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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of social and contractual enforcement on the performance of business-to-business relationship. The research also tests the mediating role of perceived inequity and coordination.

A survey methodology was used to obtain responses from 224 decision-makers at reseller organizations. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

It was found that both social and contractual enforcement impact relationship performance. Perceived inequity and coordination are important moderators of those relationships, as social enforcement increases coordination and reduces perceived inequity, while contractual enforcement increases perceived inequity.

While previous studies examined enforcement impact on coordination and conflict, this study links it to relationship performance. Importantly, enforcement’s relationship with perceived inequity is also examined in the context of B2B relationship.

This paper aims to examine the role of social norms of justice and relationalism in salesperson–sales manager relationships, and their role in developing salesforce commitment and turnover.

This study uses structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from 402 business-to-business salespeople.

As discrete foundational norms, distributive, procedural and interactional (interpersonal, informational) justice develop higher-order norms of relationalism, which then reflect on increased commitment and reduced turnover intention of the salesforce. Among the justice norms, interpersonal justice has the strongest impact on relationalism.

The paper shows how each justice norm has a distinct impact in shaping relational norms, and that interpersonal justice has the highest impact. In addition, with enhanced relationalism salespeople become more committed and have lower turnover intentions. Future research could use a longitudinal study, present manager’s side in the model and measure and compare the impact of supervisor- versus organization-focused justice.

To enhance relationalism, and thus in turn increase commitment and decrease turnover intention of salesforce, sales managers should pay attention to the salespeople’s perceptions of justice norms (distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal justice), especially interpersonal justice, as it has the highest impact on relationalism. The specific ways to enhance justice perceptions are discussed.

This paper is the first to show how each justice norm is unique in its importance to shape the relationship between sales manager and salespeople in a way that increases the quality of relational norms, governing the relational process into a highly committed one. It also shows that among the four justice norms, interactional justice has the highest impact on relationalism. In addition, this is the first study to show that relationalism decreases turnover intention of salespeople.

The aim of this paper is to develop a comprehensive framework of supply chain performance that includes relationship, operational, strategic and economic performance measures.

The literature regarding inter-organizational performance including: supply chain management, logistics and marketing performance measures is reviewed. A synthesis of the review provides the foundation for developing a comprehensive model of supply chain management performance.

The review and synthesis finds that supply chain performance focuses primarily on operational and economic performance measures while paying less attention to relational and strategic performance measures. The comprehensive framework identifies four major categories of supply chain performance measures: relational; operational; strategic; and economic – hence the name ROSE.

This comprehensive framework identifies four types of supply chain measures that can be used as a guiding framework by both academics and practitioners. The paper also offers directions for future work in the form of propositions.

Competitiveness is an important personality trait that has been studied in various disciplines and has been shown to predict critical work outcomes at the individual level. Despite this, the role of competitiveness in groups and teams has received scant attention amongst organizational researchers. Aiming to promote future research on the role of competitiveness as both an adaptive and maladaptive trait – particularly in the context of work – the authors review competitiveness and its effects on individual and team stress and Well-Being, giving special attention to the processes of cohesion and conflict and situational moderators. The authors illustrate a dynamic multilevel model of individual and team difference factors, competitive processes, and individual and team outcomes to highlight competitiveness as a consequential occupational stressor. Furthermore, the authors discuss the feedback loops that inform the different factors, highlight important avenues for future research, and offer practical solutions for managers to reduce unhealthy competition.

This paper aims to examine the impact of increasing the intensity of religious cues in financial service advertisements on target and non-target groups.

To test the proposed hypotheses, a 2 (Religion: Muslims versus Non-Muslims) x 3 (Religious identity primes: Low versus Medium versus High) factorial design was used. Both target and non-target groups were randomly exposed to factitious advertisements of an Islamic bank embedded with low, medium and high intensity of religious cues.

The results of this study indicate that within target group the manipulation did result into a more favourable attitudes towards the advertisement (Aad) and attitudes towards the brand (Ab) for the medium intensity advertisement; however, for high intensity advertisement, only Aad was more favourable compared to low intensity advertisement. Relatively strong evidence was found in case of non-target group negative reactions in term of Aad, Ab and purchase intention. The direct comparison between target and non-target groups suggest a general pattern of more positive response from target group as compared to non-target group.

The findings of this study provide an important insight into the effectiveness of identity salience messages in financial service marketing. The study provide empirical evidence that intensifying the rhetoric beyond a certain point will generate negative results from both target and non-target respondents.

The authors integrated the research on symbolism, social identity and target and non-target effects to analyse the attitudinal and behavioural differences between and within target and non-target groups of financial service advertisements with different intensity of religious cues.

Islamic banks (IBs) place significant importance on their religious identity, prompting the utilization of impression management (IM) strategies to emphasize such identity. This paper aims to discuss the motivations behind using IM in the creation of religious identity by IBs, and to explore the use of religious symbols and language as a form of religious rhetoric. It is argued that to counteract the threats to their religious identity, IBs use IM techniques, predominantly through the inclusion of religious symbols and rhetoric.

An empirical exploratory study, using content analysis, was conducted on the annual reports of the largest IBs for the year 2022. The analyses involved a total of 39 banks based on a filtered list from The Banker’s Top Islamic Financial Institutions of 2022. A manual content analysis was undertaken to extract religious symbols, images and contents.

The findings reveal the use of IM techniques that emphasize the religious identity of these banks. Notably, IBs consistently reaffirm their commitment to Sharia compliance and disclose their contributions to Zakah. In addition, the analysis reveals the incorporation of Quranic verses, religious iconographic images and other religious rhetoric statements in the annual reports of many IBs.

The analysis concludes that the assertion by IBs that their guiding principles are rooted in Islamic values are supported by the religious terminology and imagery embedded in their annual reports. Alongside mere religious symbolism, the terms and images are integral part of the corporate identity of the Islamic that not only sends persuasive signals to stakeholders but also help build an impression on the activities of the IBs.

IM has been a key objective and strategy of companies. This study aimed at exploring whether and how IBs used religious symbolism as an integral part of IM and corporate identity.

This paper aims to apply complexity theory tenets to deepen understanding, explanation and prediction of how configurations of national cultures and need motivations influence national entrepreneurial and innovation behavior and nations’ quality-of-life (QOL). Also, the study examines whether or not high national ethical behavior is sufficient for indicating nations high in quality-of-life.

Applying core tenets of complexity theory, the study constructs asymmetric, case-based (nations), explanations and predictive models of cultures’ consequences (via Schwartz’s seven value dimensions) and implicit need motivations (via McClelland’s three need motivations) indicating national entrepreneur and innovation activities and subsequent national quality-of-life and ethical behavior. The study includes testing configurational models empirically for predictive accuracy. The empirical examination is for a set of data for 24 nations in Asia, Europe, North and South America and the South Pacific.

The findings confirm the usefulness of applying complexity theory to learn how culture and motivation configurations support versus have negative consequences on nations’ entrepreneurship, innovation and human well-being. Nurturing of entrepreneur activities supports the nurturing of enterprise innovation activity and their joint occurrence indicates nations achieving high quality-of-life. The findings advance the perspective that different sets of cultural value configurations indicate nations high versus low in entrepreneur and innovation activities.

High entrepreneur activities without high innovation activity are insufficient for achieving high national quality-of-life. Achieving high ethical behavior supports high quality-of-life.

This study is one of the first to apply complexity theory tenets in the field of entrepreneurship research. The study here advances the perspective that case-based asymmetric modeling of recipes is necessary to explain and predict entrepreneur activities and outcomes rather than examining whether variable relationships are statistically significant from zero.