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For many years now, both organizational researchers and practitioners alike have been interested in the role played by employee happiness on a number of workplace outcomes. In particular, many have been fascinated by the happy/productive worker thesis. According to this hypothesis, happy employees exhibit higher levels of job-related performance behaviors than do unhappy employees. However, despite decades of research, support for the happy/productive worker thesis remains equivocal. These inconsistent findings primarily result from the variety of ways in which happiness has been operationalized. Most typically, organizational theorists have operationalized happiness as job satisfaction, as the presence of positive affect, as the absence of negative affect, as the lack of emotional exhaustion, and as psychological well being. I will review this literature using the circumplex framework as the taxonomic guideline. In addition, drawing on the impetus of the “positive psychology” movement, I propose Fredrickson’s (1998, 2001, 2003) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions as one approach especially well-suited for future research to better understand the happy/productive worker thesis.

Traditionally, marketing in financial services had been a largely tactical activity, concerned primarily with the advertising and selling of existing products. With the growth in environmental turbulence which characterized the 1980s the notion of marketing as a strategic activity became increasingly important. The 1980s were, in many senses, an era of expansion and diversification. However, many organizations over‐stretched themselves in this period and the 1990s has seen many organizations looking to refocus on core businesses.

For decades, since at least the famous Hawthorne studies, the happy/productive worker thesis has forcefully captured the imagination of management scholars and human resource professionals alike. According to this “Holy Grail” of management research, workers who are happy on the job will have higher job performance, and possibly higher job retention, than those who are less happy. But what is happiness? Most typically, happiness has been measured in the management sciences as jobsatisfaction. This viewpoint is unnecessarily limiting. Building upon alittle remembered body of research from the 1920s, we suggest a twofold, expanded view of this thesis. First, we suggest the consideration of worker happiness as psychological well-being (PWB). Second, incorporating Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build model ofpositive emotions as the theoretical base, we suggest that the job satisfaction to job performance and job satisfaction to employee retentionrelationships may be better explained by controlling for the moderating effect of PWB. Future research directions for human resource professionals are introduced.

Niskanen (1971) established an influential and enduring model of bureaucrats as budget maximizers. Since this theory’s inception, most empirical tests have demonstrated the limited validity of Niskanen’s vision. Using state agency heads as an analytical unit, this paper further develops ways that the rational choice assumptions inadequately characterize bureaucratic budget aspirations: First, instead of being self-interested, many bureaucrats focus on the interests of collectives across governmental and societal actors, and second, an enhanced focus on transparency in presentation of budgetary and programmatic information reduces the information asymmetry that is central to Niskanen’s theory. The findings show that intentions based in a broad public interest and motivations of accountability and transparency tend to reduce, rather than enhance, growth aspirations in state-level bureaucrats.

Web 2.0 and the social networks have changed how organizations interact with their publics. They enable organizations to engage in symmetric dialogic communications with individuals. Various organizations are increasingly ­using different social media to enhance their visibility and relationships with their publics. They allow them to disseminate information, to participate, listen and actively engage in online conversations with different stakeholders. Some social networks have become a key instrument for corporate communication. Therefore, this chapter presents a critical review on the organizations’ dialogic communications with the publics via social networks. It puts forward a conceptual framework that comprises five key dimensions including ­“active presence,” “interactive attitude,” “interactive resources,” “responsiveness” and “conversation.” This contribution examines each dimension and explains their effect on the organizations’ dialogic communication with the publics. Hence, this contribution has resulted in important implications for corporate communication practitioners as well as for academia. Moreover, it opens future research avenues to academia.

Currently, our understandings of the dynamics behind the effects of politicization on values and on administrative decision-making remain largely muddled and far from complete. The richness of theoretical accounts, amassed over the past eight decades, has yielded only a limited number of empirical examinations. This failure to develop a coherent collection of empirical works can be for the most part attributed to the complexity associated with studying values, particularly to the lack of clear and testable theories and models. This article attempts to address this deficit and to add to our understandings of the association between values and administrative decision-making at the individual level by explicitly testing the Broker-Purist (BP) model (within a sample of public procurement specialists). It is found that the BP model fits the data well, which suggest the framework as a valid and useful perspective for conceptualizing the effects of environmental politicization on administrative decision-making in public procurement specifically, and in public administration in general.

Recent studies conducted in Europe and in the Middle East found growing interest of young entrepreneurs in using social media as a venue for business activities. The Digital Natives (DNs), young people who cannot recall their lives without the Internet and digital devices, are thought to be the most entrepreneurial generation so far.

In this chapter, the authors take a closer look at the role of gender in entrepreneurship and provide more insights for effective policy-shaping with the DNs in mind.

This study adopts a quantitative approach to compare the entrepreneurial mindset (EM) of DNs from two frontier markets, Serbia, and Kuwait and examines the gender differences in entrepreneurial intention (EI) and entrepreneurial capacity.

The study shows that female respondents demonstrate a positive attitude toward using social media for entrepreneurial activities. Although technology drives EI, female DNs should receive more guidance and encouragement to feel more confident to start a business. Extending previous studies, the authors discuss the prominent role of social approvals and expert guidance in driving the EM.

This exploratory article examines the issue of state government procurement. It uses original survey data to create a measure of reformed state procurement practices, as suggested by the literature, and explores the ability of several variables from the state policy literature to explain observed differences in state procurement. Findings suggest that the states’ procurement practices possess varying degrees of reform characteristics, that interest group diversity, legislative professionalism, results-oriented management, and regional effects each have significant relationships to state procurement practices, and that several “classic” explanations of state policy are not significantly related to state procurement practices. One implication is that procurement, like other forms of state administrative policy, may not be readily explained by widely utilized theories of state policy.