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Small business owners require objective solutions to deal with threats of labour unionisation. This study aims to centre on a novel exploration for improving the leadership acumen of small business owners to address labour unionisation. Specifically, small business owners need a theoretical framework that uses best practices from human resource management (HRM) and industrial relations to provide solutions.

The design, methodology and approach reflect post-modernist epistemological and ontological perspectives for conducting systematic literature reviews. A systematic literature review revealed the relationship between small business owners’ leadership, positive industrial relations and HRM policies and procedures. To identify relevant studies in the review, the utilisation of several databases (EBSCO Database, including PsycINFO and Psych studies; Web of Science) and a mix of ranked journals from entrepreneurship, human resources, leadership and organisational behaviour.

The findings and results in this paper reflect the purpose, methodology and literature analysis culminating in 162,132,000 peer-reviewed studies. A total of 142 peer-reviewed studies met criterion for review. For example, the purpose of this review focused on labour unionisation mitigation for small businesses and HRM solutions. In doing so, the methodology allowed for identification of a novel research topic (i.e. how small business owners mitigate labour unionisation) worthy of further investigation. The sparse findings on labour unionisation mitigation represent small business owners' reticence in creating HRM policies and procedures.

This study contributes research implications for theory and practice by offering small business owners a theoretical framework to address labour unionisation. The framework, centring on HRM solutions, is grounded in social exchange theory to address the novel topic of labour unionisation mitigation in small businesses. This study results suggest that HRM solutions for small business owners provide competitive advantages for employee job satisfaction through a holistic industrial relations approach. In future research, examining other issues discussed in this study can influence the understanding of the relationship between small business owners and industrial relations to increase employee job satisfaction.

Previous studies focused predominantly on wage dispersion within men’ sports teams. This study aims to reveal how the relationship between wage dispersion and team performance applies for women’s sport.

The sample comprises 168 observations of four consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) regular seasons (2018–2021). Eight econometric models are performed for comparing the leagues.

The findings indicate that the wage dispersion within the squads affects the women’s and men’s basketball teams differently. Cohesiveness theory is applicable for WNBA teams, while NBA teams follow the tournament theory.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper which inspects the relationship between wage dispersion and team performance using data from women’s sports. Further research may examine whether the differences found in sports also apply in different labor markets.

In the literature, evidence is to be found of the positive effect of high-performance work systems (HPWSs) on innovation in firms. However, innovation is enabled by not only human resources but also digital technology, and scholars have called for further investigation into the interplay between digital technology and HRM systems. Drawing on signalling theory and HPWSs research, the purpose of this study is to explore the moderating role of digital technologies in the relationship between HPWSs and innovation in the firm and consider employee participation as an additional conditioning factor.

This study uses data from the European Company Suvery 2019 administered in a sample of more than 20,000 European establishments and applies logistic regression with a three-way interaction.

HPWSs underpin product and process innovation. Moreover, this study shows that in firms with low levels of employee participation, digital technology enhances the effect of HPWSs on innovation, while in firms with high levels of employee participation, this effect is reduced.

This study enriches the scholarly discussion about the link between HPWSs and innovation in the firm, by investigating in theoretical and empirical terms the moderating effect of digital technology, underlining that either positive or negative synergistic effects are possible. By adding employee participation to the analysis, the authors cast light on an important boundary condition for understanding when the synergic effects become more prominent. This intends to respond to recent calls from scholars and practitioners for more insight into the precise nature of the synergies between HPWSs and digital technology on innovation in the firm, with important implications for management.

This paper aims to explore how the owners of less competitive micro-firms (MFs) perceive the “crisis–innovation–change management” triangle. It examines whether their understanding of these overarching entrepreneurship theory principles is inadequate compared to the relevant scientific literature.

This qualitative analysis follows principles based on the inductive method and grounded theory, thickly describing the results from research conducted in a sample of 38 tertiary-sector MFs in the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region – one of the least developed and competitive areas across Europe. It triangulates the data with 11 respective small firms.

MF owners perceive the crisis as an ostensibly exogenous phenomenon, innovation as something quasi-unattainable – although vaguely significant – and change management as a relatively unknown process. This understanding lies somewhat distant from the extant literature that examines the structural nature of crises, the innovational power to exit profound restructurings and the rebalancing requisite for building new overall organizational methods to survive this internal–external transformation. In essence, the triangle crisis–innovation–change management is a blind spot for the examined MF owners as they ignore its significance as an adaptation mechanism – contrary to several direct competitors.

Based on the reluctance of these individuals to cultivate their systematic business knowledge, it seems unrealistic that they would seek to pay the necessary high price for business consulting in the future. An ideal solution would be to build public entrepreneurship clinics to provide these less dynamic and adaptable organizations with free preliminary or in-depth counseling. The Institute of Local Development-Innovation could aim to provide free consulting services to reinforce organizational physiology by coordinating different socioeconomic actors.

To the best of our knowledge, this empirical research is one of the first to test the comprehension of weaker MFs – less competitive and developed in organizational terms – to the triangle crisis–innovation–change management.

Organisations encourage green creativity among their employees to mitigate pollution and achieve sustainable growth. Green inclusive leadership practices have a key role in influencing employees’ green attitudes and environmental efficiency. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate how green inclusive leadership influences employees’ green creativity. It also aims to analyse the intermediating mechanism of green human capital and employee voice between the relationship of green inclusive leadership and green creativity.

Data was collected through an in-person administered questionnaire-based survey from 312 employees of the manufacturing industry of Pakistan. SPSS PROCESS macro was used for hypothesis testing in the present study.

The findings depict that the perception of green inclusive leadership positively influences employees’ green creativity. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that green human capital and employee voice play substantial intervening roles among the associations investigated.

This research study is novel because it is one of the scarce research studies to examine green inclusive leadership and employees’ green creativity with the underlying mechanism of green human capital and employee voice in an eastern context.

From a relational perspective, this research aims to answer the following question: How can human resource management (HRM) and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) be articulated at different levels through gift/counter–gift relationships?

The authors' longitudinal and exploratory study was conducted in an innovative SME that constitutes an “emblematic” case. The data were gathered from diverse sources: 2 life stories, 21 semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary analyses.

The results provide a dynamic view of the relationship between HRM and innovation through multi-level analysis. The authors consequently propose a three-step process: freeing up, mobilizing and rethinking gifts.

This article examines how to articulate HRM and innovation in SMEs through gift/counter-gift theory. This relationship is analyzed from a relational and multi-level perspective.

The accurate modeling of magnetic hysteresis in electrical steels is important in several electrical and electronic applications. Numerical models have long been known that can correctly reproduce some typical behaviours of these magnetic materials. Among these, the model proposed by Jiles and Atherton must certainly be mentioned. This model is intuitive and fairly easy to implement and identify with relatively few experimental data. Also, for this reason, it has been extensively studied in different formulations. The developments and numerical tests made on this hysteresis model have indicated that it is able to accurately reproduce symmetrical cycles, especially the major loop, but often it fails to reproduce non-symmetrical cycles. This paper aims to show the positive aspects and highlight the defects of the different formulations in predicting the minor loops of electrical steels excited by non-sinusoidal currents.

The different formulations are applied to different electrical steels, and the data coming from the simulations are compared with those measured experimentally. The direct and inverse Jiles–Atherton models, including the introduction of the dissipative factor approach, are presented, and their limitations are proposed and validated using the measurements of three non-grain-oriented materials. Only the measured major loop is used to identify the parameters of the Jiles–Atherton model. Furthermore, the direct and inverse Jiles–Atherton models were used to simulate the minor loops as well as the hysteresis cycles with direct component (DC) bias excitation. Finally, the simulation results are discussed and compared to measurements for each study case.

The paper indicates that both the direct and the inverse Jiles–Atherton model formulations provide a good agreement with the experimental data for the major loop representation; nevertheless, both models can not accurately predict the minor loops even when the modification approaches proposed in the literature were implemented.

The Jiles–Atherton model and its modifications are widely discussed in the literature; however, some limitations of the model and its modification in the case of the distorted current waveform are not completely highlighted. Furthermore, this paper contains an original discussion on the accuracy of the prediction of minor loops from distorted current waveforms, including DC bias.

The objective of this research is to explore the relationship between person-organization fit and employee well-being in the context of uncertainty across three Central European countries: Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary.

This study employed a survey-based approach to gather primary data from Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary, resulting in a total of 1,140 respondents. The survey utilized a structured questionnaire designed with a five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire consisted of three main sections: person-organization fit, employee well-being and demographic information. Person-organization fit was assessed through a 3-item scale, while employee well-being was evaluated using an 18-item scale that included 3 dimensions: life well-being, workplace well-being and psychological well-being. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyze the survey data.

The findings of the study reveal significant positive relationships between person-organization fit and three dimensions of employee well-being – life well-being, workplace well-being and psychological well-being – in three Central European countries: Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary. Notably, there were discernible differences between Hungary and Lithuania, as well as between Slovakia and Lithuania. Conversely, no significant distinctions were observed between Hungary and Slovakia in relation to these variables.

This research has the potential to shed light on how the alignment between individual values and organizational values impacts employee well-being, particularly within the context of volatile periods such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This understanding can guide organizations in fostering a work environment that supports employees. Furthermore, the results of this study create the prospect of providing actionable guidance to organizations aiming to strengthen their approaches for enhancing employee well-being across dimensions such as life well-being, workplace well-being and psychological well-being.

This study aims to investigate unripe carob pod as a source of antioxidant molecules useful in the eco-friendly synthesis of a gelatin conjugate. This one was involved in the preparation of gummies able to produce remarkable human health benefits.

Eco-friendly strategies (ultrasound-assisted extraction, low temperatures and eco-friendly solvents) were employed in the extraction of active molecules. Antioxidant molecules were involved in the grafting reaction with gelatin chains (ascorbic acid/hydrogen peroxide couple as initiator system). Gelatin conjugate represents a useful material able to prepare gummies with remarkable rheological and antioxidant performances over time.

Experimental results confirmed that the green approach allowed the achievement of extracts with remarkable antioxidant properties due to the presence of phenolic moieties. Gelatin conjugate synthesis preserved these functionalities, usefully exploited in the preparation of gummies with significant structural and biological features.

Compared to the literature data the preparation of the gummies with outstanding biological properties was performed by employing functional gelatin synthesized by an eco-friendly approach.