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The present study aimed at developing and validating a self-development training package and determining self-development's effectiveness on job variables and human capital agility among secondary school principals in Isfahan.

In the first phase, the researcher conceived a full version of the self-development training package by studying the theoretical evidence of research and interviewing experts as well as using content analysis. The questionnaire was presented to several experts (n = 8) in that field of study for evaluation after compiling the initial version of the self-development training package, with the aim of determining the face and content validity. In the second phase of the study, the effectiveness of the self-development training package was experimented on secondary school principals using a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test design and follow-up with a control group.

The evaluation results were suitable for the training package based on the proposed Lawshe method. The results also indicated that the implementation of a self-development training package in the experimental group had a significant effect on job performance and its dimensions, as well as human capital agility. The effect of the training package on increasing job performance in the post-test stage was 55.3% and was 50.2% in the follow-up stage. Also, the effect of this package on increasing the agility of human capital in the post-test phase was equal to 34.8% and was equal to 28.9% in the follow-up stage.

Question 1: What are the components of a self-development training package? Question 2: What is the credibility of the developed training package from the experts' point of view? Question 3: Does the self-development training package have an effect on job performance and its dimensions? Question 4: Does the self-development training package have an effect on human capital agility?.

Based on the textual-analyzed data covering 2148 IPO firms in China’s stock market during the 2007–2018 period, the authors’ purpose is to examine the influence of anti-takeover provision (ATP) adoption on initial public offerings (IPO) underpricing and identify the reducing effect of the former.

The authors examine the sample consisting of Chinese A-share listed IPO firms between 2007 and 2018 from China Stock Market Accounting Research and Chinese Research Data Services, with ATP data collected from the IPO firm chapters. Specifically, the authors use text analysis to identify whether there are ATPs in the IPO firm chapters, as well as the number of ATPs. H1: IPO underpricing is less severe for firms adopting ATPs. H2: The effect of ATP adoption on IPO underpricing is more salient for firms in worse information environments.

The authors examine the influence of ATP adoption on IPO underpricing and identify the reducing effect of the former. This effect can be explained by the fact that adopting ATPs in IPO firm chapters can reduce information asymmetry to a large extent by helping external investors obtain more private information, which alleviates IPO underpricing. The authors also find that the reducing effect is more significant in the worsened information environment. Furthermore, the authors explore the influence of adopting ATPs on other IPO characteristics and find positive effects on IPO over-subscription, funds raised and trading activity and negative effects on listing fees.

This study mainly contributes to the literature from the following two aspects. First, the study enriches the literature about the influencing factors of IPO underpricing. Second, the study also enriches the literature about the economic consequences of ATP adoption. This study also has important policy implications. With the coming of the era of decentralized ownership in China’s capital market, ATP adoption has become more important and attracted more attention. Also, investors focus more on pricing efficiency. The findings in this paper provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between ATP adoption and IPO underpricing.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

Knowledge management (KM) capability plays an important role in the promotion of firm performance in the knowledge economy era. However, empirical evidence on how KM capability affects firm performance is still limited. The study therefore aims to explore the impacts of internal and external KM capabilities on firm performance via the parallel mediation of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model innovations (BMIs).

The authors empirically analyzed a survey data of 295 Chinese innovative enterprises by applying partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

According to the results of PLS-SEM, the relationship between internal KM capability and firm performance is not significant, instead it is fully mediated by efficiency-centered and novelty-centered BMIs. External KM capability can directly and positively affect firm performance, while the relationship is also partially mediated by BMIs. Furthermore, the authors recognized the antecedent conditions for high-level and low-level firm performance by fsQCA analysis, which substantiate the above findings.

It not only enriches the literature that links KM and innovation management but also contributes to the new theoretical perspective on firm sustainable growth. Methodologically, it combines symmetric and asymmetric analyses together. Additionally, it provides some insights for managers to understand how KM capability drives firm performance through BMI.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer relationship management (CRM) implementation affects internal capital allocation efficiency, the efficiency with which a firm allocates its capital across its business segments.

The authors use a statistical regression method to analyze a sample of 801 unique firms in the USA from COMPUSTAT and the Computer Intelligence database. This analysis examines the relation between CRM implementation and internal capital allocation efficiency and identifies the conditions under which firms benefit more from CRM implementation. They also use instrumental variables (IVs) to address endogenous concerns with a two-stage least squares (2SLS) model.

The authors find that CRM implementation is positively related to internal capital allocation efficiency. The results are robust to the 2SLS analysis with IVs. This positive relation is more pronounced for firms with effective internal control and for those operating in highly competitive markets.

The research implies that that CRM can have a significant cross-functional effect on corporate financing and budgeting. This also suggests that when chief marketing officers plan marketing initiatives and implement CRM, they should communicate to chief financial officers not only the direct effect but also the indirect strategic benefits of such initiatives to a firm.

The authors reveal a previously overlooked aspect of marketing accountability by suggesting marketing’s impact on internal capital markets. They also enrich the body of literature on CRM benefits by showing a cross-functional benefit from marketing to finance (or capital allocation).

This study aims to quantitatively consolidate the research conducted over the past four decades on how internal branding activities drive employee commitment. It summarizes several operationalizations of internal branding and tests the moderating effect of employee’s personal characteristics and job characteristics on the relationship between internal branding and employee commitment.

This paper uses meta-analysis as the research methodology. The analysis includes a sample of 65 studies (from 62 published works), yielding 226 effect sizes (coded into 82 composite effect sizes) over an aggregated sample of 21,706 respondents.

This study finds that brand communication, brand-centered human resource management (HRM), training and development, organizational support and culture, brand-centered leadership and an excellent reward system are the key operationalizations of internal branding. Furthermore, employee’s personal (education, age and gender) and job (tenure, work status and level of customer orientation) characteristics significantly moderate the internal branding–employee commitment relationship.

Limited empirical literature on some of the internal branding operationalizations such as brand-centered HRM and rewards has curbed the scope of moderator analysis.

This paper proposes some effective ways of implementing internal branding strategies and provides support for boundary conditions that brand managers should consider to strengthen the impact of internal branding activities on employee commitment.

As per the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the few quantitative consolidations of four decades of research on the internal branding–employee commitment relationship.

During the 1990s, Italian healthcare organisations (HOs) underwent a process of corporatisation, and the most innovative HOs introduced the balanced scorecard (BSC) to address the need for broader accountability. Currently, there is a limited understanding of the dynamics and outcomes of such a process. Therefore, this study aims to explore whether the BSC is still considered an effective performance management tool and analyse the factors driving and hindering its evolution and endurance in public and non-profit HOs.

We conducted a retrospective longitudinal analysis of two pioneering cases in the adoption of the BSC: one in a public hospital and the other in a non-profit hospital. Data collection relied on accessing institutional documents and reports from the early 2000s to the present, as well as conducting semi-structured interviews with the internal sponsors of the BSC.

We found evidence of three main categories of factors that trigger or hinder the adoption and development of the BSC: (1) the role of the internal sponsor and professionals’ commitment; (2) information technology and the controller’s technological skills; and (3) the relationship between the management and professionalism logics during the implementation process. At the same time, there is no evidence to suggest that specific technical features of the BSC influence its endurance.

The paper contributes to the debate on the key factors for implementing and sustaining multidimensional control systems in professional organisations. It emphasises the importance of knowledge-based assets and distinctive internal capabilities for the success of the business. The implications of the BSC legacy are discussed, along with future developments of multidimensional control tools aimed at supporting strategy execution.

This study aims to investigate why and how shared service centres (SSCs) are implemented as well as how they affect audit firm practice and audit quality.

In this qualitative study guided by the theoretical framework of institutional theory, the authors conducted 25 semi-structured interviews in seven European countries, including 16 interviews with audit partners from Big 4 firms, 6 with audit team members, 2 with interviewees from second-tier audit firms and 1 with a member of an oversight body.

The authors show that the central rationale for audit firms to implement SSCs is economic rather than external legitimacy. The authors find that SSC implementation has substantial effects on audit practices, particularly those related to standardisation, coordination and monitoring activities. The authors also highlight the potential impacts on audit quality.

By exploring the motivation for and effects of SSC implementation amongst audit firms, the authors offer insights into the best practices related to subsequent change processes and audit quality.

This study discusses that the necessary criteria and the solution approach taken to resolve the main spatial infection problems with a burn center design should be evaluated holistically to achieve spatial infection control in a burn center. The burn center design plays an important role in protecting severely burned patients from infection because the microbial flora of the hospital can affect the infection risk. In hospitals, sterilization and disinfection are the basic components of infection prevention; however, the prevention and control of infection for burn patients also requires the design of burn centers that adhere to a specific set of criteria that considers spatial infection control in addition to appropriate burn treatment methods and treatments. In this study, a burn facility converted from a burn unit into a burn center is introduced and the necessary design inputs for the transformation are discussed because there is no holistic study in the literature that delas with all the spaces that should be in a burn center and relations between spaces. This study aims to define the functional relations between each of the units and the spaces that change according to different sterilization demands in the burn center for ensuring spatial infection control. Furthermore, it aims to propose a method for ensuring continuity in the control of spatial infections.

The burn care and health facilities guidelines are examined within the framework of spatial standards, together with a comprehensive literature review. The design method was based on the spread of microorganisms and the effect of human movement on space and spatial transitions in the burn center, according to all relevant literature reviews. To determine the extent to which the differences in treatment protocols of burn care guidelines were reflected in the space, interviews were conducted with burn facility officials. The plan–do–check–act (PDCA) method is also modeled to ensure the continuity of infection control in the burn center.

The burn center design findings are classified under three main headings, namely, location of the burn center in the hospital, spatial organization and physical features of the burn center and the air flowing system. The importance of the interactions among the criteria for spatial infection control has been revealed. Due to the physical space characteristics and air flow characteristics that change according to human movement and the way microorganisms spread, it has been seen that designing the air flow and architectural aspects together has an effective role in providing spatial infection control. Accordingly, a functional relation scheme for the center has been suggested. It is also proposed as a model to ensure the continuity of infection control in the burn center.

This research presents spatial measures for infection control in burn centers for practitioners in health-care settings such as designers, engineers, doctors and nurses. The PDCA method also leads to continuity of infection control for hospital management.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to focus on developing the criteria for spatial infection control in burn center. Moreover, the aim is to create a function chart that encompasses the relationships between the units within the burn center design so that infection control can be coordinated spatially.