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China’s foreign aid efforts in Africa remain contentious. Chinese foreign aid tends to be different from “traditional” development assistance in that it frequently involves firms as the implementing agents of projects. Firms bring unique resources to public–private partnerships (PPPs) formed with government agencies, but their possible self-interested nature also gives rise to concerns over their development impact. Yet, on a larger scale, little is known about the characteristics of Chinese PPPs in foreign aid. Using project-level data available for 1,308 Chinese aid projects in 50 countries across Africa, the author characterizes the projects undertaken by firms and government agencies in a PPP and contrasts them to those executed by Chinese government agencies without firm involvement. This exploratory data analysis suggests that important differences apply, as Chinese PPPs tend to target different sustainable development goals (SDGs), work on the basis of distinct aid conditions, and implement projects that tend to be larger than those that are solely run by government agencies. Such observations raise important questions of an ethical, theoretical, and international nature, and warrant further research. The author develops a research agenda that aims at issues particularly important for business ethics scholars, organization theorists, and international business scholarship.

Despite the deployment of state-of-the-art methodologies for project management, employee turnover in projects remains high. Such turnover has significant costs in terms of replacing personnel, potential deadline overruns and financial expenditure. Employee turnover in project contexts may stem from time-related issues associated with multiple parallel projects and short deadlines. Using person–environment fit and time congruence theories, this research examines the relationship between employee turnover intentions and individual–organizational (I–O) polychronicity fit, which captures the degree of match between individuals’ and organizational preferences for focusing on multiple tasks simultaneously.

Survey data were collected from 309 software project employees in Pakistan. Hypotheses were tested using polynomial regressions and response surface modeling.

I–O polychronicity fit is related to turnover intentions. Turnover intentions are lower when I–O polychronicity fit occurs on the lower end of the polychronicity continuum, whereas turnover intentions are higher when fit is observed on the higher end of the polychronicity continuum. The relationship between I–O polychronicity fit and turnover intentions is significantly explained by exhaustion and perceptions of work overload.

The study’s insights provide recommendations for organizations to optimally manage multitasking to help retain project employees.

These findings extend our understanding of the underlying mechanisms between I–O polychronicity fit and turnover intentions. Furthermore, this research expounds on how employee exhaustion and perceptions of work overload explain the relationship between I–O polychronicity fit and turnover intentions.

This chapter explores genderwashing in the context of exclusive talent management (ETM) and defensive diversity management (DDM). It makes the counter intuitive argument that ETM is a misnomer in that it privileges maintenance of an organizational hierarchy based on social identity over the development of talent. Further, DDM is a genderwashing tool, enabling organizations to fend off criticism through symbolic diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives while enacting discourses that legitimate structures, practices, and norms that produce a status hierarchy based on social identities. A genderwashing perspective reveals this contradiction and spotlights the uncomfortable reality of workplace inequalities. It also shows that operating within boundaries set by the status quo renders DDM ineffective in removing the real career impediments faced by women and members of minoritized groups (MMG). A transformative diversity management (TDM) approach is needed to confront these realities and enable organizations to support the career aspirations of women and MMG.

The study addresses gaps in sustainable luxury consumption research by analyzing the role of social norms in different cultural settings. It investigates how social norms, self-control, conspicuousness and future orientation shape sustainable luxury consumption in individualistic (UK) versus collectivist (China) national cultures.

The study was based on survey data from British and Chinese luxury product consumers collected through online panels. The final sample included 452 valid responses from the UK and 414 from China. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The study found that descriptive norms positively influence sustainable luxury consumption in individualistic (UK) and collectivist (China) cultures. Injunctive norms affect sustainable consumption only in the UK. Future consequences universally impact sustainable consumption. Conspicuous consumption negatively affects preferences for sustainable luxury brands. Self-control enhances the impact of descriptive norms in the UK but reduces the impact of injunctive norms in China.

This study uniquely explores how social norms and cultural influences impact sustainable luxury consumption in individualistic and collectivistic societies. It highlights the moderating role of national culture, providing actionable insights for luxury brands to enhance sustainable consumption with culturally tailored strategies. The research challenges the universality of the theory of normative social behavior, advocating for its refined application across different cultures.

Organisational slack has been widely considered in strategic management, but there is a gap in understanding the process of accumulation and application of slack resources. From a dynamic perspective and over an extended period of time, this paper analyses the management of slack resources and evaluates whether the different behaviours, in relation to the accumulation and consumption of slack resources, have any effect on performance.

The resource-based view and the dynamic extension of this theory, i.e. resource management and resource orchestration, were analysed in order to evaluate how slack resources can be managed and generate value. Assuming a configurational approach, the analysis was structured into two stages to answer the proposed hypothesis. The first stage studied whether there were different patterns of management of slack resources over time using the DistatisR package. The second stage evaluated which behaviours had the greatest impact in terms of profitability by using a dynamic panel data regression.

Three different types of slack resource management were found in companies: efficient, effective and erratic. Different types do not have the same impact on performance.

The dynamic management of slack resources has scarcely been considered, even during periods of crisis and economic expansion. This research advances the understanding of how firms transform slack resources into performance from a dynamic perspective.

Much research has explored high levels of son preference in India, finding that parents often report a desire for more sons than daughters. While scholars have noted that a nontrivial portion of respondents claim to have no sex preference, little is known about (1) the characteristics of this group and (2) how such parental preferences relate to child outcomes. We use data from a representative study of rural South Indian households (n = 7,891 adults) to address these gaps. Descriptive results show that a sizable portion of respondents – one in four – indicated that, at the start of their marriage, they had no preference for the number of daughters or sons they wanted. Further, multinomial regression results show that those who reported no sex preference at the time of marriage were more likely to be female, older, and less likely to be sterilized than those who reported equal or son preference, with additional distinctions across educational attainment and religion. Turning to child-level outcomes, we examined whether parents’ sex preferences related to adolescent mental health through ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models (n = 1,245 adolescents). Adolescents whose mothers stated no sex preference reported significantly fewer anxiety and depressive symptoms than their peers. Fathers’ sex preferences were not significantly related to adolescent mental health. These findings suggest that a lack of sex preference may hold meaningful and positive implications for adolescent mental health. Further, although son preference is a widespread phenomenon, singular attention on those with son preference may mask important nuances among Indian families.

This paper aims to examine the most commonly used categories of sustainability literature review regarding their purpose, nature, strengths, weaknesses and potential for impact. This paper also discusses the motivation, incremental contribution and framing that occurs by considering the research papers included in this Special Issue.

Given the paucity of clear guidelines for undertaking, writing and publishing literature review studies in sustainability research, this paper describes the main types and processes in conducting a literature review and emerging tools that can help advance the field.

This paper finds a variety of approaches in application with strengths and weaknesses, including the emerging role of software support, artificial intelligence and machine learning. This paper reviews the ethical implications of using emerging tools in the sustainability literature review methodology and their impacts on originality, authenticity and accountability. This paper discusses the seven carefully selected and meticulously reviewed articles in this Special Issue through the lens of these findings by specifically highlighting their purpose, strengths, weaknesses and practical and policy implications.

Through the systemization of ways to conduct meaningful literature reviews, this paper explores the significant relevance of the method in creating a basis of academic understanding and advancing future research that can have significant impacts on the industry. Through the discussion of the articles in this Special Issue, this paper highlights the practical and policy implications and limitations of literature reviews in sustainability research.

This paper highlights the purpose of literature reviews in identifying areas for further research and how the papers included in this Special Issue achieve this goal, i.e. how their findings possess specific positive externalities in summarizing and systematizing sustainability research.

This paper systematizes methods and processes for writing impactful literature reviews in sustainability research, particularly focusing on the use of emerging technology and the opportunities and challenges this may offer in this process.

The aim of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of the field of international human resource management (IHRM) research by tracing its evolutionary development over a 24-year period. The study seeks to understand how the field has progressed by considering historical research themes and their subsequent integration into more recent scholarly work, thereby identifying current and emerging research trends.

This paper employs bibliometric analysis to examine the evolutionary path of IHRM research from 1995 to 2019. A dataset of 1,507 articles from journals specializing in IHRM, international business and general management was created. Analysis at the keyword, thematic and network levels was conducted to identify trends, historical context and the interrelatedness of research themes.

The analysis reveals that IHRM research has gone through several phases of thematic focus, from initial emphasis on cultural differences and expatriate management to more recent topics like global talent management and digital transformation. Earlier research themes continue to be incorporated and re-contextualized in modern scholarship, highlighting the field’s dynamic nature.

This paper is one of the first to use a bibliometric approach to systematically examine the evolution of IHRM research. It not only provides a historical perspective but also outlines future research trends, incorporating the institutional logic perspective. The findings offer deep insights that are valuable for researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in the development of IHRM research and its practical implications.

“Genderwashing is an organizational tool that presents the myth of gender equality in organizations through discourse and text” (Fox-Kirk et al., 2020, p. 586). Existing literature focuses upon business and economy, e.g., considering how representations of equality are used to enhance profit. The contribution of this chapter is to show how two processes – gender washing and militarization – might function in support of each other. To do this, I firstly argue that the concept of genderwashing should be broadened to consider spaces outside of business and economy. I show how sex, gender and feminism are employed in ways that position martial organizations (such as militaries and arms manufacturers) as socially progressive, “washing” their reputation for militarized violence. Secondly, analyses must consider how the impact of genderwashing goes beyond individual organizations. Martial organizations marginalize their female staff, but I argue that we must look further: in a context in which people can be killed, we must consider what broader harms genderwashing visits upon civilian populations also.