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The purpose of this work is to comparatively study human resources management (HRM) areas in Brazil, at the national level, analyzing how companies considered labor market and labor relations aspects when building their strategies and when configuring people management models in place in the country (2014–2019), based on local conditions.

The subject was approached through qualitative analysis, encompassing document survey, systematic literature review, specialists' panel discussions, eight focus groups (43 human resources [HR] managers), interviews (16 union members), applying institutional approach to people management.

In regards to labor market and unions, HR areas faced different conditions across Brazilian regions. They have dealt with those influences on their strategic and quotidian decisions in an unstructured fashion. HR areas remain constructed as traditional, adjuvant and far from strategic level. In the institutionalization process – normative isomorphism – a professional HR jargon use was identified. HR areas usually act in collective bargaining, resorting to specialized professionals or consulting companies. During the economic crisis, HR professionals' attitude had a reactive nature, responding to organizations leadership, with little dedication to the emerging context.

This work enables important players like HR managers, union members and specialists in public policies to interpret the institutionalization phenomena of practices related to management, labor market and labor relations in the country.

Understanding the effects of the relations among state, companies and unions allows the different power vectors, acting upon the institutionalization process of people management areas in the Brazilian case, to be outlined.

This study applies the institutional approach to understand the economic and social heterogeneity affecting organizations in Brazil. It enhances the knowledge on HRM areas scope and their articulation toward labor market and relations.

During the last decade, a firm's ability to innovate has gained substantial attention in the literature devoted to innovation and strategic management. This study aims at discussing on what is the relationship of a firm's commitment to learn and its open-mindedness with its activity in introducing organizational innovations. The data collection was carried out in Russia. In order to make the research more specific, the organizational innovation is broken down into two subtypes, namely innovation in management practices and innovation in workplace organization.

The study is grounded on the data obtained by the surveying of 123 Russian top managers working in manufacturing firms. The structural equation modeling was approached in order to investigate the impact of a firm's commitment to learn and open-mindedness on its organizational innovation.

The results indicate that the commitment to learn and the open-mindedness have considerable impact on organizational innovation activity in a firm. The findings also provide evidence that both the investigated subtypes of organizational innovation are positively influenced by commitment to learn and open-mindedness, though the degree of that influence differs.

The literature traditionally focuses mostly on the technological type of innovation leaving the organizational innovation covered by scarce research. In this respect the study contributes to the theory of organizational innovation by elaborating its relations with organizational learning dimensions. Apart from the investigation on the research question at a general level, the study explores the specific context related to the manifestation of phenomenon in a transition economy of Russia.

Worldwide, natural hazards are affecting urban cultural heritage and World Heritage Sites, exacerbating other environmental and human-induced threats deriving from deterioration, uncontrolled urbanization and unsustainable tourism. This paper aims to develop a disaster risk analysis in Italian historic centers because they are complex large-scale systems that are cultural and economic resources for the country, as well as fragile areas.

A heritage-oriented qualitative methodology for risk assessment is proposed based upon the formalization of risk as a function of hazard, vulnerability and exposure, taking into account the values of cultural heritage assets.

This work provides a contribution to the body of knowledge in the Italian context of disaster risk mitigation on World Heritage Sites, opening for further research on the monitoring and maintenance of the tangible heritage assets. The application to the site of San Gimignano proves the effectiveness of the methodology for proposing preventive measures and actions that ensure the preservation of cultural values and a safer built environment.

The application of a value-based simplified approach to risk analysis is a novelty for historic centers that are listed as World Heritage Sites.

Smart industry initiatives focus on intelligent and interconnected cyber-physical systems. These initiatives develop complex technical architectures that integrate heterogenous technologies, causing significant organizational complexity. Tapping into the digital capabilities of distant partners while capturing profit from such innovation is demanding. Furthermore, firms often need to establish and orchestrate inter-organizational collaborations without prior relations or established trust. As a result, smart industry initiatives bring together disparate organizational forms and institutional environments, distinctive knowledge bases, and geographically dispersed organizations. We conceptualize this organizational capability as ‘distant capabilities integration’. This research explores the governance mechanisms that support such integration and their relation to value capture. We analyse 11 IoT case studies organized in three categories (process, product and technologies) of smart industry initiatives. Building on existing literature, we consider different ways to describe distance, including knowledge heterogeneity and organizational, geographical, institutional, cultural and cognitive distance. Finally, we describe the governance mode appropriate for upstream (developing foundational technologies) and downstream (leveraging existing distant technologies) smart industry initiatives.

With new hybrid working models in place post COVID-19, it is requisite that knowledge workers (KWs) stay agile. Knowledge-oriented leadership (KOL) can help employees with essential knowledge acquisition (KA) facilitating the journey toward hybrid work agility (HWA). This study, thus, aims to explore the impact of KOL and KA on HWA and reveal whether this effect stems uniformly from a single homogenous population or if there is unobserved heterogeneity leading to identifiable segments of agile KWs.

Data was collected through stratified sampling from 416 employees from 20 information technology enabled services companies involved in knowledge-intensive tasks. Partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling approach, using SMART PLS 4.0, has been applied to examine the effect of KOL and KA on HWA. Finite mixture PLS, PLS prediction-oriented segmentation and multigroup analysis have been used to identify segments, test segment-specific path models and analyze the significance of the differences in the path coefficients for unobserved heterogeneity. Predictive relevance of the model has been determined using PLS Predict.

Results indicate that KOL contributes to employees’ KA and HWA. A significant positive relationship is also reported between KA and HWA. The model has medium predictive relevance. A two-segment solution has been delineated, wherein independent agile KWs (who value autonomy and personal agency over leadership for KA) and dependent agile KWs (who depend on leaders for relational and structural support for KA) have been identified. Thus, KOL and KA play a differential role in determining HWA.

The authors’ major contribution to the knowledge body constitutes the determination of antecedents of HWA and a typology of agile KWs. Future researchers may conduct segment-wise qualitative analysis to delineate other variables that contribute to HWA.

Technological advances necessitate that knowledge-intensive industries foster agility in employees for strategic agility of the organization. For effecting agile adaption of an organization to the knowledge economy conditions, it is pertinent that the full potential of this human resource be used. By profiling HWA of KWs on the basis of dimensions of KOL and the level of their KA, organizations will be able to help employees adapt better to rapidly changing work conditions.

HWA is a novel concept and very germane in a hybrid working environment. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effects of the dimensions of KOL and KA in relation to HWA, along with an empirical examination of unobserved heterogeneity in the aforementioned relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the implications of board human capital heterogeneity for company innovation by focusing on the educational and the functional background of directors. Moreover, it examines the moderating effect of the CEO expertise-overlap within the innovation domain on the relationship between board human capital heterogeneity and firm innovation.

The hypotheses are tested through a set of ordinary least squares regressions on a unique dataset of 149 Italian high-tech companies observed between 2012 and 2015.

Findings show that the educational and the functional background heterogeneity of directors increase both the innovation input and output. However, results highlight that these relationships are negatively moderated by the CEO expertise-overlap within the innovation domain.

The paper emphasizes the importance of appointing directors with different and specific educational and functional backgrounds to foster the company innovation.

The paper fills a gap in the literature as it has devoted limited attention to the performance implications of board human capital heterogeneity in the high-tech industry where knowledge and skills are the primary sources of value. Moreover, the paper integrates the research on the CEO-board interface by shedding light on how the CEO expertise within the innovation domain affects the contribution of heterogeneous boards to company innovation.

Prior studies have shown that heterogeneity plays a crucial role in addressing soft issues linked to a firm’s corporate social responsibility stance. The purpose of this paper is to extend the prior literature on the effect of gender heterogeneity on environmental, social and economic performance dimensions, specifically, whether the female boardroom presence weakens or strengthens the performance along the three dimensions, commonly referred to as the corporate sustainability.

The study from a positivist philosophy adopts a quantitative approach, and the final sample consisted of forty-six companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange for the year 2011–2018. The final sample was a balanced panel of 344 firm years. The dependent variables were return on assets (ROA), environmental performance (ENV) and donations made for social causes (SOP). The ENV was measured using a content scoring system, with range of 1 to 5. The data were analysed using the fixed effects and GLM regression models. To further address the issue of endogeneity, a two-stage least squares regression was conducted.

The findings show a positive relationship between gender heterogeneity and ROA, which was also confirmed for the environmental performance index. However, the sign reversed in the SOP model and showed a negative relationship between gender heterogeneity and donations, the proxy for SOP. The results are in tandem with the stakeholder axioms that argue that commitment to other stakeholder groups strengthens firm performance in the long run.

An implication of this study is the fact that information availability has been rapidly escalating in the country, leading to rising social movements and civic unrest; therefore, corporations that face negative castigations may pay the huge price of product boycott and loss of market value.

The findings of this study provide additional insight into the influence of female boardroom presence on the environmental, social and economic performance of firms. The findings suggest the relevance of the resource dependence theory, especially from a developing country context, to ensure an improved corporate governance structure in Nigerian manufacturing firms.

Building on the existing literature and on a series of interviews conducted in very diverse coworking spaces, this article attempts at analyzing coworking by focusing on the historical evolution and heterogeneity of its interpretations, as well as the plurality of its realization in practice and prospective developments.

The theoretical framework adopted is Cultural Historical Activity Theory – a dialectical approach which allows the study of human activities as historically evolving and complex systems which change under the impulse of their inner contradictions. The analysis presented here starts with an overview of the history of the theoretical elaborations and discussions of coworking. The authors then focus on the experiences and interpretations of this phenomenon as conveyed by coworkers and coworking managers in the north of Italy – one of the most active coworking areas in Europe.

Coworking first emerged as a way of promoting forms of work and organization that require simultaneous, multidirectional, and reciprocal work, as understood in contrast to forms that incorporate an established division of labor, demarcated communities, and formal and informal sets of rules. However, with time, coworking has evolved toward novel directions, giving rise to heterogeneous interpretations of it. Inquiry constitutes a deeper investigation of the heterogeneity of coworking. The take-away message here is that the prefix co- in coworking can be interpreted, through a play of words, to evoke multiple positions and views conveying internal contradictions.

The historical overview of coworking shows a strong differentiation and multisided interpretation of this phenomenon along two dimensions of historical development, namely, social and business, and outward and inward. The qualitative analysis of the interviews traces the different lived interpretations and conceptions of coworking. The analysis confirms, on the one hand, the complexity and heterogeneity described in the literature, and on the other hand, it enriches the literature by depicting the contradictory nature of the phenomenon, including how the historical and inner tensions of coworking are dynamically evolving in the concrete experiences reported by the managers and users in the coworking spaces.

This micro-level study unpacks the recruitment and retention of international professionals to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The study highlights the influence of the founders' international experience when applying organisational-level (meso) policies and practices. With their insider experience as skilled migrants, we share how the founders in each of the SMEs mobilised career capital into human resource management (HRM) strategies.

Combining literature on SMEs and skilled migrants' careers, we draw upon intelligent career theory to illuminate the recruitment and retention of self-initiated expatriates and skilled migrants in SMEs. With three SME case studies as samples–one micro, one small and one medium-sized organisation in Ireland–we consider the influence of the founders' international experience in the design and application of formal and informal HRM strategies (at the organisational level) that are operationalised to recruit and retain international talent to/in these organisations.

The HRM practices in the three SME cases in this paper, each run by migrant founders, vary from formalised (for our medium-sized organisation), semi-formalised (for our small-sized organisation) to ad hoc and tailor-made (for our micro-sized organisation). These particular SMEs were often more receptive to hiring other migrants. The important role of the three SME case studies' skilled migrant founders and their own international career experiences was apparent in the particular HRM approaches they adopted. The relevance of intelligent career theory when applying micro-level findings at the meso-organisational level is shown.

The paper presents how the international experience of founder–managers, in turn, impacts on the HRM practices and policies that are implemented to recruit and retain international employees. The study highlights how both organisation size and founder-manager international experience influence the degree of customisation of HRM practices and policies in SMEs, specifically pertaining to the recruitment and retention of self-initiated expatriates and skilled migrant employees. The heterogeneity within the sub-categories encompassed under the umbrella label of SME is emphasised; validating our case study approach, where nuance and detail of the specific organisation can be shared.