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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of five leadership succession themes by executives of Estonian nonprofit organizations.

This is a qualitative study that uses narrative inquiry and purposive sampling. Face-to-face and Skype interviews were conducted with 15 executives.

Succession was unplanned in most of the Estonian nonprofits; successors were coached during initial transitionary periods; insiders were preferred to outsiders; requirements of executive positions were unmet because of a talent shortfall; lack of trust, unexpected behavior, and possible ethical issues were key risk factors associated with succession; and mixed opinions were received regarding the advantages and disadvantages of succession planning.

Narrow focus on Estonian nonprofit organizations and their executives, purposive sampling, and single qualitative research method. Results may not be applicable to other nonprofits.

Practitioners of Estonian nonprofits can better understand the implications of executive succession issues. Lessons learned may help other nonprofit leaders.

Having a carefully crafted succession plan can enable smoother transitions between organizational leaders and create organizational stability, thereby ensuring a continuous delivery of goods and services to clients.

Seminal research – this is the first study of its kind on Estonian nonprofit organizations and executive succession issues. This paper can serve as a foundation for further research on Eastern European nonprofits.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of learning organization culture (LOC), learning goal orientation (LGO) and psychological empowerment (PsyEmp) on employee engagement, focusing on the mediating role of each dimension of PsyEmp (meaning, competence, self-determination and impact).

Individual perceptions of 329 employees in 9 South Korean for-profit companies were obtained by a cross-sectional survey. Construct validity of each measurement model was examined using confirmatory factor analysis, and the hypothesized structural model was tested by structural equation modeling. Bootstrap analyses were used for testing mediation effects of PsyEmp.

The authors found that PsyEmp had a significant effect on job engagement, and that LOC and LGO significantly predicted the level of PsyEmp and engagement. The four dimensions of PsyEmp partially mediated the relationship between the two predictors (i.e. LOC and LGO) and job engagement. LGO had a stronger effect than LOC on both PsyEmp and job engagement.

Employees who are high in LGO and perceive that an organization provides opportunities for continuous learning with supportive leadership are more likely to experience improved meaning in their work, competence in their knowledge and skills, and foster self-determination with respect to their personal impact on their work and organization. These important facets of PsyEmp that promote employee engagement should be considered by human resource and OD professionals when recommending workplace changes to improve organizational effectiveness and sustainability.

This study complements the trend to use employee engagement as a proxy for understanding both individual and organizational performance by investigating the relationships among LOC, goal orientation, empowerment and engagement.

Despite the extensive breadth of research into the critical challenge of succession in family business, generational succession in family business has been investigated from predominately one-dimensional perspective. The purpose of this paper is to respond to call for a multi-perspectives examination of leadership succession in order to embrace the dynamic and complex nature of succession in a family business. Accordingly, the authors investigated the key personal and professional factors associated with effective family-business succession across four key stakeholders: incumbent, successor, family, and nonfamily members.

The explanatory research design included 16 interviews in Phase 1 and 41 prospective case study interviews in Phase 2, both with Australian family businesses that had or were about to experience generational transition.

Incumbents and successor interview findings support the benefits of maintaining a cohesive family business, adaptable family culture, and familiness for effective succession. The authors also identified several personal components (e.g. family-business socialization and external experiences) that can help determine the commitment of successors and how this commitment can change once they assume a leadership position. Business size was the professional component supported by incumbent, successor, and nonfamily members as having a significant impact on succession process. As family business grows and becomes more highly complex, a clearly defined set of procedures become imperative.

Family-business practitioners can apply the findings to manage the processes and expectations of family and the business to achieve effective generational succession and thereby increase the sustainability of the business.

This research provides a coherent and comprehensive understanding of the interdependencies of competing priorities in the complex succession process that is essential for family-business sustainability and performance.

Professionals of human resources (HR) use different criteria in practice than they verbalize. Thus, the aim of this research was to identify the implicit criteria used for the selection of high-potential employees in recruitment and development settings in the pharmaceutical industry.

A semi-structured interview guide was developed and used to collect data from 15 European and US recruiters in the pharmaceutical sector. The interview guide included an embedded association test to identify potential differences between implicit assumptions about high potentials and verbalized criteria among participants.

These include differences and similarities between the criteria to define high potentials and the implicit assumptions HR professionals use in their initial selection of employees who are selected for further assessment and development programmes.

Size of the sample is a limitation. Therefore, the conclusions drawn from this study should be treated with a degree of caution.

Learning how HR professionals use implicit assumptions about potential recruits should inform practitioners about selection, promotion and training strategies. Given the increasing application of automated search algorithms to identify and select high potentials for recruitment, development and promotion purposes, future studies should account for the differences between used and verbalized criteria underlying the development of these systems.

This study shows how the used implicit assumptions of HR professionals about high potentials differ from verbalized statements and guidelines.

This paper aims to offer a theoretical foundation for a testable framework of executive coaching effectiveness and to share key findings from the research study in executive coaching effectiveness based on the theoretical framework.

This article draws on the results from a quasi-experimental field study of four firms whose primary professional services focused on executive coaching.

Practical implications and learning lessons for the three constituents: the coachee, the coach and the organization.

The research can assist individuals and organizations in making informed decisions about designing, implementing and measuring executive coaching programs, thus building the profession of coaching.

Little empirical research has examined the role of coach characteristics in coaching success. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap in the literature by identifying and testing the relationships between a coach's academic background in psychology and credibility with executive coaching effectiveness as reflected in greater levels of individual outcomes.

These factors were examined through a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. Participants were drawn from the client bases of four Israeli executive coaching agencies.

A coach's academic background in psychology was positively related to executive coaching effectiveness as reflected in greater improvement in coachee self-awareness and job performance as reported by the direct supervisor. Further, coach credibility was positively related to executive coaching effectiveness as reflected in higher mean scores in coachee self-reported job performance.

Findings should assist businesses and educators in improving the formal preparation of coaches and in better identifying and selecting competent coaches. This may lead to better executive coaching design, implementation, and outcomes. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Executive coaching is gaining in popularity as a management developmental activity which facilitates organisational change for sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among coachee feedback receptivity, pre‐training motivation, learning goal orientation, developmental self‐efficacy, self‐reported job performance improvement, self‐awareness, task performance and affective commitment in terms of executive coaching effectiveness as a form of management development.

A non‐randomised controlled trial research design was conducted to examine the hypothesized relationships among coachee characteristics and executive coaching effectiveness, as reflected in greater levels of individual outcomes in corporate Israel.

A significant interaction between learning goal orientation and pre‐training motivation on improvement in job self‐reported performance was found. Additionally, a negative relationship was found between learning goal orientation and improvement in self‐reported job performance among coachees with low levels of pre‐training motivation. Finally, self‐efficacy demonstrates a positive relationship with job performance improvement.

This research provides greater insights about the type of individual outcomes executive coaching should achieve, and under which conditions coaching is likely to be more beneficial for participants. This research has value for designing and implementing coaching programmes to drive sustainable development and innovation.