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The paper aims to understand how the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) influenced public employees' perception of smart working and how this approach was used during the pandemic. The authors asked about smart working's positive and negative aspects and how these changed during the pandemic.

The authors explored the strengths and weaknesses of smart working before and after COVID-19. The authors interviewed 27 Italian public employees who had experienced smart working before the pandemic. The questions and discussion aimed to broadly explore the strengths and weaknesses of smart working and smart working's impact on working performance, work relationships and work–life balance (WLB).

Smart working had a widespread and positive impact on organizational flexibility. Smart working improved the response and resilience of Italian public organizations to the pandemic. However, some critical factors emerged, such as the right to disconnect and the impact on WLB.

The authors suggest that the pandemic exposed the need for public administrations to consolidate work flexibility practices, such as smart working, by paying more attention to the impact of these practices on the whole organization and human resources management (HRM) policies and practices.

This study makes an important contribution to the literature on the public sector by discussing the positive and negative aspects of smart working. The study also provides managerial and policy implications of the use of smart working in public administrations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether a pro-social motivation called user orientation (UO), which aims at helping specific others, may affect performance of public sector employees in addition to public service motivation (PSM), and whether any personal, and/or contextual factors affect this relationship (age, tenure, role, and context).

Utilizing cross-sectional survey data obtained from 618 Italian public teachers, PLS-structural equation modeling is used to investigate the relationship between PSM, UO, and performance, along with the moderating effects of individual/contextual factors.

Findings show positive relationships between the two levers (PSM/UO) and individual performance (IP), depending on job and organizational tenure, role, and the social environment of the areas the schools are located in.

There might be problems related to causal inference and common method variance, due to the use of the cross-sectional self-reported data.

Managers should be aware of the crucial role UO and PSM play in order to improve IP in contexts where there is direct contact with the service beneficiaries.

The paper contributes to a clearer understanding of which motives are involved in the process that leads public service employees to enhance their performance.

This paper aimed to explore the main strategies and approaches to innovation in professional service firms (PSFs), with a specific focus on accounting firms.

The paper relied upon a systematic literature review of previous studies to identify and reconcile the different approaches to innovation processes in accounting firms and further advance a conceptual framework for their discussion.

The findings, based on the review of 38 papers, revealed four main strategies around two main dimensions: the focus on internal/external features of the firm and the main source of innovation (technology and knowledge). The strategies may enable PSFs finding new opportunities and improving organizational performance.

The paper provides a conceptual framework in the form of a “strategy-innovation” matrix where four strategies emerged to support PSFs identifying possible approaches to innovation for new opportunities and improving their performance and services. In doing so, the paper bridges the main sources of innovation, knowledge and technology with key organizational features, considering structural/organizational aspects, cultural aspects, HR practices, collaborative behaviors, professional autonomy, service diversification and the role of professional networks and external actors.

The paper contributes to the literature by deepening understanding of innovation processes in PSFs, suggesting the need to develop a strategic orientation to innovation in these firms. In doing so, the paper also provides useful practical implications for the management of PSFs, suggesting an “innovation/strategy” matrix that might support the positioning of PSFs with reference to its approach to innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the effects that the perceived corruption has on students’ behaviours. In more detail, the analysis will explain how the individual and contextual variables influence students’ behaviours and corruption perception.

The authors employed a structured questionnaire administered to 200 Italian students attending Bachelor and Master Degrees courses, based on a theoretical background that considers corruption in higher education as the result of the interplay between the various actors and institutions in the field.

Findings have both interesting academic and practical implications, since the study advances the literature on corruption in higher education and also advances a framework explaining how contextual and individual characteristics influence students’ behaviours and corruption perception.

The study presents manifold interesting implications both for academics, practitioners and policy-makers on the impact that students’ corruption perception has on the whole higher education system.

In this paper, we depart from extant conceptualisations of knowledge translation mechanisms to examine projects as a way to achieve effective knowledge transfer. Our empirical analysis focused on a university–industry research project in the automotive industry.

The empirical analysis was based on a qualitative investigation. We analysed material collected within a research project involving a partnership between two universities and Fiat-Chrysler Automotive (FCA), a multi-brand auto manufacturer with a product range covering several different market segments. We used three data collection techniques: internal document analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews.

Our findings show that, in a U-I research project, goals represent a key dimension to support knowledge translation. Defining the goal implies an ongoing negotiation process, where researchers and company employees work together, in order to converge towards a shared meaning of the goal. In this sense, goal orientation and goal-based interaction have significant implications for knowledge translation processes.

Studies to date have focussed on the concept of knowledge translation as a way to contextualise the transfer from the source of knowledge to the receiver and to interpret the knowledge to be exchanged. This study expands the understanding of knowledge translation mechanisms in university–industry research settings. It investigates the concept of projects as powerful knowledge translation mechanism in a dynamic and longitudinal perspective. Our contribution provides insight, reflecting on how the use of projects may represent a way to facilitate knowledge transfer and build up new ideas and solutions.

The paper focuses on how knowledge visualization supports the development of a particular multiobjective decision-making problem as a portfolio optimization problem in the context of interorganizational collaboration between universities and a large automotive company. This paper fits with the emergent knowledge visualization literature because it helps to explain decision-making related to the development of a multiobjective optimization model in Lean Product Development settings. We investigate how using ad hoc visual tools supports knowledge translation and knowledge sharing, enhancing managerial judgment and decision-making.

The empirical case in this study concerns the setting up of a multiobjective decision-making model as a portfolio optimization problem to analyze and select alternatives for upgrading the lean production process quality at an FCA plant.

The study shows how knowledge visualization and the associated tools work to enable knowledge translation and knowledge sharing, supporting decision-making. The empirical findings show why and how knowledge visualization can be used to foster knowledge translation and sharing among individuals and from individuals to groups. Knowledge visualization is understood as both a collective and interactional process and a systematic approach where different players translate their expertise, share a framework and develop common ground to support decision-making.

From a theoretical perspective, the paper expands the understanding of knowledge visualization as a system of practices that support the development of a multiobjective decision-making method. From an empirical point of view, our results may be useful to other firms in the automotive industry and for academics wishing to develop applied research on portfolio optimization.

The literature on corruption and whistleblowing is increasing over the past years. However, the authors contend that individual reactions to a corrupt proposal could differ from the mentioned behaviours. On these grounds, the authors contend that a “grey zone” between accepting corruption and whistleblowing does exist. This paper aims to explore what are the behaviours defining this “grey zone” as nuanced behaviours adopted to react to a corrupt proposal.

The authors draw from Miceli and Near’s process of whistleblowing to open the scope for the comprehension of grey behaviours in the decision-making process following to a triggering event. The authors adopted a qualitative and explorative approach by interviewing 27 Italian public servants through open questions and storytelling to explore what kind of behaviours could define the grey zone.

The findings unveil nuanced behaviours in the grey zone configuring neither as corruption nor whistleblowing, ranging from ignoring the corrupt proposal to explicit contraposition. Also, they reveal different social and individual outcomes affecting future relationships in organizations. The findings allow to extend Miceli and Near’s process of whistleblowing to the wider spectrum of response behaviours to triggering events such as receiving or assisting to a corrupt proposal.

Limitations might be recognized in that the situations detected could be only a part of a possible wider “grey zone”. However, the authors believe that the findings could encourage future research to continue exploring the grey zone to enrich its comprehension. Also, the paper offers useful and interesting insights on an undebated issue that has a prominent value under the theoretical, practical, social and policymaking perspectives.

From the practical and policymaking perspective, the advancement of a debate contending the existence of a grey zone made of nuanced behaviours between corruption and whistleblowing could provide support both for organizations and policymakers to a better understanding of individual behaviours and improving actions and policies to prevent corruption and encourage whistleblowing.

As the authors are at least unaware of studies debating on the grey zone with specific reference to corruption and whistleblowing, the paper advances a discussion on the grey zone between corruption and whistleblowing as a continuum of nuanced behaviours that could provide a starting point for further fine-grained analyses.

Knowledge creation is increasingly singled out as an important activity in a wide range of sectors. At the same time, projects are considered to be the loci where much of knowledge creation takes place. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the current issues within this area and point out a few directions for future research.

This paper is based on a literature review and a summary of the papers included in the special issue. The aim of the literature review consists in pointing out the key themes in the continuing debate on knowledge creation in projects.

The paper argues that research needs to be developed along the following lines: the preconditions of effective knowledge creation mechanisms; the organizational practices able to support knowledge creation mechanisms; the contribution of communities of practice to knowledge creation in projects; the role of time and timing in projects knowledge creation; and the challenges associated with inter‐organizational projects and knowledge creation.

This paper (and the special issue) provides an understanding of the context of knowledge creation, of the requirements that different contexts place on knowledge creation, and of the suitability of such mechanisms in peculiar contexts. These issues have received only limited attention to date in the project management literature.

This paper aims to deal with knowledge integration in projects, focusing on teams that deal with exploitative nature of knowledge work and implement standard solutions with minor refinements developed over time. In the research the authors seek to analyze how the organizational control mechanisms adopted within project teams that deal with exploitative nature of knowledge work influence knowledge integration outcomes.

The research unfolded considering a single case study, as this approach was considered useful in gaining in‐depth, holistic understanding of the phenomenon studied. The authors started with a preliminary on‐site observation done with the aim of making subsequent interviews simpler and more productive. They therefore conducted semi‐structured interviews with the head of human resources and with two project managers and four members of two project teams.

The results show how in coherence with Grant's classification it is possible to argue that in this context the main control mechanism to integrate knowledge is provided by different forms of standardization. In the case of the company under investigation, formal control mechanisms based on a calculative approach are seen as a way to rule out the process of product delivery and enable effective knowledge integration by clarifying tasks and responsibilities.

This paper witnesses that, in exploitative project teams, formal control mechanisms may play the role of administering information exchange in order to achieve projects outcome and the desired level of knowledge integration.