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The aim of this paper is to investigate and define employees' professionalism in the hotel industry. A professional employee has specific core competencies and personal attributes that improve the quality of service by resolving guest complaints, ensuring guest satisfaction and gaining a competitive advantage. In the hospitality industry, interaction with customers necessitates providing services of high standards that are characterised by professionalism.

This research deployed a quantitative methodology with self-administering questionnaires to hotel managers of 4-star and 5-star hotels.

The results of the study suggest that employees' professionalism in hotels includes skills combined with personality characteristics along with a passion for the profession. Thus, to attest to professionalism, managers must ensure that skills are adjusted to subject-specific knowledge and expertise while incorporating “social consciousness” as a constituent dimension of professionalism.

This study investigates the concept of professionalism as the main prerequisite for the delivery of exceptional hotel services and introduces the notion of “social consciousness” as an additional dimension of professionalism.

This paper aims to make a comparative analysis about the level of customer satisfaction on employee professionalism between Islamic and conventional banks in Malaysia. It also explores the important factors that attract customers to banks and identifies the strategies to improve customer satisfaction on employee professionalism.

This study uses a quantitative approach, where questionnaires are distributed to a total of 312 respondents.

The results show that customers are more satisfied with the conventional banks’ employees in terms of their reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy, except for tangibility, where they are more satisfied with the Islamic banks’ employees. It is also found that customers who have been engaging with the bank for more than one year consider each dimension of employee professionalism as important in ensuring their satisfaction with the bank.

This study is conducted in Malaysia and the respondents of this study are limited to 312 respondents only.

This study provides some insights on the area of service quality and customer satisfaction from a developing country’s environment (Malaysia) using the modified SERVQUAL model to perceive professionalism. This paper also explores a more specific area by highlighting the significance of service quality towards customer satisfaction from the perspective of gender, religion and respondents’ period of being a customer to the bank.

Although it has been implicitly or explicitly assumed that family business professionalization is indeed a multidimensional construct, there has been a tendency to confine it to the employment of nonfamily managers and delegating authority in academic research. Dekker et al. (2013) have made an impressive work in untangling the multidimensional structure of family business professionalization. This paper aims to introduce a more comprehensive multidimensional approach and a framework to understand and study family business professionalization by identifying additional dimensions.

The conceptual framework relies on insights derived from the literature on family business professionalization, occupational professionalism and organizational professionalism to reveal the broader multidimensionality of family business professionalization.

The proposed framework extends the definition of family business professionalization and offers additional dimensions which were grouped under five overarching headings: professionalization of management, professionalization of organizational structure, processes and operations, professionalization of family's relationship with business, professionalization of employees and professionalization of work environment and culture.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing a wider approach for the understanding of family business professionalization. It presents a new way of thinking about family business professionalization, underlining the importance of employees and organizational culture for the professionalization process in family firms.

This study aims to broaden the multidimensional conceptualization of family business professionalization, and to investigate how professionalization influences the financial performance of family firms, in the context of private family firms.

Taking a quantitative research approach, the study empirically examines the effect of professionalization on family firm performance, using a sample of 111 privately held Turkish family firms. The hypotheses were tested using regression analysis and the independent samples t-test.

The results indicate that the professionalization of family businesses has a positive effect on their financial performance, and the professionalization of employees is the prominent dimension of professionalization in this effect.

This study advances the understanding of how professionalization influences family firm performance by providing additional empirical evidence regarding the positive influence of multifaceted family business professionalization on financial performance.

The professionalization framework depicted in this study helps owners, managers, or consultants of family businesses assess the professionalization level of their firm and understand the performance effects of each of the family business professionalization dimensions on financial performance. It can also serve as a roadmap for family firms to professionalize and achieve better performance.

Unlike previous studies, this study incorporates employees, organizational culture and work environment, often neglected in the family business literature, into the multidimensional family business professionalization construct, thus extending previous research. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between family businesses professionalization and firm performance.

The purpose of this paper is to show why developing an enabling performance measurement system (PMS) can be useful to small professional service firms (PSFs) and how small PSFs can develop such an enabling PMS.

The authors used a process‐consultation type of action research design; they developed an enabling PMS in close cooperation with the employees of a small PSF. The effects of this intervention were assessed by means of document analysis, participant observation, and individual/group interviews.

The enabling PMS development process helped the firm deal with three challenges common to small PSFs: it increased employees’ understanding about how to apply the firm's strategy; it led to greater knowledge exchange among employees; and it enabled them to create new knowledge.

The research results suggest the type of intervention used for developing an enabling PMS – that has already been shown to be effective in large firms – may also be useful for small PSFs. Similarities and differences with the intervention in large firms are discussed.

Small PSFs may benefit from the approach described herein: to develop a PMS in a participatory manner. It is especially useful if interested in better alignment of operations with strategy and/or to better explicate tacit and create new firm‐relevant knowledge.

This is the first paper about developing an enabling PMS in a small PSF.

This paper aims to describe the role of human resource management (HRM) in targets' coping with workplace bullying.

The paper draws on a study rooted in van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology, conducted with agents working in international facing call centres in Mumbai and Bangalore, India. Exploring targets' lived experiences, conversational interviews and sententious and selective thematic analyzes were undertaken.

Targets' experiences were captured by the core theme of “protecting my interests” which subsumes four themes, experiencing confusion, engaging organizational options, moving inwards and exiting the organization. The findings highlight targets' attempts to deal with the experience of bullying, relying on their personal and social resources as well as on organizational options in order to ensure that their emotional well‐being, task‐related performance and long‐term career goals were not hampered by victimization. Participants' endeavours displayed two prominent features: the presence of turning points and the critical role of HRM in influencing multiple facets of the experience.

The study achieves theoretical generalizability but further research is needed to establish statistical generalizability.

The engagement of HRM as a truly unitarist ideology, the development of effective employee redressal mechanisms and the relevance of pluralist approaches and collectivization endeavours emerge as crucial areas for application.

In addition to breaking new ground in empirically uncovering the organization's etiological role in workplace bullying, going beyond the existing work‐environment hypothesis and organization as bully conceptualization, the findings provide a new perspective on targets' exit coping response. To the authors' knowledge, workplace bullying has not been studied in India.

This paper seeks to describe bystander behaviour including bystander decisions, actions and outcomes, in the context of workplace bullying.

The paper draws on a study rooted in van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology conducted with agents who witnessed workplace bullying in international‐facing call centres in Mumbai and Bangalore, India. Conversational interviews and sententious and selective thematic analyses were undertaken to explore participants' lived experiences.

Participants' experiences were captured by the core theme of “helpless helpfulness” which subsumes the major themes of “the primacy of friendship” and “the ascendance of the self”. Friendship prompted participants to completely protect targets and to fully resolve the bullying situation. Yet, participants, whose initial behaviour was in the desired direction, greatly curbed their efforts in response to supervisory reactions and organizational positions. Inclusivist and exclusivist HR strategies adopted by the employer organization constrained participants in their endeavours to support targets.

The study achieves theoretical generalisability but further research is needed to establish statistical generalisability.

Bystander intervention is an important solution to workplace bullying. The study findings help in developing more effective bystander intervention training programmes, apart from advocating the engagement of HRM as a truly unitarist ideology, the development of effective employee redressal mechanisms and the relevance of pluralist approaches and collectivisation endeavours.

Bystander behaviour in the context of workplace bullying has received limited empirical attention. The study breaks new ground in uncovering the contribution of workplace friendship and organizational inclusivist and exclusivist HR strategies to bystander experiences. Further, workplace bullying remains largely unexplored in India.

AfrobitLink Ltd was an information technology (IT) firm with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. AfrobitLink started as a very small IT firm with less than two dozen staff. Within a few years of its founding, AfrobitLink established itself as a dependable organization known for delivering high-quality IT services. However, starting in 2004, AfrobitLink experienced rapid growth as it expanded to serve the telecommunications firms taking advantage of the deregulated market. This rapid expansion resulted in many challenges for AfrobitLink. The firm rapidly expanded into all 36 states in Nigeria, hiring a manager to oversee the company’s operations in each of the states. Poor hiring practices, inadequate training, excessive spans of control, low accountability, a subjective reward system, and other cultural issues, such as a relaxed attitude to time, resulted in low motivation, high employee turnover, poor customer service, and financial losses. By 2013, the firm was operating at a loss and its reputation was in shambles. Generally, the culture was toxic: employees did not identify with the firm or care about its goals, there were no performance standards, employees were not held accountable, self-interest and discrimination prevailed. The organization was in a downward spiral. Consultants were hired to help sort out the firm’s problems but these efforts yielded few results. Ken Wilson, the founder’s son, was hired in 2014 as VP of Administration to help get the firm back on track. As a change agent, Ken had to decide how to address the issues facing the firm and how to achieve profitable growth.

Primary sources included interviews with the company CEO, his wife, his son, and a volunteer staff member. Secondary sources included the company website. The names of the people and the firm in the case have been changed to provide anonymity.

This case is intended for use in graduate courses (although it can also be used in upper level undergraduate courses) in change management/organization development, organizational behavior, leadership, or international management. For graduate courses, students may focus on application or integration of several theories or concepts. For upper level undergraduate courses, students may focus on application of a single theory or concept. Below are suggested texts or readings for each type of student by subject.

Change management theories (e.g. Lewin’s force field analysis (Schein, 1996), Kotter’s eight-step change management process (Kotter, 2007), The change kaleidoscope approach (Balogun and Hailey, 2008)), social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981), attribution theory (Kelley, 1972), leadership theories (e.g. Hersey and Blanchard, 1969), intercultural/international management theories (e.g. Hofstede, 1980, 1991).

This study surveyed users and librarians who have been transforming libraries into a complex cultural space by reflecting the trends of the times, investigated and analyzed various status of complex cultural spaces, including perceptional differences among different groups and made an attempt to present a direction for the diversification of library's role.

This study analyzes the difference between the level of importance and the level of satisfaction for the operational style and use of complex cultural spaces, current status and use of programs and services of libraries as well as the perceptual difference between librarians and users. In order to do so, opinions were collected from librarians who operate complex cultural spaces and users who use the spaces.

First, the study compared to see if there is a difference between the preferred complex cultural space of libraries and the type of complex cultural space actually provided by libraries. Libraries do not only have data spaces but also made education space, performance space, exhibition space, rest space, community space and experience space available for users. Users were found to more frequently use exhibition space, performance space, rest space and education space among other spaces whereas the utilization rate of community space and experience space was identified to be significantly low. Second, this study also compared to see if there is a difference between users' preference for the type of programs operated by library's complex cultural spaces and the actual programs offered. The comparison of perceived differences between librarians who are the operators of the programs and users who participate in the programs is to compare and improve the consistency of supply and demand. As a result, it was found that the supply and demand for educational programs were most consistent, which would lead to higher participation rate and enhanced operational performance and satisfaction with libraries. Lastly, investigations were carried out to see whether there is a difference in the levels of importance and satisfaction for the operation of complex cultural spaces and perceptional difference between libraries and users. Comprehensively analyzing the results, in the first quadrant of “Keep the Good Work,” librarians showed a higher level of perception compared to users. In particular, librarians were found to have a different perception towards programs (contents) compared to users. Based on such results, a systematic program must be considered when planning for library programs in order to increase uses' satisfaction. In addition, in the second quadrant of “Concentrate Here,” with a high importance and low satisfaction, users showed a high level of importance for programs (contents) whereas libraries identified accessibility as a more important factor, indicating a big perceptional difference between users and librarians.

This study examines the differences between the opinions of operators who create complex cultural spaces and operate programs in the spaces and the opinions of users who participate in the spaces and programs, and it was found that no other studies in Korea and overseas have done the same yet. In addition, it carries a significant meaning in that it does not only investigate the perceptions towards importance and satisfaction, but also suggests improvement directions based on the perceptional differences between users and librarians. In other words, librarians who implement policies at actual sites seem to be able to reflect the results of this study and decide the operation direction of the library.

Users also participate in various services and programs that library's complex cultural spaces offer and enjoy their cultural life. It carries a significant meaning in that the study evaluates the importance-satisfaction of factors affecting the use of complex cultural spaces of libraries by examining perceptions of those users who actually have the experience of using library's complex cultural spaces when the number of libraries attempting to transform into a multicultural space increases. The study made an attempt to enrich the knowledge and understanding of users' visit/use of libraries, suggest improvement directions and factors to focus. Continuous efforts and additional studies must be made in order to vitalize library's complex cultural spaces and secure the position of a cultural facility as well as a communication space located at the heart of regional society.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the multidimensional nature of social and nonprofit organisations' accountability and performance measurement systems (PMSs). It further considers how these systems help in defining outcome performance indicators downward to beneficiaries

The paper discusses participatory action research (PAR) within an Italian social enterprise. In order to increase dialogue, participation and engagement, the researchers adopted focus groups as a preferred method of investigation and conducted a broad documental analysis from July 2016 to March 2018. The paper discusses the gathered data in light of the social impact value chain as well as the multiple-constituency approach.

The findings support the idea that social and nonprofit organisations lack the expertise and resources to evaluate outcomes and impact; however, through PAR, the organisation defined their desired outcomes and ascertained which internal output measures were most likely to be correlated with these outcomes. Moreover, the findings highlight that nonprofits develop outcome measurements less frequently because they have more control over their immediate activities and outputs.

This research suggests the need to reinforce lateral and downward accountability based on mission and mission-based activities in order to make the performance management system of social and nonprofit organisation linked to the organisational strategies.

This paper innovates methodologically in two directions: 1) it adopts action research as a qualitative method, allowing the researcher to generate solutions to collectively-identified problems and 2) the paper's arguments are strongly supported by rich empirical exploration that occurred over a period of 20 months in an Italian social enterprise.