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In an environment of intensive global mobility, this study aims to investigate the performance role of staffing choices within diverse MNE subsidiary strategies. Incorporating the integration-responsiveness (IR) framework with a contingency perspective, this study proposes that the performance success of distinct MNE subsidiary strategies depends on staffing choices. This study argues that performance differences of staffing choices such as assigned expatriates, self-initiated expatriates, former inpatriates and host-country nationals derive from their different knowledge/experience advantages regarding the intra-firm environment and local market conditions.

The study utilizes a unique sample of 169 foreign subsidiaries located in Greece that faced the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (in 2020). For robustness reasons, this study also captures the imposition of capital controls (in June 2015).

This study finds important mediating performance effects of a diversified human resource portfolio across distinct subsidiary strategies in difficult times. Integration strategy tends to use more assigned expatriates, locally responsive strategy tends to utilize more host-country nationals, whereas multi-focal strategy favors self-initiated expatriates and former inpatriates, with positive subsidiary performance effects accordingly. So, staffing policies that are suitable to balance the needs of Human Resource Management (HRM) portfolio differ from strategy to strategy. Moreover, this study finds that managing HRM diversity is crucial in turbulent times.

While the empirical evidence has been predominantly accumulated from large economies, largely neglecting performance effects of MNE subsidiary staffing in crisis contexts, the analysis sheds light on a small open economy (i.e. the Greek context) emphasizing rapidly environmental deterioration. The findings extend existing theorizing on international performance and HRM management by providing an integrative conceptual framework linking integration-responsiveness motivated strategies with distinct groups of high-quality human resources under contingency considerations, so creatively synthesizing largely fragmented IB and HRM research streams. The study provides valuable insights into the performance role of non-conventional staffing choices such as self-initiated expatriates and former inpatriates, given that relevant studies examine either exclusively expatriates or compare expatriates with host country nationals, reaching inconclusive results.

Nested within institutional theory and the political economy perspective, this study aims to examine Chinese outward foreign direct investments (OFDI)-supporting organizations and fostering mechanisms for its SMEs in Europe’s largest economy, Germany.

The authors conduct a multiple-case study to present rich insights from elite interviews with representatives of Chinese and German governmental organizations, intermediary parties and specialized OFDI consultants. In addition, the authors analyze secondary data such as presentations, websites, brochures, social media and recent Chinese OFDI policies for SMEs. The findings are triangulated by interviewing business owners and senior executives of seven Chinese SMEs that have invested in Germany.

Cooperating with Germany’s federal government, China’s ministries implemented an effective OFDI support network in Germany, which connects and benefits both economies. This includes Chinese governmental organizations, privately-held national champions, German–Chinese business associations and linked intermediary parties. These organizations support SMEs through four main mechanisms: networking and information, mutually beneficial knowledge transfer between innovation partners, lobbying for potential cooperation and an objective picture of Chinese OFDI and facilitating investment services.

This study advances OFDI theory and contributes to the growing discussion on the internationalization of Chinese SMEs by shedding light on China’s OFDI support organizations and mechanisms in the German market. The study also offers practical contributions. Understanding better how governments can spur internationalization is vital, as it determines the effectiveness of policymaking and fosters international mutual understanding, cultural exchange and firm growth and innovation (Ahlstrom, 2010), and hence ultimately contributes positively to society. Moreover, knowing the specific OFDI support organizations and measures China is currently adopting can serve as a helpful orientation for Chinese entrepreneurs who plan to invest in Germany.

The article explores the potential for self-employed personal trainers (SEPTs) to resist exploitation by gyms, with a focus on the attitudes of SEPTs towards trade unions and collective action.

This article is based on a multiple-method study with qualitative data drawn from participant observation and interviews and quantitative data from a questionnaire survey. The data were collected in 2018.

The potential for individual resistance to exploitation among SEPTs is limited. However, attitudes towards a collective response were largely positive, albeit there is certainly no consensus agreement on the value of trade unions. The logic of coopetition is applied to explain the issues on which trade unions might organize SEPTs.

The study suggests coopetition as an organizing logic for highly individualized self-employed workers in intense proximal competition with one another. However, the research presented in this article was undertaken with a unique group of solo self-employed workers. Further study is required to demonstrate the applicability of these findings.

The commercialization of work poses a threat to traditional employment and trade unions. It is crucial that trade unions represent the interests of all workers by focusing on workers who do not traditionally form the vanguard of its membership (e.g. dependent workers and the falsely self-employed). The study illustrates the way in which trade unions can organize micro-entrepreneurs.

Coopetitive representation whereby micro-entrepreneurs collaborate to resist exploitation while remaining independent has the potential to change the perspectives and values of entrepreneurs.

The article assesses the potential of organizing a highly individualized and competitive self-employed worker. Coopetitive representation is presented as distinct from other approaches to representation and as a means of trade union revitalization.

Concerns have been raised regarding the mental health of firefighters. In response to this, existing literature reviews have highlighted the significant role of trauma in influencing mental health and the experience of post-traumatic stress within firefighters.

This paper builds on the existing reviews and makes an original contribution to knowledge by systematically reviewing research exploring additional factors that contribute to poor mental health in firefighters.

This review finds that factors such as sleep, occupational stress, length of service, coping style and social support all influence negative mental health within firefighters. However, this paper also suggests there are challenges to distinguishing the nature of these relationships, due to the possible bidirectional nature of the relationships and study limitations.

Finally, we conclude by suggesting a clear need for further research to explore the biological, psychological and social factors influencing mental health outcomes in firefighters and the direction of these relationships, in order to inform effective intervention and support.

This study aimed at investigating employee training, employee participation and organizational commitment (OC) and the moderating effect of workplace ostracism among bank employees.

The study used a descriptive and cross-sectional design with the aid of a standard scale constructed into a questionnaire. Cluster, convenience and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 1,067 respondents, of which 870 were deemed fit for the study. The theories underpinning the study were the social exchange theory (SET) and social identity theory (SIT). Four hypotheses were developed and tested using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, and moderation using PROCESS macro.

The study found that employee training and employee participation had a significant positive relationship with organizational commitment, while organizational ostracism had a significant but negative relationship with organizational commitment among bank employees. The study also found that workplace ostracism moderated the relationship between organizational climate and organizational commitment The study recommended that organizational commitment requires management training their workforce, allowing employee participation in decisions, and minimizing or outrightly eradicating the practice of organizational ostracism. It is, therefore, concluded that workers place great value on training and participation in decision-making and frown at organizational ostracism.

This paper fills in the gaps left by the paucity of empirical investigation of the moderating role that workplace ostracism plays between employee training, employee participation and organizational commitment – a feat that is lacking in developing countries. It serves as a reminder to management to prevent or entirely eliminate workplace ostracism to allay an employee's impression of being a threat to an organization when commitment is low.

Job market shifts, such as workforce mobility and aging societies, cause the exit of knowledgeable personnel from organizations. The ensuing knowledge loss (K-loss) has broad negative effects. This study analyzes the knowledge management literature on K-loss published from 2000 to 2021 and identifies fruitful directions for future research.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of 74 peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2021. These articles were retrieved from ProQuest Central, Science Direct, EBSCOhost and Emerald databases. The analysis utilizes Jesson et al.’s (2011) six principles: field mapping, comprehensive search, quality assessment, data extraction, synthesis and write-up.

Three sub-topics emerge from the systematic literature review: K-loss drivers, positive and negative impacts of K-loss and mitigation strategies. Over half of the literature addresses mitigation strategies and provides solutions for K-loss already in progress, rather than proposing preventive measures.

This study has limitations related to the time span covered. Moreover, it focuses on articles published in refereed journals. Therefore, important contributions from conference papers, books and professional reports were excluded.

This research comprehensively synthesizes the K-loss literature and proposes future avenues of research to address under-investigated areas and potentially lead to theoretical and empirical advancements in the field. This study also provides suggestions for improving managerial practices.

The objective of this paper is to employ a model to expand the literature's comprehension of the organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) phenomenon in the Indian banking sector. The authors examine OCB as a mediator of the relationship between job embeddedness (JE), self-efficacy (SE) and organisation effectiveness (OE). The authors also verify the moderating role of affective commitment (AC) on the JE, SE and OE relationship.

Data for the purpose of this paper are collected from 568 employees in 89 branches of banks located in North and Central India using a survey questionnaire. The data collected were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings confirm the positive association between JE, SE and OE. The results also suggest that OCB mediates the association between the independent and dependent variables. Furthermore, the authors observed that AC moderates the OCB and OE relationship.

The results of this examination will assist the employees to realise the substance of OCB in directing their performance towards OE. This investigation will inspire bank managers to notice that employee readiness to put in extra effort in a bank is primarily the effect of apt individual characteristics, namely JE and SE, that can be shaped and developed. Furthermore, this study draws the attention of bank managers towards the significance of AC, as an essential phenomenon to emotionally attach the employees to their organisation.

This study contributes to the existing literature on OCB by examining how OCB leads to desired outcomes and the conditions that promote the effect of OCB. The authors address these questions by building on a more contemporary perspective, i.e., PsyCap.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework that explains structural responses to external organizational shocks. The authors illustrate framework dynamics with one district's secondary schools' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conceptual framework imagines structure as emergent, dynamic and responsive to external pressures, as the authors posited in an earlier publication. From an open systems perspective, the authors focus on restructuring for more effective sensemaking and bridging and buffering.

The framework in this paper shows promise for its descriptive power. Interview participants' recollections of their responses to COVID-19 revealed an emergent structure and displayed evidence of crisis management, sensemaking and bridging and buffering.

The intent of this article, consistent with the special issue, is to propose a set of concepts that, together, shed new light on how researchers and leaders might think about structural adaptations to external influences. The conceptual framework shows promise, but has yet to be put to the test with systematic empirical research.

The conceptual framework the authors develop here may serve to guide empirical research that expands knowledge of how school and district structures adapt to external influences. Viewing structure as supportive of adaptation to changing circumstances also informs preparation for and practice of education leadership.

Capturing school and district leaders' recollections shortly after their schools' return to in-person learning is rare in the literature, and examining their reactions from an open systems perspective sheds new light on leadership under stress.

Retaining critical knowledge is relevant for all organizations, knowledge-intensive ones in particular. Failure to do so can, in the worst case, lead to an organization being unable to act. Acknowledging the role of context in this regard, the purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge retention (KR) in the banking sector of a developing country. A particular focus is placed on exploring various contextual factors that influence the retention of critical knowledge taking into consideration the setting.

Following a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers from private and public banks in Pakistan. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

The findings suggest that the existence of a collectivist society, gender differences, few job opportunities, power distance and the late IT Boom are vital factors to be considered regarding KR in the setting studied. The findings are summarized in a conceptual framework that highlights critical factors of KR to be studied in a broader context and which are viewed as relevant for informing future research in this underdeveloped area of knowledge management (KM).

The data were collected from a small number of individuals working in different banks in only one country. Future studies should consider research designs across multiple organizations involving more people representing different roles, functions and age groups.

Existing KM research has emphasized the role of context while research on KR is underdeveloped in this regard. By exploring different contextual factors this study advances current understanding in the KM domain.

This study aims to contribute to the academic disciplines of entrepreneurship and management by developing a new theory that explains Founder-CEOs’ succession in family and non-family firms. Many scholars failed to generate a specific theory to describe the succession of Founder-CEOs. Family firms remain complex enterprises comprising interconnectedness of cultural interests in which corporate governance occurs by families, Founder-CEOs and sometimes a board of directors.

This study’s design/methodology/approach reflects post-modernist epistemological and ontological perspectives for conducting systematic literature reviews. To identify relevant studies in the review, the several databases (Australian Business Dean’s Council Journal Quality List; EBSCO Database, including PsycINFO and Psych studies; Web of Science) and a mix of ranked journals from entrepreneurship, management and psychology were used.

The findings and results in this paper reflect the purpose, methodology and literature analysis culminating in 1,582 peer-reviewed studies. A total of 182 peer-reviewed studies met the criterion for review. Throughout the research process, a systematic literature review uncovered management literature gaps overlooked for decades during the theory-building process. Hence, developing a theory of Founder-CEOs succession used a combination of systematic, inductive, comparative and interactive approaches.

A Theory of Founder-CEOs Succession explains the strategic process of replacing a founder systematically. The promotion of, and incentives for, internal executives have been topics of great interest and deliberation among scholars and practitioners for a long time. This study contributes research implications for theory building in the academic disciplines of entrepreneurship and management by offering scholars and practitioners a theory that does not exist to describe Founder-CEOs’ succession encompassing both strategic successes and failures. By incorporating successes and failures, this study provides realistic reflections of Founder-CEOs.