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This collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history”, aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.

The essays are invited and peer‐reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.

The scholars invited to comment on the original article have seen its value, and their contributions ground its content in contemporary issues and debates.

The original article was deemed “original” for its time (1987), anticipating as it did considerable reclamation of ethnographic methods in organizational studies in the decades that followed it. It was also deemed of value for our times and, in particular, for readers of this journal, as an historical document, but also as one view of the unsung role of anthropology in management and organizational studies.

Psychological Capital (PsyCap), consisting of hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism, is a positive state associated with attitudes, behaviors and performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a dynamic mediational model posing work engagement as the mediator of the longitudinal relation between PsyCap and job performance.

Data came from all white collar employees who responded to this study’s variables (n=420) from a comprehensive data set drawn from a large communications service company over two consecutive years. Job performance was rated at the end of each year by the direct supervisor as part of the organizational appraisal system.

Structural equation modeling analysis found that both absolute levels and increases in PsyCap predicted subsequent work engagement increases which in turn predicted job performance increases. Moreover, the mediating role of the changes in work engagement between previous PsyCap and performance change was confirmed over time.

There is much to gain in conceptualizing the relations among PsyCap, work engagement and job performance as dynamic, rather than static. The results support the conservation of resources theory, in which employees are motivated to acquire, protect and foster their valued (psychological) resources to attain successful performance outcomes, in order to create a gain cycle of resources (Salanova et al., 2010). Moreover, it provide further empirical validation for the idea that processes, like work engagement, are sustained by personal resources, and that these latter exerts mostly an indirect effect on organizational behavior outcomes (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009b).

These results are important from a practical point of view, because they point to the importance of training interventions aimed at developing and sustaining PsyCap as an important determinant of workers’ motivation and behavior within the organization. Considerable literature offers practical insights and guidelines for developing PsyCap (Luthans et al., 2006, 2015; Luthans and Youssef-Morgan, 2017).

Despite the demonstrated state-like, dynamic nature of PsyCap, its relationship with performance has mainly been statically analyzed and the role of possible mediating mechanisms largely ignored. This study begins to fill this research gap by investigating the dynamic nature of PsyCap in relation to work engagement and job performance and whether over time engagement mediates the relationship between PsyCap and job performance.

The advent of information technology has generated not only interest in how to acquire, store and “mine” data, but also how to manage knowledge. Yet, there is still considerable confusion and a lack of understanding of what today’s knowledge managers really do. Continuing a stream of previous research on the behavior activities of traditional managers, this study investigated the relative amount of time today’s knowledge managers (N=307) spend on traditional management functions, communications, human resources and networking. Besides identifying what knowledge managers really do, this study examined what successful knowledge managers do. Comparisons are then made with managers in the 1980s. Finally, the role that information technology plays in knowledge managers carrying out their managerial activities was assessed. The implications of some surprising findings and conclusions end the paper.

This chapter provides valuable insights around the entrepreneurial landscapes of the twenty-first century, as well as the inherent stressors that may impact entrepreneurial well-being and performance. As the World Health Organization declares stress as the epidemic of the twenty-first century, entrepreneurs face increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous contexts, or what the Army War College refers to as “VUCA” environments. In these contexts, traditional models of leadership and stress management in entrepreneurship require tapping into new, sometimes previously untapped and underdeveloped resources. Resources such as Psychological Capital (Luthans, Youssef-Morgan, & Avolio, 2007), Algorithmic Leadership (Harms & Han, 2018), and wearable biometric technologies (Tsuji, Sato, Yano, Broad, & Luthans, 2019) that exploit big data analytics powered by artificial intelligence will be invaluable to entrepreneurs as they manage stress, and build and maintain their competitive edges.

Inherent in the meaning of global mindset is the dilemma of an appropriate level of analysis at which we define, measure, and research this construct. This chapter addresses the individual level of analysis using social cognition, which explains how the development process of global mindset helps individuals make sense of unfamiliar stimuli, broaden their cognitive capacities, adjust their behavior accordingly, and have a positive influence on others. Our recently developed core construct of positive psychological capital, or PsyCap (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007), and the overarching process of authentic leadership development (Avolio & Luthans, 2006) are used to explicate the theoretical social cognitive framework. The “influence on others” implies a leadership process, and that is why we address the role that global mindset may have in the authentic leadership development process (Avolio & Luthans, 2006).

The significant challenges faced by South Africa at present are well known. How to deal with the problems from a political and economic perspective abound, but taking a psychological approach has been neglected. This paper proposes a positive approach to South African organizational leadership based on the psychological capacity of hope. After giving a brief background on the context surrounding South African organizations, the theory, research, and application of hope relevant to organizational leadership in the “Rainbow Nation” are presented and analyzed. Such an overlooked positive approach represented by hopeful organizational leaders seems needed at this juncture of South Africa's present and future.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the use of money, social recognition, and feedback have a similar impact on employee performance in the context of a modern Korean broadband internet service firm.

The study design was a quasi‐field experiment (with control group). First, the leaders of this Korean firm were trained in behavioral performance management. Following the steps of organisational behaviour modification (O.B. Mod.) they identified, measured, and analyzed critical performance behaviors and then intervened with the following reward incentives: money (n=38), social recognition and caring attention (n=41), and objective feedback only (n=31). The main dependent variable was overall performance, and this was also broken down into quantity and quality dimensions.

As hypothesized, money and social recognition had a significant impact on performance outcomes, but feedback did not result in as strong a result. When compared to the control group (n=23), all three reward incentives showed significantly more improvement of overall performance. These findings also indicated, as hypothesized, that the impact of this behavioral management approach on Korean employees did not appear as robust as previous meta‐analytic research based on samples of US employees. Finally, although in the predicted direction, the hypothesis that social recognition would have a relatively stronger impact than money and feedback in this context was not statistically supported.

The major limitation concerns generalizability of the findings. However, the experimental design provides support for internal validity.

The study results have practical implications for the value of behavioral performance management, but also that cultural contingencies should also be considered for successful application.

This study contributes preliminary evidence for O.B. Mod to have applicability across cultures.

The popular total quality management (TQM) approach has tended to focus on internal processes, rather than external issues such as competitiveness and market appeal, and is more reactive and adaptive than anticipative. The time has come to go beyond TQM and to understand the nature and application of organizational learning. Learning organizations envision change, are committed to generating and transferring new knowledge and innovation, and have learned how to learn. TQM may be embedded in the learning organization, but TQM is but the first step or wave in transforming and creating organizations which continuously expand their abilities to change and shape their futures. This article first defines and identifies the characteristics of a learning organization, then explores some techniques to develop and transform an organization into a learning organization, and finally suggests some traditional and newer techniques, such as data envelopment analysis (DEA), as ways to measure and evaluate organizational learning.

The behavioural management of bank tellers delivering service to customers is examined. The degree of quality service is defined by six dimensions: greeting, eye contact, speed of service, help offered, personal recognition, and appreciation. Techniques consisted of providing PIGS feedback (positive, immediate, graphic and specific) on each of the six dimensions, and contingent social reinforcers given by the supervisor to the teller observed to be doing a good job. This intervention had a generally positive impact on the delivery of quality service by tellers to bank customers.

The leadership of entrepreneurs/business founders, as perceived by their employees, has received limited research attention. Using the Authentic Leadership Model as a guiding framework, this study seeks to provide an exploratory examination of the linkage between employees' perception of the business founder as an authentic leader and the employees' attitudes and happiness.

Participants are employees (n=179) of 62 newer, smaller businesses. Each business represented in the study had been founded by a single owner still active in the daily operations of the company. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the two levels of data (individual and business level) gathered in the study.

As hypothesized, the employees' perception of authentic leadership serves as the strongest single predictor of employee job satisfaction (t=6.453, p=0.000), organizational commitment (t=6.665, p=0.000), and work happiness (t=5.488, p=0.000).

A convenience sampling method limits the generalizability of results. Experimental and longitudinal future research is needed to assess issues of causality as well as the strength and duration of relationships noted. Future research should focus on how the authentic leadership of the founder/entrepreneur impacts not only employee attitudes, but also the performance and long‐term viability of the emerging organization.

This exploratory study offers the first application of the Authentic Leadership Model within the context of entrepreneurial ventures, and provides new insights into the relationship between entrepreneur/leader behavior and employee attitudes. Findings indicate that if employees in newer, small organizations view their founder/entrepreneur as an authentic leader, it can have a positive impact on their work‐related attitudes and happiness.