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Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are fundamental to the socioeconomic development of a country or region. They directly contribute to increasing employment generation and improving income distribution. Despite the importance of SMEs, there are still opportunities for developing works that support and guide SMEs to use digital technologies, especially to digitalize their customer service. Therefore, this work aims to propose drivers containing recommendations for developing and improving the digitalization of customer service in SMEs.

This work uses a qualitative approach to systematize the main SMEs' characteristics and identify the boosting elements of the digitalization of customer service in the scientific literature. To this end, the authors conducted a content analysis of the most influential empirical and theoretical articles on the theme published from 2016 to 2021 in the Scopus database.

This work identified 38 boosting elements of the digitalization of customer service based on the scientific literature. These elements were grouped into six drivers for developing and improving the digitalization of customer service. The drivers contain recommendations that were adapted for SMEs according to their characteristics and based on the experience of the authors of this work.

This work contributes to promoting socioeconomic development, providing important solutions for managers and owners of SMEs to improve their customer service. The proposed drivers support and encourage the use of digital technologies for developing and improving customer service, overcoming the challenges of digitalization in these companies. Thus, SMEs will be able to increase the satisfaction of their customers and improve their competitiveness.

Although employees are considered key stakeholders, they receive limited attention in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature compared to other stakeholders such as customers. This study aims to address this gap, investigating how different factors, including CSR communication, may affect employee perceptions, and to what extent they can influence or be influenced by CSR activity.

Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from three multinationals (MNCs) operating in Bangladesh. Mid- and entry-level employees from different departments, namely, marketing, logistics, human resources, IT and finance, were approached for data collection. It is important to note that all the study participants were Bangladeshi.

This study demonstrates how CSR perceptions, shaped by the level of employee awareness, personal beliefs about CSR and perceived motivation for adopting CSR, strengthen psychological ties between employees and their organisation. One-way CSR communication adopted by these MNCs disseminates positive information about an organisation’s contribution to society and creates an aspirational and ideational image, which enhances identification, evokes positive in-group biases and encourages employees to defend their organisation against criticism. This study further demonstrates that employee CSR engagement can galvanise their experience of organisational identity, enhance their pride and reinforce their organisational identification.

Drawing on social identity theory and the CSR communication model proposed by Morsing and Schultz (2006), this study aims to understand employees’ CSR perceptions and the possible impact of this on their behaviour. Previous studies largely focus on customers’ perceptions of these activities, which means the link between CSR perception and employee behaviour remains unclear. The current study suggests that employees working in Bangladesh will not withdraw support from their organisations if CSR is used to build reputation or public image. The findings extend the literature by arguing that some employees in developing countries not only seek to improve their status by working in a reputed organisation but also tend to engage with CSR activities undertaken by their organisation.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the formation of the concept of “motivation,” as well as to share experiences and modern techniques of motivation for employees.

This article includes the results of a survey of HR professionals using the Qwoted platform.

Motivation plays a big role in the life of employees and the company. Motivated employees unknowingly become brand ambassadors and help increase the company’s brand awareness, thus helping the business to grow.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this article was first published in this journal.

This chapter The Grass Is Greener Where You Water It! delves deeper into explicating Employee Green Behaviour (EGB), which outlines the eco-friendly behaviours practiced by employees. The section provides a more thorough explanation of EGB, including its origins, theoretical foundations, and practical applications in a social and physical environment to create environmentally conscious workplaces. The in-role and extra-role of EGB are discussed to strengthen its execution, and its significance considering the present ecological exigency. This chapter outlines the five-features-hierarchical framework for EGB: Sustainability Initiatives, Non-Harmful Action, Resource Conservation, Peer Influence, and Individual Commitment. The environmental history, ecosystems, and biodiversity and their interaction with humans from the ancient period to the present day are provided. The later unit explores organizational plans to encourage EGB, focussing on the role of HR policies, practices, and systems in nurturing the culture of sustainability within organizations. This chapter reviews current studies on EGB, emphasizing the role of employee engagement, transformational environmental leadership, and corporate culture in promoting green practices. It contributes to the academic literature by analyzing EGB, its relevance, and the effects it can have on organizations and society. It is a great tool for academics, government officials, and business heads to make workplaces environmentally friendly.

This study of job advertisements for internal communication practitioners aims to investigate the signals that organisations are sending the profession about what is required of these roles. The concept of corporate voice – the “voice” of the organisation – is problematised to explore tensions in vocality. The aim is to support communication practitioners to navigate multi-vocality in the evolving professional context of digital communication technologies and changes in the workplace.

This qualitative study considers the role of voice in corporate communication practices and offers insights into “digital disruption” and the discursive pressure of employers' priorities on the profession and its practices. Job advertisements for internal communication practitioners were examined during 6-month periods in 2018, 2020 and 2022, which was a significant time of change for the profession with the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Qualitative content analysis of 514 internal communication job advertisements identifies that control and consistency are valorised, and continue to dominate descriptions of internal communication skills and responsibilities. The digital affordances that communication practitioners rely on has not changed significantly and a preference for “broadcasting” is evident.

This study provides insights into how Australian organisations shape and sustain univocal corporate communication practices, and the incompatibility of narrow configurations of voice with emerging organisational challenges such as social connectedness.

In 1991, India embarked on market-based economic reforms initiatives pillared on liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG). The reforms exposed the public sector enterprises to competitive market forces, raising the need to identify and develop the competencies necessary for survival. Executive training programs were initiated to prepare public enterprises for the market-based reforms. Three decades later, the reforms especially privatization is witnessing renewed interest under the current administration. In this context, the article takes a closer look at the structure of management education provided to public sector officers in India. The article also identifies barriers for implementing the learnings from the management courses in the workplaces and suggests approaches for closing the gap.

The study follows a thematic approach based on unstructured interviews of senior executives of Indian public sector enterprises covering oil and gas, aeronautical, power and transportation sectors. New public management (NPM) is used as a yardstick of “business-like” characteristics of public sector enterprises.

Despite heavy investment, trainings have had only partial success in implementing the core objective of NPM, i.e. to provide quality services in a professional manner to meet citizen requirements. The study found that though concepts of NPM are introduced at multiple management training programs, the public enterprises lag in the implementation of NPM. The ingrained hierarchical and procedural culture of the enterprises was often highlighted as the challenge to its implementation.

The study will be of significance to Indian policymakers in designing management education programs to public sector employees. It brings out – (1) various models of management education provided to public servants across industries, (2) provide evidence on the extent of NPM implementation, (3) identify barriers for transitioning the learnings from the management courses to workplace and (4) suggest changes for improving effectiveness.

The existing research on LPG in India covers the economic transformation post-implementation and the factors contributing to the success of its implementation. This study adds to the limited literature available on the management education of public servants in the country.

This chapter critically examines whether it may be possible to create an AI-based authentic leader, questioning the inherent contradiction between artificial and authentic. The authors pose central research questions: Does the application of AI – even just as a powerful resource – challenge the tenets of authentic leadership? What are the possibilities and limitations of the concept of authenticity in AI-based management systems? Moreover, with the help of three vignettes illustrating practical applications of AI-based systems in leadership and management tasks, the authors illustrate how technology may be used to either control or empower workers and leaders. The authors call for research to assess whether the search for authenticity in AI-based leadership could lead anywhere, warning that it could entrap us in unresolvable existential and conceptual ambiguity, ultimately diverting our focus from the essence of leadership altogether.

This study presents a model for assessing the effects of employee ICT training on organizations’ results. It also introduces digital transformation as a mediator between the two concepts and studies the role of organizational commitment and human capital in terms of digital transformation.

Surveys were completed by the CEOs of 184 Spanish companies, and their responses were analyzed with Partial Least Squares.

The results empirically analyze the proposed theoretical model and highlight the fact that human capital and organizational commitment partially mediate the link between ICT training and digital transformation. Furthermore, there is a direct relationship between ICT training and company performance.

Directors and managers should invest more resources in the human capital of their company through ICT training. In fact, it can improve organizational commitment, encouraging employees to adopt innovative behaviors, thus allowing for the necessary digital transformation.

Despite heavy theoretical emphasis on the study of the conditions necessary for the digital transformation of companies, few studies have empirically analyzed the effects of adopting certain practices for its implementation. This paper focuses on analyzing the effect of ICT training, which is configured as a tool capable of improving staff knowledge and increasing employee commitment. This is essential for adopting organizational change such as digital transformation.

Managers are responsible for implementing reasonable accommodation (RA) for people with disabilities (PwD). Yet, little is known about the extent to which managerial views of RA shape attitudes toward PwD. The study draws on conservation of resources (COR) and job demands and resources (JD-R) theories to examine the relationship between managerial views of RA availability and implementation ease on attitudes towards hiring PwD.

In total, 162 full-time managers at a large New Zealand (NZ) healthcare organisation completed an online survey. Moderated multiple regressions were conducted to test the main effects and interactions between perceptions of RA process and attitudes towards hiring PwD.

The study results indicate that line managers held positive attitudes towards hiring PwD when they viewed RA implementation as easy, particularity around the provision of flexible work arrangements.

This study shows the importance of gaging managers' views of RA processes to understand their attitudes toward PwD and highlights potential linkages between managerial perspectives on RA, PwD experiences in the organisation and the effectiveness of disability support and inclusion initiatives.

RA availability from the organisation is insufficient to elicit positive managerial attitudes toward hiring PwD. Policies and procedures that reduce RA implementation complexity are expected to foster positive managerial attitudes toward PwD and improve employment outcomes for this employee group.

This study is the first to test how managerial attitudes towards hiring PwD are influenced by views of RA availability from the organisation and of RA implementation ease. It also provides a multidimensional measure that captures managerial views of RA availability from the organisation and RA implementation ease.