations are effective tools of awareness for organ donation. Empirically, media interventions in the form of telenovelas or news impact organ donation as much as improvements in the healthcare system and can diminish the mortality on the waiting list by 17%.

This is the first time that media coverage and organ donation campaigns are evaluated together using panel data analysis in Brazil.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2023-0221