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This research aims to examine the conditions under which individuals’ olfaction is actively engaged in purchase decisions. Consequently, it introduces the concept of need for smell (NFS) to measure differential motivation for the extraction and use of odor information in buying contexts. A ten-item NFS scale was developed that consists of hedonic and utilitarian dimensions.

The scale’s dimensionality and construct validity were examined in five studies. The moderating role of NFS and the mediating role of emotions in the relationship between odor perception and consumer responses were examined. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analyses and customized PROCESS models.

The results show that NFS is a two-dimensional construct. The results further support the scale’s internal structure as well as its reliability, convergent, discriminant and nomological validity. NFS moderates the relationship between odor perception and consumer responses, and emotions mediate this relationship. While hedonic NFS strengthens the impact of odor perception on consumer responses, utilitarian NFS weakens this effect.

The present research extends Krishna’s sensory marketing framework, De Luca and Botelho’s scent research framework and Herz et al.’s scent benefits framework, by introducing the concept of NFS into these frameworks. The study demonstrates the relevance and functionality of NFS construct and NFS scale. The study extends the consumer scent research by introducing NFS and illustrating the interplay of odor perception and NFS on consumer responses to scent stimuli.

The NFS scale used in this study adds to the genre of individual difference scales such as need for cognition and need for touch. Given its smell-specific focus, it has applications in a range of consumption contexts. Using NFS, marketers could effectively identify low and high hedonic and utilitarian NFS consumers and position product or ambient scents to serve these segments better. The NFS scale also has implications for the areas of product and service design and development, consumer information search, brand judgments and choice preferences in both scented and non-scented environments.

This work is one of the first attempts, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to explain motivational differences in active engagement of olfaction, especially in purchase decisions. As a critical step in exploring olfactory information processing, the study demonstrates the relevance and functionality of NFS construct and NFS scale. The study extends the consumer scent research by introducing NFS and illustrating the interplay of odor perception and NFS on consumer responses to scent stimuli.

Studies of the antecedents of daily abusive supervision have mainly focused on work stressors and family stressors, ignoring the potential importance of commuting stressors that are encountered enroute to work. Based in affective events theory, the authors propose a daily, within-person model to examine how the commuting stressors faced by supervisors affect their propensity to engage in abusive supervision behavior and the mechanisms underlying this effect.

Using experience-sampling methodology, the authors collected data from 49 supervisors in China who responded to two daily surveys for 10 working days.

The authors found that daily morning commuting anger mediates the link between daily morning commuting stressors and subsequent abusive supervision. The authors also found that trait-displaced aggression moderates this relationship, such that the mediating effect occurs only when supervisors' trait-displaced aggression is high rather than low.

This study enriches the antecedents of daily abusive supervision and extends the commuting literature to the leadership context.

This study aims to test service providers’ ability to recognise non-verbal emotions in complaining customers of same and different cultures.

In a laboratory study, using a between-subjects experimental design (n = 153), we tested the accuracy of service providers’ perceptions of the emotional expressions of anger, fear, shame and happiness of customers from varying cultural backgrounds. After viewing video vignettes of customers complaining (with the audio removed), participants (in the role of service providers) assessed the emotional state of the customers portrayed in the video.

Service providers in culturally mismatched dyads were prone to misreading anger, happiness and shame expressed by dissatisfied customers. Happiness was misread in the displayed emotions of both dyads. Anger was recognisable in the Anglo customers but not Confucian Asian, while Anglo service providers misread both shame and happiness in Confucian Asian customers.

The study was conducted in the laboratory and was based solely on participant’s perceptions of actors’ non-verbal facial expressions in a single encounter.

Given the level of ethnic differences in developed nations, a culturally sensitive workplace is needed to foster effective functioning of service employee teams. Ability to understand cultural display rules and to recognise and interpret emotions is an important skill for people working in direct contact with customers.

This research addresses the lack of empirical evidence for the recognition of customer emotions by service providers and the impact of cross-cultural differences.

This paper seeks to investigate the significance of emotions in transformational leadership (TL), particularly the explicit and implicit coverage of emotional dimensions and emotional intelligence (EI) competencies within the specific components of TL. The goal is to contribute an extension to the concept of TL.

Systematically, the paper reveals the coverage and emotional ties of TL as operationalised through the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). For analysing the emotional quality of the MLQ an interpretative method is used. This hermeneutic and qualitative investigation shows which emotions, respectively dimensions, functions and effects of emotions are entailed in the specific components. Then, based on a comparison of a refined EI framework, EI competencies are related to specific dimensions of TL.

The interpretative analysis shows that the TL and the MLQ have not integrated emotions and emotional competencies systematically. Facing conceptual deficits and various omissions, the paper proposes that emotions and emotional competencies should be reconsidered more comprehensively in the debate surrounding TL and its corresponding instruments.

The paper is limited in using only the MLQ as a reference point for TL and Goleman's EI framework. Other instruments for measuring TL and EI might reveal different results. Research implications with regard to methodology and contents for future research are outlined.

Practical implications for reducing the identified weaknesses in integrating emotions into TL are offered.

The paper offers important clarifications and reasons for a necessary extension of TL. It shows systematically the deficits concerning the neglected emotional dimensions in TL and opens up perspectives for integrating them. With this it is contributing to the advancement of the conventional leadership discourse and research on TL in particular.

This study examines the influences of personality traits on the employees' commitment to change that moderated by the organizational culture. The employee's commitment to change is important for the large companies to sustain in the global economy.

The quantitative data were collected from the employees in the large companies that are listed in Bursa Saham Kuala Lumpur (BSKL) Malaysia. The research used a simple random sampling and a cross-sectional survey.

The results showed there is a relationship between the personality traits and the employees' commitment to change, moderated by the organizational culture.

This study implies that both practitioners and leaders need to review how they could increase the employees' commitment to change in the companies based on the various personalities.

The originality of the study is the establishment of the instruments and theoretical building on the personality traits, organizational change and employees' commitment to change.

Despite increased calls for incorporating emotional intelligence (EI) in workgroups and teams, there exists a need to develop empirical instruments that can measure group-level emotional intelligence (GEI), and assess its efficacy in predicting outcomes such as performance and learning ability. This paper aims to empirically demonstrate how GEI affects the performance and learning ability of public sector workgroups in city governments.

Using Ghuman’s (2011) proposed theoretical model of GEI as a two-component system, an empirical instrument is created that measures GEI at the group level of analysis. Regression analyses are performed for 44 workgroups in the public sector organizations, with group performance and group learning ability as the dependent variables. Results show a significant positive relationship between GEI and the outcomes of group performance and group learning ability.

The findings demonstrate that a competent instrument has been developed for GEI, and that it can be used to measure the construct in workgroups and teams. The results also empirically demonstrate the importance of GEI in workgroups, by demonstrating that an increased GEI positively enhances the group’s performance and learning ability.

The implication of this research is the creation and testing of an instrument that allows researchers in GEI to utilize this instrument for future studies concerning GEI.

Such findings show that GEI can be an added resource for workgroups to foster positive within-group relations. It can assist in enhancing group learning and group performance. The study also demonstrates that groups that develop a group emotional awareness, and that can manage within group emotional relationships, may become more productive, and more able to learn. These results can be utilized to bolster the arguments of fostering within group emotional socialization, helping nurture a positive group culture and forming a culture of group affect, i.e. a clear understanding of how to perceive and manage affect within the group.

The study builds on past theoretical understanding of GEI to create a model that showcases the effects of GEI on group outcomes such as group learning and group performance. It thereby fulfills a need for an empirical instrument that is able to measure GEI and utilize this instrument to ascertain the effect of GEI on group performance and group learning ability.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

This paper serves two purposes: first, it is an apology for a failure to produce a planned special issue, along with the rationales as to why the authors decided to withdraw it; and second, a commentary on the apparent failure of the research community to address a neglected area of inquiry in emotional intelligence (EI) research.

The authors provide a commentary.

The authors draw attention to the possiblity that employing highly emotionally intelligent individuals may not always yield desirable outcomes for organisations, thus seeking to ignite a more balanced debate as to the merits of EI in management and leadership studies. The authors also detail briefly several avenues for future research.

The theme of the planned special issue was situated at the forefront EI research, so this commentary succinctly highlights the theorising that informed the background to it.