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In the project initiation phase, an appraisal is needed to clarify the strategic problem and alternative solutions. Full-scale construction projects and simple solutions (do-minimum alternatives) should be assessed. The do-nothing alternative is the baseline for the appraisal and an option in itself. The paper explores the role of do-nothing and do-minimum alternatives in public project appraisal, which may significantly impact the attractiveness of a construction project.

The paper presents an empirical study from Norway, which requires external quality assurance (QA) of early project appraisals. The data include an extensive document review of 112 projects and interviews with 41 experts involved in the appraisal processes.

Of 112 appraisals, 110 recommended a major construction project, including cases where the benefits and value were low or uncertain. The do-nothing alternative was generally included as a reference but not treated as a viable option. Do-minimum alternatives were often not explored. By contrast, the external QA reports recommended do-nothing or do-minimum in 28 cases. Interestingly, although political decision-makers rarely reject projects, they may put them on hold indefinitely, implying that the actual outcome in many cases is still do-nothing.

The paper addresses a topic that has been understudied in the literature. The findings contribute to the broader literature on project initiation processes, project appraisal and how to reduce the risk of bias and manipulation in appraisals.

The paper aims to examine the effect of justice perceptions of performance appraisal (JPPA) practices (i.e. distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal justice) on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and affective commitment (AC) and the effect of AC on OCB. Further, it investigates the mediating role of AC in the relationship between JPPA practices and OCB. Moreover, this study examines the moderating effect of job level on the relationship between JPPA practices and OCB.

The data were collected using a self-reported structured questionnaire. A total of 650 questionnaires were distributed among the employees of 50 information technology (IT) companies in India, and 503 samples were obtained. The conceptual framework was tested using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method, and the moderating effect was tested using process macro.

The findings of this study reveal that the JPPA practices positively affect OCB and AC and AC affects OCB. Further, AC partially mediates this relationship between JPPA practices and OCB. Furthermore, the direct effect of JPPA practices on OCB happens to be strengthened when the job level decreases, thus confirming the moderating role of job level.

The findings of this study augment the social exchange theory (SET) by suggesting that individuals perceiving justice or fairness in performance appraisal practices are likely to have a greater AC that ultimately engages employees in OCB.

This study will be helpful for human resource practitioners in IT companies who are responsible for the fairness of performance appraisal practices and expect their employees to be emotionally attached to the organization and engaged in OCB.

The study adds to the body of knowledge of how justice in performance appraisal practices links to OCB through AC and moderates by job level in an emerging economy in Asia.

This paper aims to explore the role played by the National Archives of South Africa in human rights promotion and protection. The study examined the challenges that archivists encounter when undertaking archival functions, such as acquisition, appraisal and access provision, that contribute to forming documentary archives crucial for human rights promotion and protection.

A review of literature dealing with acquisition, appraisal and access was used in this research. It was supplemented with interviews.

This paper provides recommendations of benefits in the field of archives management with a focus on the areas of acquisition, appraisal and access. The transformational discourse in the jurisdiction of archives management challenges archival institutions to be active players in selecting historical and cultural archives’ significance that is significant in human rights protections. However, despite judicial requirements that recommend the importance of archives, there is evidence that archival functions such as appraisal, acquisition and access are not being fully used, resulting in national archives institutions that are subject to irregularities that contribute to an unbalanced archives collection.

The paper was limited only to the National Archives of South Africa.

The paper makes practical implications concerning the acquisition, appraisal and providing access to human rights records.

Sufficient funding resource allocation ought to be provided to advance human rights promotion.

This paper offers informed recommendations to address the challenges of acquisition, appraisal and access provision of archive materials. The availability of archives materials reinforces the community by aiding to protect legal rights and prevent human rights violations. It was, thus, necessary to establish whether the National Archives of South Africa is actively building the archives collections that are important for human rights promotion and protection.

Emotion is a key cognitive process that is central to being human. This chapter discusses various psychological approaches to understand emotions and introduces cognitive appraisal theory and its appraisal dimensions. By reviewing recent studies on emotions, this chapter recognises the theory as one of the most promising ones to advance research on emotions. The significance of appraisal theory for tourism is in the ability to explain why the same stimulus can generate different emotions in different people or in the same person at different times. Cognitive appraisal theory is able to assist in the prediction of emotions and subsequent behaviour. This chapter concludes by outlining potential topics where the theory can be particularly useful in tourism.

This study examines the direct impact of justice perceptions of performance appraisal practices (procedural, distributive, interpersonal and informational justice) on job satisfaction, intention to stay and job engagement. Further, it investigates the effect of job engagement on job satisfaction and intention to stay. Moreover, the study tests the mediating role of job engagement on the impact of justice perceptions of performance appraisal practices on job satisfaction and intention to stay.

A total of 650 self-report structured questionnaires were distributed among the employees of 50 information technology companies, and 503 samples were received. Partial least square-structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model.

This study revealed that justice perception of performance appraisal practices positively affects job satisfaction, intention to stay and job engagement. In addition, job engagement positively affects job satisfaction and intention to stay. Further, job engagement significantly transfers the impact of justice perceptions of performance appraisal practices on job satisfaction and intention to stay, thus confirming the mediating role of job engagement. However, the significant direct impact of justice perceptions of performance appraisal practices on job satisfaction and intention to stay in the presence of a mediator, i.e. job engagement, revealed partial mediation.

The findings of this study augment the social exchange theory by explicating that an individual who perceives justice in performance appraisal practices is likely to have greater job engagement, which ultimately leads to higher job satisfaction and intention to stay. This study filled the research gap by examining the role of four justice components of performance appraisal practices on job satisfaction and intention to stay and the mediating role of job engagement in transferring the impact of justice perceptions of performance appraisal practices on job satisfaction and intention to stay.

This study showed the importance of four justice components of performance appraisal practices in enhancing employee job engagement. Hence, this study would motivate information technology companies to maintain fairness in performance appraisal practices to enhance employee job engagement and ultimately increase job satisfaction and intention to stay.

This study is one of its kind that tested the direct impact of comprehensive justice components (procedural, distributive, interpersonal and informational justice) of performance appraisal practices on job satisfaction and intention to stay. In addition, this is a unique study that examined the mediating effect of job engagement on the impact of justice perceptions of performance appraisal practices on job satisfaction and intention to stay.

Primary teachers play a vital role in fostering pupils' successful futures. Therefore, gaining knowledge of primary teacher students' learning processes, including the achievement of information-seeking skills, is crucial. The aim of this paper is to understand better the interplay between cognitive appraisals and emotions in the constructivist process of learning and achieving information-seeking skills.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with six Swedish primary teacher students. The analysis of qualitative data was deductive and theory-driven, guided by Kuhlthau's information search process model, Scherer's semantic space of emotions and Pekrun's control-value theory of achievement emotions.

Anger/frustration, enjoyment and boredom were identified as activity emotions and anxiety, hopelessness and hope as prospective outcome emotions. The retrospective outcome emotions found were pride, joy, gratitude, surprise and relief. The appraisals eliciting the achievement emotions were the control appraisals uncertainty/certainty (activity and prospective outcome) and oneself/other (retrospective), and value appraisals negative/positive intrinsic motivation (activity) and failure/success (prospective and retrospective). The interplay between appraisals and emotions was complex and dynamic. The processes were individually unique, non-linear and iterative, and the appraisals did not always elicit emotions.

The study has theoretical and methodological implications for information behaviour research in its application of appraisal theories and the Geneva affect label coder. In addition, it has practical implications for academic librarians teaching information-seeking skills.

This paper develops and tests a theoretical framework to explain the effect of guanxi human resource management (HRM), a unique Chinese cultural phenomenon, on employee innovative behavior.

We draw from a sample of 398 employees in 81 teams and test the moderated mediation model using multi-level modeling.

The results show that guanxi HRM can be perceived by employees as being simultaneously an unethical hindrance that stifles innovative behavior and a strategic challenge that is beneficial for innovative behavior. In addition, the results show that these indirect effects are contingent upon the strength of guanxi HRM.

The study advances our understanding of the mechanism and boundary condition underlying the double-edged nature of guanxi HRM practices.

The COVID-19 outbreak has been accompanied by a massive “infodemic”, characterized by an overabundance of information, both accurate and inaccurate, making it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance. This study aims to investigate how the COVID-19 infodemic (i.e. information overload and untrustworthiness) influences consumers’ emotions (i.e. fear, anxiety and hope) by shaping their cognitive appraisals of the pandemic (i.e. perceived risk and uncertainty). Additionally, this study also investigates how individual differences (i.e. COVID-19 involvement and infection experience) impact their emotion formation process.

Data were collected from 815 US consumers aged between 18 and 65 in November 2021 via an online survey. Structural equation modeling and multi-group comparison from AMOS 23 were used to test the proposed relationships.

Information overload increased one’s perceived risk and perceived uncertainty of COVID-19, which, in turn, structured the emotional states of fear, anxiety and hope. Information untrustworthiness had a significant impact on risk perception, which led to an increased feeling of fear. Additionally, individuals’ COVID-19 involvement and their infection experience with the coronavirus were found to moderate the cognitive appraisal process in developing emotions.

This study offers insights into the relationships between the information landscape and cognitive appraisals regarding health crises, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only enriching emotional well-being literature, it also lends managerial implications for effective communication strategies in global health emergencies.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2023-0616

Algorithms are widely used to manage various activities in the gig economy. Online car-hailing platforms, such as Uber and Lyft, are exemplary embodiments of such algorithmic management, where drivers are managed by algorithms for task allocation, work monitoring and performance evaluation. Despite employing substantially, the platforms face the challenge of maintaining and fostering drivers' work engagement. Thus, this study aims to examine how the algorithmic management of online car-hailing platforms affects drivers' work engagement.

Drawing on the transactional theory of stress, the authors examined the effects of algorithmic monitoring and fairness on online car-hailing drivers' work engagement and revealed the mediation effects of challenge-hindrance appraisals. Based on survey data collected from 364 drivers, the authors' hypotheses were examined using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The authors also applied path comparison analyses to further compare the effects of algorithmic monitoring and fairness on the two types of appraisals.

This study finds that online car-hailing drivers' challenge-hindrance appraisals mediate the relationship between algorithmic management characteristics and work engagement. Algorithmic monitoring positively affects both challenge and hindrance appraisals in online car-hailing drivers. However, algorithmic fairness promotes challenge appraisal and reduces hindrance appraisal. Consequently, challenge and hindrance appraisals lead to higher and lower work engagement, respectively. Further, the additional path comparison analysis showed that the hindering effect of algorithmic monitoring exceeds its challenging effect, and the challenge-promoting effect of algorithmic fairness is greater than the algorithm's hindrance-reducing effect.

This paper reveals the underlying mechanisms concerning how algorithmic monitoring and fairness affect online car-hailing drivers' work engagement and fills the gap in the research on algorithmic management in the context of online car-hailing platforms. The authors' findings also provide practical guidance for online car-hailing platforms on how to improve the platforms' algorithmic management systems.

This study aims to explore the associations linking employees’ challenge-hindrance appraisals toward artificial intelligence (AI) to service performance while considering the dual mediating roles of job crafting and job insecurity, as well as the moderating role of AI knowledge.

A survey was administered to a sample of 297 service industry employees. This study examined all the hypotheses with Mplus 8.0.

This study confirms that challenge appraisal toward AI has an indirect positive influence on service performance via job crafting (motivation process), whereas hindrance appraisal toward AI has an indirect negative influence on service performance via job insecurity (strain process). Meanwhile, AI knowledge, serving as a key personal resource, could strengthen the positive impacts of challenge appraisal toward AI on job crafting and of hindrance appraisal toward AI on job insecurity.

Organizational decision-makers should first survey employees’ appraisals toward AI and then adopt targeted managerial strategies. From the perspective of service industry employees, employees should adopt proactive coping strategies and enrich their knowledge of AI to meet the challenges brought by this technology.

The primary contribution of this study is that we enrich the literature on AI by exploring the dual mediators (i.e. job crafting and job insecurity) through which AI awareness affects service performance. Moreover, this study advances our understanding of when appraisals toward AI influence job outcomes by identifying the moderating role of AI knowledge.