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Competency frameworks can support public procurement capacity development and performance. However, literature on connecting professionalisation with national procurement contexts is limited. This paper aims to explain and conceptualise recent Romanian experience with developing bespoke competency frameworks at national level for public procurement that reflect the features of the Romanian public procurement system. The approach used could guide in broad-brush, mutatis mutandis, other (national) public procurement systems with comparable features, mainly those seeking a shift from a rather administrative function of public procurement towards a strategic function.

This case study reflects on the methodology used for analysing the Romanian public procurement environment in EU context to develop bespoke professionalisation instruments, and on ways to integrate competency management approaches in Romanian public procurement culture. That methodological mix has been mainly qualitative and constructionist, within an applied research approach. It combined desk research with empirical research and included legal research in this context.

A principled, methodological and pragmatic approach tailored to the procurement environment in question is essential for developing competency frameworks capable to resonate to and address the specific practical needs of that procurement system.

Competency frameworks can uphold societal objectives through public procurement.

Using valuable insights into the development of the Romanian public procurement competency frameworks, the paper provides a conceptual framework for instilling competency management approaches to public procurement professional development where the latter is governed by a rather distinct, public administration, paradigm. This conceptual framework can guide other public procurement systems and stimulate further research.

Competency frameworks can support public procurement capacity development and performance. However, literature on connecting professionalisation with national procurement contexts is limited. This paper aims to explain and conceptualise recent Romanian experience with developing bespoke competency frameworks at national level for public procurement that reflect the features of the Romanian public procurement system. The approach used could guide in broad-brush, mutatis mutandis, other (national) public procurement systems with comparable features, mainly those seeking a shift from a rather administrative function of public procurement towards a strategic function.

This case study reflects on the methodology used for analysing the Romanian public procurement environment in EU context to develop bespoke professionalisation instruments, and on ways to integrate competency management approaches in Romanian public procurement culture. That methodological mix has been mainly qualitative and constructionist, within an applied research approach. It combined desk research with empirical research and included legal research in this context.

A principled, methodological and pragmatic approach tailored to the procurement environment in question is essential for developing competency frameworks capable to resonate to and address the specific practical needs of that procurement system.

Competency frameworks can uphold societal objectives through public procurement.

Using valuable insights into the development of the Romanian public procurement competency frameworks, the paper provides a conceptual framework for instilling competency management approaches to public procurement professional development where the latter is governed by a rather distinct, public administration, paradigm. This conceptual framework can guide other public procurement systems and stimulate further research.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how cluster organisations have been fostering green transformation in Poland.

This paper adopts a multiple case study approach. Data collection methods involved in-depth interviews with cluster organisation managers and researchers to identify support measures for green transformation and to investigate the factors influencing their actions as well as a comprehensive analysis of documents, including cluster organisations‘ strategies.

Cluster organisations manage and participate in actions that create favourable conditions for pursuing low-carbon and circular economy ventures. They not only assist their members in overcoming obstacles related to green transformation but also engage non-members – which can lead to spillovers reaching beyond their borders. Their engagement takes place across all phases of the green transformation process.

For various reasons, the research was designed as qualitative to understand the opinions and experiences of various actors engaged in green transformation within cluster organisations’ ecosystems. The key factor influencing this decision stems from the fact that knowledge of the involvement of cluster organisations in supporting green transformation still needs to be completed and scattered. The limitations of the study include limited access to information and the fact that qualitative research allows for a certain amount of subjectivity, and the results should be generalised carefully. Moreover, the interviews were carried out with a non-random sample of participants. Another limitation of the study is related to biased views, which could have been shared by interviewees acting as representatives of the studied cluster organisations.

Cluster organisations have emerged as drivers of circular transition by promoting sustainable practices such as material recycling, biological recovery and parts harvesting. These initiatives contribute to reducing waste, conserving resources, and minimising the environmental footprint of industries. These organisations can be active agents of transformation, orchestrating collaborative efforts that have a far-reaching impact on industries and economies.

This is one of the first and most comprehensive studies on the role of cluster organisations in Poland in supporting green transformation. This paper identifies and systematises the actions undertaken to provide a clear understanding of the internal processes within cluster organisations.

In order to address the gender divide in technology entrepreneurship, we explore how different national contexts impact policies and policy implementation. We investigate how transnational concerns (macro level) about women’s low participation in (technology) entrepreneurship are translated and implemented amongst actors at the meso level (technology incubators) and understood at the micro level (women tech entrepreneurs).

We adopt gender institutionalism as a theoretical lens to understand what happens in the implementation of gender equality goals in technology entrepreneurship policy. We apply Gains and Lowndes’ (2014) conceptual framework to investigate the gendered character and effects of institutional formation. Four countries represent different levels of gender equality: high (Norway and Sweden), medium (Ireland) and low (Israel). An initial policy document analysis provides the macro level understanding (Heilbrunn et al., 2020). At the meso level, managers of technology business incubators (n = 3–5) in each country were interviewed. At the micro level, 10 female technology entrepreneurs in each country were interviewed. We use an inductive research approach, combined with thematic analysis.

Policies differ across the four countries, ranging from women-centred approaches to gender mainstreaming. Macro level policies are interpreted and implemented in different ways amongst actors at the meso level, who tend to act in line with given national policies. Actors at the micro level often understand gender equality in ways that reflect their national policies. However, women in all four countries share similar struggles with work-life balance and gendered expectations in relation to family responsibilities.

The contribution of our paper is to (1) entrepreneurship theory by applying gendered institutionalism theory to (tech) entrepreneurship, and (2) our findings clearly show that the gendered context matters for policy implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to research the impact of digitalization on employees' future competencies and the conditional role of human resource development (HRD) in the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

Empirical research covered 1209 enterprises from all of Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic. The research was conducted from 2019 to 2021. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), a theoretical model was tested and verified.

Confirmatory factor analysis has shown a good fit for the tested model. The purpose and character of our data showed a good alignment with the SEM partial least squares method, as the goal is to predict a construct. The model showed that employee-oriented digitalization positively affected the employees' future competencies, with no impact of customer-oriented digitalization treated as a control variable. Also, the moderating role of HRD has not been shown to be significant for the “digitalization – competencies” relationship.

Previous studies on the development of personnel competencies treated these competencies as antecedents of digital transformation and examined the formal role of HRD in building the competencies. The novelty of this study lies in exploring the pattern of interactions among the impact of an environment built by innovative technologies and HRD on the competencies of the future. Also, the research embedded in the environment of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia has contributed to the complex understanding of the transition to digitalization, as this region has often been omitted in the field of human resource management (HRM) research focused on exploring digital transformation.

Circular economy (CE) is receiving increasing worldwide attention as a manner to overcome the challenges linked to current trends of unsustainable energy and resource consumption. This paper aims to fill this gap and analyze the adherence to sustainable, access-based and collaborative consumption practices by exploring the role of CE awareness, specifically in the context of Porto, the second-largest city of Portugal.

The methodology of choice is quantitative, based on partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The result shows that there is an influence of CE awareness on subsequent sustainable consumption models.

Present research contributes to the theory on CE awareness and sustainable consumption. It proposes a model that could be applied in other countries. As this research is developed within the city of Porto, it may limit generalizations of obtained results.

As CE practices are embodied into national and local policies, this research contributes to understanding local contexts of CE practices dissemination, providing practical suggestions for businesses and policymakers aiming the transition to the CE.

An original approach to measuring the awareness of CE economy is proposed, that is analyzed not only from the familiarity perspective but in six dimensions of its construction: familiarity, importance, perception or interpretation, advantages, social impact and barriers in this process. Further, the conceptual model of the impact that these dimensions have on the adoption of sustainable consumption models (purchase of sustainable products, access-based and collaborative consumption) is proposed.

This paper revolves around the central question: is it possible to do “proper ethnography” without complete participant observation? The authors draw upon a student's experiences of negotiating National Health Service (NHS) ethical approval requirements and access into the student's research field, a British NHS hospital and having to adapt data collection methods for the student's doctoral research. The authors examine some of the positional (insider/outsider, native gone academic), methodological (long-term/interrupted, overt/covert) and contextual challenges that threatened the student's ethnographic study.

The paper draws on reflexive vignettes written during the student's doctorate, capturing significant moments and issues within the student's research.

The authors highlight the temporal, practical, ethical and emotional challenges faced in attempting an ethnography of nursing culture within a highly regulated research environment. Having revealed the student's experience of researching this specific culture and finding ways to overcome these challenges, the authors conclude that the contemporary ethnographer needs to be increasingly flexible, opportunistic and somewhat covert.

The authors argue that it is possible to do “proper” and “good” ethnography without complete participant observation – it is not the method, the observation, that is the essence of ethnography, but whether the researcher achieves real understanding through thick descriptions of the culture that explain “what is really going on here”.

The authors hope to assist doctoral students engage in “good” ethnographic research within (potentially) risk-averse host organisations, such as the NHS, whilst being located in neo-liberal performative academic organisations (Foster, 2017; McCann et al., 2020). The authors wish to contribute to the journal to ensure good ethnography is accessible and achievable to (particularly) doctoral researchers who have to navigate complex challenges exacerbated by pressures in both the host and home cultures. The authors wish to see doctoral researchers survive and thrive in producing good organisational ethnographies to ensure such research is published (Watson 2012), cognisant of the pressures and targets to publish in top-ranked journals (Jones et al. 2020).

Having identified key challenges, the authors demonstrate how these can be addressed to ensure ethnography remains accessible to and achievable for, doctoral researchers, particularly in healthcare organisations. The authors conclude that understanding can be attained in what they propose as a hybrid form of “propportune” ethnography that blends the aim of the essence of “proper” anthropological approaches with the “opportunism” of contemporary data collection solutions.

As aging populations lead to longer working lives and increasing automation threatens job security, maintaining lifelong employability is becoming a fundamental challenge for many individuals. The purpose of this study is to examine how lifelong employability can be maintained.

Based on the theoretical perspectives of both movement capital and selection, optimization and compensation (SOC) theories, we used large-scale survey data (N = 2,256) from three European countries to investigate strategies for preserving employability among aging workers. Specifically, we explored the perceived risk of automation, lifelong learner characteristics and self-efficacy for occupational mobility as boundary conditions that may shape the negative relationship between age and employability.

We found a negative relationship between age and employability, which was more pronounced when the perceived risk of automation was higher. Furthermore, lifelong learner characteristics and self-efficacy for occupational mobility mitigated the negative relationship, so that age was not related to employability if people possessed lifelong learner characteristics and were ready for a career change.

Our study implies the importance of investing in enhancing lifelong learner characteristics and self-efficacy for occupational mobility for older employees.

This paper analyses whether the humanisation of smart home speakers can improve users' attitudes towards covert information collection. Additionally, it examines the direct and indirect impact of trust, social presence and user's perceived surveillance on attitude towards covert information collection.

A total of 679 American users of smart home speakers are surveyed, and their responses are analysed using structural equation modelling. Mediating effects are also examined.

Humanisation increases social presence, improves users' attitude towards covert information collection and has a U-shaped effect on trust. A negative effect of humanisation on perceived surveillance is demonstrated. Social presence reduces perceived surveillance levels and improves users' attitude towards covert information collection.

We examine attitude towards covert information collection as a new outcome variable. This study contributes to the growing body of research on humanisation by providing new evidence of how humanisation helps improve users' attitude towards covert information collection and generates trust in the service provider. This research indicates the important role of social presence.

This study aims to analyse how consumers' perceptions of justice in a service recovery scenario vary, not only due to the company's actions but also due to the comparisons they make with the experiences of other consumers.

Based on justice theory, social comparison theory and referent cognitions theory, this study describes an eight-scenario experiment with better or worse interactional, procedural and distributive justice (better/worse interactional justice given to other consumers) × 2 (better/worse procedural justice given to other consumers) × 2 (better/worse distributive justice given to other consumers).

First, consumers' perceptions of interactional, procedural and distributive justice vary based on the comparisons they draw with other consumers' experiences. Second, the results confirmed that interactional justice has a moderating effect on procedural justice, whereas procedural justice does not significantly moderate distributive justice.

First, based on justice theory, social comparison theory and referent cognitions theory, we focus on the influence of the treatment received by other consumers on the consumer's perceived justice in the same service recovery situation. Second, it is proposed that the three justice dimensions follow a defined sequence through the service recovery phases. Third, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to propose a multistage model in which some justice dimensions influence other justice dimensions.

: 本研究擬探討在服務補救的處境裡, 消費者對公平的看法不但會受公司的行動所影響, 同時也會因他們與其他消費者的經驗作比較而有所改變。

: 本研究根據正義理論、社會比較理論和參照認知理論, 描述一個涵蓋八個處境的實驗, 實驗包含更好的或更差的互動的、程序上的和分配性的公平 (給予其他消費者更好的/更差的互動公平) × 2(給予其他消費者更好的/更差的程序上的公平) × 2 (給予其他消費者更好的/更差的分配性的公平)。

: 研究結果顯示, 消費者對互動的、程序上的和分配性公平的看法, 是會根據他們與其他消費者的體驗所作的比較而有所改變; 研究結果亦確認了互動的公平對程序上的公平會有調節作用, 而程序上的公平對分配性的公平則沒有顯著的調節作用。

: 首先, 我們根據正義理論、社會比較理論和參照認知理論, 把研究焦點放在於相同的服務補救情景中, 其他消費者受到的待遇, 如何影響消費者自身的認知公平; 另外, 我們建議, 這三個公平維度, 在各個服務補救階段裡, 均會跟隨一個清晰的次序。最後, 就研究人員所知, 本研究為首個提出一個公平維度互為影響的多階段模型的研究。