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This paper aims to investigate business-to-business sales executives’ navigation of challenges and changes in planning during two separate periods (prevaccine and postvaccine) of time, which were impacted by a disruptive event (the COVID-19 pandemic).

This study uses a two-phase qualitative data collection approach. Thirteen executives, primarily from the Business-to-Business (B2B) manufacturing industry, were interviewed in phase one (2–3 months before the first COVID-19 vaccine). The second period of data collection was collected 4–5 months after vaccines became available.

The prevaccine business environment focused on short-term challenges, while the vaccine created exponential changes to long-term sales practices, suggesting the need to focus on critical inflection points that occur after the initial disruptive event.

This exploratory study is a step toward developing a deeper understanding of managing disruptive events within a business-to-business sales environment by stressing the importance of both the actual disruptive event and the inflection points that follow the event.

New business models are constantly developing and evolving. However, this study suggests the biggest changes could occur after an inflection point from the disruption. Thus, firms need to consider different planning strategies before and after certain inflection points following a disruptive event. First, firms should adapt from their predisruption strategy to focus on short-term challenges during the initial phases of a disruption, likely halting most of the long-term planning. Second, inflection points create the need to move beyond short-term challenges and changes to focus on long-term changes. Third, long-term strategies and planning postinflection point will be different, and likely more complex, than long-term strategies and planning predisruption.

Most studies look at a disruptive event through a single data collection period. This longitudinal study compares prevaccine and postvaccine thought processes to explore the impact of an inflection point.

Due to the fact that most individuals tend to engage in some form of procrastination, it is important for organizations to investigate this phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of family–work conflict, grit, engagement and emotional exhaustion on productive procrastination for business-to-business salespeople. These specific antecedents are used to better understand what leads a salesperson to engage in productive procrastination in the workplace.

Using a Qualtrics panel, 305 business-to-business salespeople were surveyed to investigate what factors lead a salesperson to engage in productive procrastination. These salespeople were from a variety of industries to increase generalizability. All measures were taken from the extant literature. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

Using the job demands-resources model as the framework, the results indicate that the type of engagement has a differential impact on a salesperson’s usage of productive procrastination such that cognitive engagement has a negative impact while emotional engagement has a positive impact on productive procrastination. Emotional exhaustion and family–work conflict lead to productive procrastination but grit minimizes productive procrastination usage.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to explore the positive aspects of procrastination among salespeople. Specifically, this study focuses on productive procrastination and its antecedents. Relevant managerial implications that can help organizations better understand productive procrastination are discussed and examples are provided.

This study aims to investigate the differences between inside and outside business-to-business salespeople. Although prior research has highlighted a need to compare these two distinct sales positions, limited research examines the two. Specifically, this study investigates differences between inside and outside salespeople for the following constructs: positivity, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

A Qualtrics panel of 210 business-to-business salespeople from a variety of US industries was used, with 43.8% classifying themselves as inside. Multi-group analysis using partial least squares structural equations modeling (PLS-SEM) was conducted where job type serves as the moderator for the entire model.

Results indicated four of six significant differences based on position. Specifically, positivity had a significant impact on emotional exhaustion for outside salespeople only. For extrinsic motivation, inside salespeople exhibited a stronger impact on emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, the impact of emotional exhaustion on turnover intentions was stronger for outside salespeople. The impact of job satisfaction on turnover intentions was stronger for inside salespeople. These results are supported by social exchange theory and distraction conflict theory.

This research highlights that sales managers and organizations need to consider different policies based on position type to increase job satisfaction and reduce turnover intentions. Practical guidelines for effectively managing the two positions are provided.

The value of this paper is that it indicates that there are indeed significant differences between these two types of sales positions, and thus, future research should not combine them into a single sample.

This study aims to examine consumers’ patriotism, attitudes toward veterans and attitudes and behaviors toward businesses that honor veterans. The goal is to determine if consumers are more or less likely to support businesses that offer veterans preferential treatment.

The conceptual model proposed is tested using an online survey with a nationwide sample. Data are analyzed using partial least squares structural equations modeling.

Results indicate that consumer attitudes toward businesses that honor veterans fully mediate the impact of consumer attitudes toward veterans on behavioral intentions. This suggests that veterans’ discounts or preferential treatments are viewed as a viable means by which consumers can show their support for veterans. Further, results reveal that patriotism has a direct effect on consumers’ behavioral intentions toward businesses that honor veterans.

Businesses routinely offer discounts targeted to specific consumers, such as the elderly and children. These results show that providing discounts to veterans can offer multiple benefits to businesses as well. Positive attitudes toward businesses that honor veterans can lead to positive behavioral intentions from consumers who seek to support veterans.

Despite the existence of businesses honoring veterans by providing discounts or preferential treatment, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, little to no research has investigated the impact that these discounts provide to businesses.

In a knowledge-based economy, employees’ perception of psychological safety in their wok unit is critical for group conflict. The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating role of psychological safety between the predictors (i.e. organizational trust and empowering leadership) and the outcome variable, group conflict.

Data was drawn from 633 employees from a global automobile company headquartered in South Korea. Construct validity of the measurement model was examined using a confirmatory factor analysis. The hypothesized model was tested by a structural equation modeling and the bootstrap analysis.

Organizational trust and empowering leadership accounted for 68% of the variance in employees’ psychological safety. The three antecedents (i.e. organizational trust, empowering leadership and psychological safety) explained 20% of the variance in group conflicts. Psychological safety significantly and fully mediated the relationship between organizational trust and group conflict and the relationship between empowering leadership and group conflict.

Human resources and organization development professionals can help employees feel more psychologically safe in an organization by developing empowering leaders and making more trustworthy organizational culture. When employees perceive a high level of psychological safety, they are likely to feel less conflict in their team.

This study examined the antecedents and consequences of psychological safety of knowledge workers in a non-Western cultural context. Psychological safety played a pivotal role as a mediator. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that empirically found the direct link between organizational trust and psychological safety and the relationship between empowerment leadership and psychological safety.

Conducted with a staff of 562 persons working in the health sector in Quebec, mainly nurses, the purpose of this paper is to test the indirect effects of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) on workarounds through physical fatigue, cognitive weariness and emotional exhaustion as mediators.

The structural equation method, namely CFA, was used to test the structure of constructs, the reliability and validity of the measurement scales as well as model fit. To test the mediation effects, Hayes’s PROCESS (2013) macro and 95 percent confidence intervals were used and 5,000 bootstrapping re-samples were run. The statistical treatments were carried out with the AMOS software V.24 and SPSS v.22.

The results based on bootstrap analysis and Sobel’s test demonstrate that physical fatigue, cognitive weariness and emotional exhaustion mediate the relationship between PSC and safety workarounds.

The study has important practical implications in detecting blocks and obstacles in the work processes and decreasing the use of workaround behaviors, or in converting their negative consequences into positive contributions.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between PSC, burnout and workaround behaviors. These results could contribute to a better understanding of this construct of workarounds and how to deal with it. Moreover, the test of the concepts of PSC in this study provides support for the theory of “conservation of resources” by proposing an extension of this theory.

This chapter examines group communication in medical teams through psychological safety and simulation training research. Research has shown that medical teams are challenged by established hierarchies, power/status differences, temporal stability, changing team memberships, and deeply held beliefs that emphasize individual responsibility. A review of 47 studies (29 psychological safety, 18 simulation) was conducted to understand key findings in relationship to group communication. Results indicate that team leadership promotes team psychological safety, voice, and relationship quality while status differences and hierarchy continue to affect psychological safety within medical teams. Simulation training facilitated interprofessional relationships, attitudes toward teamwork, self-efficacy, and group communication. The findings of this review suggest that psychological safety may be developed through simulation training. The quality of patient care is improved when all members of medical teams have the ability and motivation to communicate effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to overcome the dilemma of the lack of student workforce readiness upon graduation. Based on experiential learning theory, the authors propose an innovative three-step approach to marketing curriculum to help address this dilemma.

This study examines both quantitative and qualitative data. First, quantitative results were obtained from 5,222 end-of-course surveys of students taking an experiential learning course at a southeastern United States public university. Results were also obtained from 111 end-of-course surveys of students taking experiential learning courses in marketing. Second, qualitative results were obtained through a critical review of self-reflection assignments from over 1,000 students taking a variety of experiential learning marketing courses.

The authors identify a three-step process that can be used to develop curriculum that will better prepare students for entering the workforce. The advantages and disadvantages associated with this type of curriculum are also discussed. The outcomes indicate that an entire curriculum focused on experiential learning, self-reflection and ePortfolios will allow students to not only be better prepared for the workforce but also will help them be better communicators on what they have learned.

In this paper, the authors contribute to the literature by providing a curriculum-based approach to learning in order to minimize the gap between academic knowledge and workforce preparedness. Sample course projects, reflective prompts and grading rubrics are provided to aid others in the implementation of this type of curriculum.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a multidimensional mediating model of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and work-family interference. More precisely, it tests the direct and indirect effects of PSC on work-family conflict (WFC)/family-work conflict (FWC)-time and WFC/FWC-strain via family-supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB).

The structural equation method was used to test the direct effect of PSC on WFC/FWC time and strain. As for the mediation effects, they were tested by the method of indirect effects based on a bootstrap analysis (Preacher and Hayes, 2004) based on 3,000 replications with a 95% confidence interval. The statistical treatments were carried out with the AMOS software V.22.

The results show that PSC is negatively and directly related to WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain and FWC-strain. In addition, the bootstrap analyses indicate that PSC is related indirectly to WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain and FWC-strain via FSSB.

WFC is a workplace issue that warrants intervention in order to reduce organizational costs and increase worker well-being and PSC should be considered as an appropriate target for intervention (Dollard et al., 2012). However, although this management tool can be useful to reduce FWC, it is more appropriate to decrease WFC. Employers and HR managers not only should understand from the findings the importance of PSC, but also that all employees do not have the same problems, depending on the level of responsibilities at home, for example. Hence, they should offer the appropriate resources according to the need of workers. Indeed, the implementation of a unique work-family measure may not be appropriate for all workers, and it is important that employers and HR managers understand the details of WFC and FWC, as well as the possible effects of a series of different variables, in order to design the best work-family programs.

This research examined the effects of two new and specific resources at work, which are PSC and FSSB on WFC and FWC (time and strain), as recommended by Kossek et al. (2011). In addition, this study tested a new multidimensional mediating model which examined the mediation role of FSSB between PSC and time- and strain-based WFC and FWC. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine these relations. Moreover, the test of the concepts of PSC in this study provides a support for the theory of conservation of resources and proposes an extension of this theory.

The field of behavioral business ethics has come a long way since its inception nearly five decades ago. Pioneered in part in response to a number of high-profile corporate scandals, the early field of business ethics was thought by many to be a fad that would recede along with the salience of the scandals of the day. Yet, this could not have been further from the truth. The need for behavioral business ethics research remains ever-present, as evidenced by the sustained number of scandals and unethical behavior within and by organizations. Moreover, research in this area has burgeoned. In the 1980s, only 54 articles had been published on this topic (Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008); today, a similar search yields over 3,000 “hits.” In light of the area’s growth, we suggest the need to take a look back at the seminal work that sparked social scientific work in the field. In particular, this chapter has two main objectives. First, we provide a review of select foundational work. In so doing, we identify some of the key trends that characterized early knowledge development in the field. Second, we draw on this historical context to consider how past trends relate to current work and speak to future research opportunities.