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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of personal resources on knowledge workers’ job engagement in the contemporary economy. Work itself and work environments are currently undergoing fundamental changes. As such, the focus of engagement research is shifting to an interest in personal resources and the psychological capital of knowledge workers.

This paper proposes a theoretical model based on a modern interpretation of the conservation of resources theory concerning the relationship between personal resources (self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem and satisfaction with life) in relation to the three dimensions of job engagement (physical, emotional and cognitive). The proposed model is tested with structural equation modelling (LISREL).

The results from the analysis of data collected from Finnish university graduates (N = 103) show that the three dimensions of job engagement are strongly influenced by organization-based self-esteem and satisfaction with life but, surprisingly, not by self-efficacy.

Through understanding the impact of personal resources on knowledge workers’ job engagement, organizations can enhance their human relations management practices and develop better support mechanisms for their knowledge workers.

This paper provides empirical evidence for the influence of personal resources on knowledge workers’ job engagement. There is a lack of empirical studies on knowledge workers’ job engagement in the contemporary economy. The changing nature of the way work is being carried out in the contemporary economy raises the importance of personal resources as a key resource for knowledge workers’ job engagement.

Successful firms are important sources of productivity, employment and economic stability in societies. As the micro-level origins of firm innovations are increasingly attracting attention amongst innovation scholars, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of managerial innovativeness, i.e. small firm managers' innovative behaviour for firm performance. Specifically, the present study investigates managerial innovativeness as a predictor of small firms' product innovativeness and market performance.

This research model suggests that managerial innovativeness is positively linked to firms' market performance and that product innovativeness partially mediates the relationship between managerial innovativeness and market performance. The model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with a dataset (N = 93) collected from small logistics firms in South-Eastern Finland.

The findings support the authors' hypotheses and show that managerial innovativeness had a direct effect on firms' product innovativeness and market performance. The authors also found that firms' product innovativeness mediated the relationship between managerial innovativeness and firms' market performance.

This is one of the few studies that shed light on and show that managerial innovativeness is significantly and positively related with small firms' product innovativeness and market performance, whereas earlier research tended to focus on managers' personalities, traits, characteristics or managerial actions, leaving managerial innovativeness unexplored.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of perceived supervisor support on individual improvisation, and the mediating role of the psychological empowerment and improvisation-related self-efficacy in that relationship.

The data were collected in 2011 from the large municipal organization. The total sample size was 593. The partial least square analysis conducted to estimate the mediation effects of empowerment and self-efficacy on the relationship between supervisor support and individual improvisation.

The findings of the study show psychological empowerment and improvisation-related self-efficacy as mechanisms through which supervisor support affects individual improvisation.

Limitation of the study is that it concerns only one organization. The study extends understanding of the factors effecting on individual improvisation in organizations and invites management to pay attention to the mechanisms through which they can affect their subordinates. In a broader sense, the results of this study suggest organizations to develop their management system to better empower their subordinates to stimulate creativity, innovation, novel solutions to face the environmental turbulence.

The practical implications of this study invite management to pay attention to the mechanisms through which they can affect their subordinates. In a broader sense, the results of this study suggest organizations to develop their management system to better empower their subordinates, which thereby could stimulate organizational creativity, innovation, and novel solutions to face the environmental turbulence.

The study provides originality by examining the factors effecting on individual improvisation in organizations and by examining the effect of multiple factors, both individual level-and organizational-level factors on individual-level phenomenon (improvisation). The results of the study are valuable for organizations aiming to foster organizational creativity and innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between knowledge-enhancing HR practices, intellectual capital and sustainable competitive advantage in knowledge-based firms.

A quantitative approach was used to conduct the present study. The respondents were sampled from knowledge-based firms in Iran. Overall, 320 managers in 157 firms were selected using convenience sampling. A structural equation model was employed for testing the hypotheses.

The study confirmed that knowledge-enhancing human resource (HR) practices established a very strong connection with intellectual capital. The results further disclosed a positive relationship between intellectual capital and firms' competitive advantage. A mediated relationship between knowledge-enhancing HR practices and firms' competitive advantage through intellectual capital was also affirmed.

The study was conducted in knowledge-based firms in Iran, which limits the generalizability of the research findings. Therefore, future studies should be carried out with samples from other contexts. Moreover, as the study was cross-sectional, the causal relationships could not be inferred directly.

The paper underscored the importance of intellectual capital in improving knowledge-enhancing HR practices and firms' competitive advantage. It suggests to human resource managers to make the organizational arrangements to design knowledge-enhancing HR practices, thereby developing the intellectual capital that brings competitive advantage to knowledge-based firms.

The results of this study contribute to advance research on the intellectual capital literature by trying to explain how intellectual capital as a mediator variable can influence the relationship between knowledge-enhancing HR practices and sustainable competitive advantage.