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This article aims to trace the historical development of the behavioral strategy (BS) field, which implements psychology in strategic management. Mainly, it provides a contextual understanding of how this stream of research has historically evolved and what relevant future trajectories are. This work is part of the “over half a century of Management Decision” celebrative and informal Journal section.

We consider BS literature produced in management decision (MD), the oldest and longest-running scholarly publication in management, as a proxy for the evolution of management thought. Through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) process, we collected – via the MD website and Scopus – a sample of 97 BS articles published in MD from its foundation (1967) until today (2024). Regarding the analysis, we adopted a Reflexive Thematic Analysis approach to synthesize the main BS topics, then read from a historical perspective regarding three “eras” over which the literature developed. Selected international literature outside the Journal’s boundaries was considered to complement this historical analysis.

Historically, within the BS field, the interest passed from the rules to rationally govern strategic decision-making processes, to studying what causes cognitive errors, to understanding how to avoid biases and to being prepared for dramatic changes. The article also identifies six future research trajectories, namely “positive heuristics,” “context-embedded mental processes,” “non-conventional thinking,” “cognitive evolutionary triggers,” “debiasing strategies” and “behavioral theories for new strategic challenges” that future research could investigate.

The limitation of the study lies in its exclusive focus on MD for investigating the historical evolution of BS, thereby overlooking critical contributions from other journals. Therefore, MD’s editorial preferences have influenced results. A comprehensive SLR on the BS field is still needed, requiring broader journal coverage to mitigate selection biases and enhance field appraisal.

This contribution is the first to offer a historical evolutionary view of the BS field, complementing the few other reviews on this stream of research. This fills a gap in the study of the evolution of management thought.

This study aims to examine the challenges in the implementation of energy management systems in residential buildings to lower the running cost and achieve a better energy-efficient building.

This study adopted a mixed research method. Quantitative data was gathered by issuing a research questionnaire to 20 Delphi experts, while qualitative data was acquired through a Systematic Literature Review. Data received was analyzed using the descriptive analysis method.

The findings revealed that the main barriers to incorporating energy management systems (EMSs) in residential buildings consist of a lack of awareness of energy management systems, lack of management commitment to energy management, lack of knowledge about energy management systems, lack of funds for energy management systems, resistance to energy management technology by the property owners and property managers, distrust and resistance to energy management technology by the property owners, high initial cost of energy management technologies, shortage of technicians for energy management technologies, the nonexistence of local manufacturers of energy management equipment, lack of incentives for efficient energy management and high repair costs of energy management technologies.

The specific focus on residential buildings may limit the applicability of findings to commercial or industrial sectors. Further research is warranted to accommodate other energy-consuming sectors.

People’s perceptions, either wrong or correct, affect their ability to make an informed decision to adopt energy management systems, denying them the opportunity to reap the associated benefits. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the residential industry stakeholders and the government to increase educational opportunities for property owners, managers and property tenants on the importance of energy management systems.

This research presents the potential obstacles and problematic areas that residents may encounter while using these energy management systems. Consequently, they will be able to make a well-informed choice when installing energy management systems. Moreover, the research elucidates the identification of novel perspectives and also unexamined obstacles that impede the widespread use of energy management systems in residential buildings.

Following the regional restructuring, the number of joint-venture railway companies in which the Group participates has significantly increased. This paper aims to explore the challenges faced by China Railway Group in managing participation in joint-venture railway companies. The study seeks to propose specific approaches to ensure the effective management of these companies, thereby maximizing the benefits of the regional restructuring and supporting the development of a strong transportation country and a modern infrastructure system.

Based on the change in the shareholding relationship between China Railway Group and the joint-venture railway companies, and considering the current situation of the regional restructuring of these companies, as well as the insights from existing literature and typical case studies, this paper proposes some specific paths for effective management of joint-stock railway companies which China Railway Group participated in.

The problems in participation management are the unclear dual leadership role of the party committee, the lack of discourse power, the lack of synergy between shareholders, the increasing risk of sustainable operation of the loss-making companies and the role of dispatched personnel is not fully played. Based on the theories, combined with the existing research and practical cases, the paper proposed specific approaches, such as perfecting top-level system design, maintaining the discourse power, carrying out differentiated management, arranging personnel rationally, arranging shareholders synergy, and innovating methods to provide references for China Railway Group's subsequent management of joint venture railway companies.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of the challenges faced by China Railway Group in managing participation in joint-venture railway companies following the regional restructuring. The study offers novel insights and practical recommendations for addressing these challenges. The findings can serve as valuable references for China Railway Group's subsequent management of joint-venture railway companies which participated in, as well as for other state-owned enterprises facing similar challenges in managing their joint ventures.

The new disruption in the form of ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for organizations to enhance their knowledge management and decision-making capabilities. This article explores how ChatGPT can enhance organizations' KM capability for improved decision-making and identifies potential risks and opportunities.

Using existing literature and a small-scale case study, we develop a conceptual framework for implementing artificial intelligence on the internal organizational knowledge base of big data and its integration with a larger knowledge base of ChatGPT.

This viewpoint conceptualizes integrating knowledge management and ChatGPT for improved organizational decision-making. By facilitating efficient information retrieval, personalized learning, collaborative knowledge sharing, real-time decision support, and continuous improvement, ChatGPT can help organizations stay competitive and achieve business success.

This is one of the first studies on the integration of organizational knowledge management systems with ChatGPT. This research work proposes a conceptual model on integration of knowledge management with generative AI which can be further tested in actual work settings to check it's applicability and make further modifications.

The study provided insights to managers and executives who, in collaboration with IT professionals, can devise a mechanism for integrating existing knowledge management systems in organizations with ChatGPT.

This is one of the first studies exploring the linkage between ChatGPT and knowledge management for informed decision-making.

This paper investigates how organisations responded to the home office imposition during the recent global health crisis and its impacts on people management, detailing the organisational factors crucial for effective home-office implementation.

We used an exploratory design based on a multiple case study with four companies from two contrasting sectors (manufacturing and information technology (IT)). We interviewed a total of 12 managers, including one HR manager (HRms) and two team managers from each company. We also conducted an online questionnaire with open questions, reaching out to 128 home-office workers from the four participating companies. This diverse group consisted of 67 workers from the IT sector and 61 workers from the manufacturing sector. To ensure a comprehensive analysis, we opted for a qualitative approach to examine the data.

Findings enabled detail of the organisational factor of the Belzunegui-Eraso and Erro-Garcés (2020) extended Baruch and Nicholson’s (1997) model into people management issues: organisational culture, team management and human resources management (HRM) practices, as well as the technological support. The results also revealed that people management benefits from the successful home-office implementation, which boosted the digitalisation of human resources (HR) processes.

Considering the lessons learned from the home-office imposition, this research provides original insights into the field by exploring the roles of supervisors and HR managers, in non-health organisations, with different previous remote work experiences, in a recent global disruptive moment, based on a rich qualitative approach. The paper offers concrete guidelines for companies that intend to implement remote work management programs and contributes to deepen the knowledge of home-office experience, offering a model focusing on managers’ roles (HRms and TMs) and HRM practices.

The study examines the project success factors for leadership behavioural practices and communication impacting project success, providing empirical evidence to address the challenges in the digitalized environment in the Australian construction sector.

A quantitative approach was employed to collect survey data from 109 project managers and followers (project engineers, supervisors, team members, and senior managers) with diverse project management experience in the construction sector. An exploratory factors analysis/multivariate regression/relative importance index/t-test was used to identify the key project success factors and validate the study's results.

Data analysis identified four key project success factors: (1) Relationship Management, (2) Leading by Example, (3) Self-Management, and (4) Effective Communication, along with seventeen “behavioural practices attributes” impacting project success positively and significantly and emphasizing inclusiveness, relationship building, self-feedback objectivity, sharing information, collaboratively resolving disputes, and controlling emotions that significantly impact project success.

The study's results will address the industry's challenges in the complex digitalized environment and specific issues experienced in the construction industry: delays and inefficiencies, supply chain management, communication barriers with multicultural workforce and safety protocols implementation, regulatory and safety compliance, infrastructure demands, skills shortages, sustainability, and new technology adoption to achieve project success.

The quantification of research findings, employing an innovative approach, underscores the distinctive nature of this study. The key success factors will help formulate innovative practices using stakeholder analysis, communication plans, conflict resolution strategies, promoting collaboration, safety leadership, providing cultural awareness, and enhancing the decision-making process to face challenges in the construction sector.

Despite the growing body of empirical literature on earnings management in municipal bodies and enterprises on the municipal level, the theoretical foundations often remain limited. This article contributes to filling this research gap by discussing the agency relationships between entities, managers, politicians and the electorate based on the framework of political economy or, more specifically, economic theory of political action. It derives theoretical explanations for earnings management in municipally owned enterprises based on political-economic approaches and provides conceptual guidelines for further theoretical and empirical research in this field.

The article discusses three specific theoretical approaches of political economy (political budget cycles/election cycles, interest fragmentation and partisan ideology) and applies them to the governance structures of municipally owned enterprises. For each of the perspectives, predictions about the use of earnings management and its possible motivations are derived.

The study shows that political budget cycles/election cycles, interest fragmentation and partisan ideology in municipal decision-making bodies can serve as possible explanations as to which extent managers of municipally owned enterprises present manipulated financial statements. All three approaches can help to explain the prevalence of earnings management but lead to different results regarding the methods and aims of earnings management.

As a significant portion of the current literature on earnings management in municipally owned enterprises lacks a theoretical foundation, our article aims to fill this caveat. To do so, we introduce three new conceptual perspectives that explain the prevalence of earnings management in such enterprises and the political-economic environments that are more likely to produce manipulated financial statements.

This paper analyzes the ways in which accounting enables operations managers to enter and perform multiple roles in their interplay with organizational groups on the shop floor and in management, and the associated negotiations that operations managers have with “the self.”

Using field-based studies in a mining organization, the study draws on Goffman’s backstage–frontstage metaphor to analyze how operations managers enter and perform several roles with the aid of accounting.

The findings show that accounting legitimizes operations managers when they cross organizational boundaries, as accounting gives them an “entry ticket” that legitimizes their presence with the group. Accounting further allows operations managers to embrace more than one role by “putting on a mask” to become an outsider or insider in relation to a group. In performing their roles, operations managers exhibit varying attributes and knowledge. Accounting can thereby be withheld from, or shared with, organizational groups. The illusion of accounting as deterministic presented frontstage is not necessarily negotiated that way backstage. Rather, alternatives discussed backstage often become silenced in the frontstage performance. The study concludes that operations managers cross boundaries, embrace roles and exert agency as they navigate with accounting, enrolling it into their performance simultaneously as they backstage reflect upon accounting and its role for their everyday work.

This study relies on the frontstage/backstage metaphor to visualize the discrepancies in how accounting is enrolled into role performances and how seemingly categorical fronts do not necessarily share that dominant position backstage.

The healthcare sector relies on knowledge management systems to improve knowledge flows and effectively capture, leverage and share knowledge with several organizational stakeholders. However, knowledge as a resource represents a social construct that involves additional managerial complexities and challenges, including undesirable knowledge behaviours. The aim of the current study is to provide insight on how knowledge management systems, knowledge hoarding, knowledge hiding and task conflict shape the quality of care provided by hospitals. We propose and test an original revealing model.

We follow a quantitative approach to address the structural relationship between variables using a combination of factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. The model is tested adopting a structural equation modelling approach and using survey data conducted to 318 healthcare professionals working in Portuguese hospitals.

The main findings suggest that knowledge hiding is positively related to task conflict in hospitals, and task conflict negatively influences quality of care. Knowledge management systems directly and indirectly (via knowledge hoarding) promote quality of care. Moreover, knowledge management systems also mitigate the negative influence of task conflict over quality of care. We propose a final corollary on the relevant role of HRM as the backstage for the model.

Our research offers a novel insight into an overlap of organizational behaviour and healthcare management research. It provides an original framework on knowledge management systems, counterproductive knowledge behaviours and task conflict in hospital settings.

Our research offers a novel insight into an overlap of organizational behaviour and healthcare management research. It provides an original framework on knowledge management systems, counterproductive knowledge behaviours and task conflict in hospital settings.

The process of performance measurement provides support to company management to achieve the objectives established in strategic planning. Through the definition of critical success factors and related key performance indicators, performance measurement verifies the gap between planned objectives and the results achieved, informing the responsible bodies to enable them to evaluate performance and, if necessary, implement improvement actions. Although many types of companies adopt performance measurement, this process is challenging when applied to national health services. This paper aims to identify the evolution of performance measurement and the critical success factors of national health services.

The authors conducted an explorative case study of a leading national health service to delineate the evolutionary path of performance measurement and the main critical success factors.

The results indicate a significant increase in the maturity of performance measurement of a national health service that has been motivated by international reforms and national regulations. This research highlights performance measurement features such as a balanced set of metrics, targets, and incentives linked to strategic objectives and regular and frequent performance reviews. Furthermore, it identifies the performance measurement model of a leading national health service.

The evolution of performance measurement and numerous critical success factors of national health services are described; the critical success factors cover a wide range of financial to operational aspects such as patient safety, organizational appropriateness, and clinical appropriateness.