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Healthcare providers are under pressure due to increasing and more complex demands for services. Increased pressure on budgets and human resources adds to an ever-growing problem set. Competent leaders are in demand to ensure effective and well-performing healthcare organisations that deliver balanced results and high-quality services. Researchers have made significant efforts to identify and define determining competencies for healthcare leadership. Broad terms such as competence are, however, inherently at risk of becoming too generic to add analytical value. The purpose of this study is to suggest a holistic framework for understanding healthcare leadership competence, that can be crucial for operationalising important healthcare leadership competencies for researchers, decision-makers as well as practitioners.

In the present study, a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) was conducted to analyse competency descriptions for healthcare leaders. The descriptions were retrieved from peer reviewed empirical studies published between 2010 and 2022 that aimed to identify healthcare services leadership competencies. Grounded theory was utilised to code the data and inductively develop new categories of healthcare leadership competencies. The categorisation was then analysed to suggest a holistic framework for healthcare leadership competence.

Forty-one papers were included in the review. Coding and analysing the competence descriptions resulted in 12 healthcare leadership competence categories: (1) character, (2) interpersonal relations, (3) leadership, (4) professionalism, (5) soft HRM, (6) management, (7) organisational knowledge, (8) technology, (9) knowledge of the healthcare environment, (10) change and innovation, (11) knowledge transformation and (12) boundary spanning. Based on this result, a holistic framework for understanding and analysing healthcare services leadership competencies was suggested. This framework suggests that the 12 categories of healthcare leadership competencies include a range of knowledge, skills and abilities that can be understood across the dimension personal – and technical, and organisational internal and – external competencies.

This literature review was conducted with the results of searching only two electronic databases. Because of this, there is a chance that there exist empirical studies that could have added to the development of the competence categories or could have contradicted some of the descriptions used in this analysis that were assessed as quite harmonised. A CIS also opens for a broader search, including the grey literature, books, policy documents and so on, but this study was limited to peer-reviewed empirical studies. This limitation could also have affected the result, as complex phenomenon such as competence might have been disclosed in greater details in, for example, books.

The holistic framework for healthcare leadership competences offers a common understanding of a “fuzzy” concept such as competence and can be used to identify specific competency needs in healthcare organisations, to develop strategic competency plans and educational programmes for healthcare leaders.

This study reveals a lack of consensus regarding the use and understanding of the concept of competence, and that key competencies addressed in the included papers are described vastly different in terms of what knowledge, skills and abilities they entail. This challenges the operationalisation of healthcare services leadership competencies. The proposed framework for healthcare services leadership competencies offers a common understanding of work-related competencies and a possibility to analyse key leadership competencies based on a holistic framework.

Climate change requires the reduction of direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a task that seems to clash with increasing supply chain complexity. This study aims to analyse the upstream supply chain complexity dimensions suggesting the importance of understanding the information processing that these may entail. Reducing equivocality can be an issue in some dimensions, requiring the introduction of written guidelines to moderate the effects of supply chain complexity dimensions on GHG emissions at the firm and supply chain level.

A three-year panel data was built with information obtained from Bloomberg, Trucost and Compustat. Hypotheses were tested using random effect regressions with robust standard errors on a sample of 394 SP500 companies, addressing endogeneity through the control function approach.

Horizontal complexity reduces GHG emissions at the firm level, whereas vertical and spatial complexity dimensions increase GHG emissions at the firm and supply chain level. Although the introduction of written guidelines neutralises the negative effects of vertical complexity on firm and supply chain GHG emissions, it is not sufficient in the presence of spatial complexity.

This paper offers novel insights by suggesting that managers need to reconcile the potential trade-off effects on GHG emissions that horizontally complex supply chain structures can present. Their priority in vertically and spatially complex supply chain structures should be to reduce equivocality.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of current research on customer behavior in the business-to-business (B2B) context and propose a research agenda for future studies. Despite being a relatively recent area of interest for academics and practitioners, a literature review that synthesizes existing knowledge into coherent topics and outlines a research agenda for future research is still lacking.

Drawing on a systematic literature review of 219 papers and using a text-mining approach based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, this paper enhances the existing knowledge of B2B customer behavior and provides a descriptive analysis of the literature.

From this review, ten major research topics are found and analyzed. These topics were analyzed through the lens of the Theory, Context, Characteristics and Method framework, providing a summary of key findings from prior studies. Additionally, an integrative framework was developed, offering insights into future research directions.

This study presents a novel contribution to the field of B2B by providing a systematic review of the topic of customer behavior, filling a gap in the literature and offering a valuable resource for scholars and managers seeking to advance the field.

Construction organizations' investment in effective talent-development programs is a key strategy in attracting, developing and retaining staff. Such programs are especially important given the current challenges in the construction workforce, including labor shortages, an aging workforce, generational differences in the workforce, supply chain disruptions and the need to effectively train staff in the skills that are essential in a constrained labor environment. To address these challenges, this study proposes a performance measurement strategy that construction companies can use as input to design their talent development programs.

The strategy intends to assess the performance of project managers and develop criteria that define categories of their performance, including the top performers' category. This enables construction organizations to provide each project manager with individualized training that addresses areas of weakness and in turn, develops the skills that correspond with being top performers. The proposed strategy was developed and tested by surveying the immediate supervisors of 187 project managers working for general and specialty contractors in the United States. Principal component analysis was used to develop a single performance construct from seven performance criteria.

This construct was used to organize the project managers into the categories of top, above-average and below-average performers. According to the findings, top-performing project managers have well-rounded skills in the areas of leadership, communication, technical proficiency and overall job knowledge.

The outcomes of this study can help construction organizations focus their talent-development programs on the skills most associated with PMs being top performers.

This study provides construction organizations with a comprehensive performance-measuring construct to focus their talent-development programs on the skills most associated with top-performing project managers. Researchers can use this study as a foundation for further understanding how performance is related to various construction professions.

This study aims to explore and empirically test variables influencing material delivery schedule inaccuracies?

A mixed-method case approach is applied. Explanatory variables are identified from the literature and explored in a qualitative analysis at an automotive original equipment manufacturer. Using logistic regression and random forest classification models, quantitative data (historical schedule transactions and internal data) enables the testing of the predictive difference of variables under various planning horizons and inaccuracy levels.

The effects on delivery schedule inaccuracies are contingent on a decoupling point, and a variable may have a combined amplifying (complexity generating) and stabilizing (complexity absorbing) moderating effect. Product complexity variables are significant regardless of the time horizon, and the item’s order life cycle is a significant variable with predictive differences that vary. Decoupling management is identified as a mechanism for generating complexity absorption capabilities contributing to delivery schedule accuracy.

The findings provide guidelines for exploring and finding patterns in specific variables to improve material delivery schedule inaccuracies and input into predictive forecasting models.

The findings contribute to explaining material delivery schedule variations, identifying potential root causes and moderators, empirically testing and validating effects and conceptualizing features that cause and moderate inaccuracies in relation to decoupling management and complexity theory literature?

This study aims to offer the intellectual structure and dynamics of the sustainability branding field, involving the identification of influential authors and journals, current and emerging themes, theories, methods, contexts and future research directions.

The study conducted a bibliometric approach of 1,509 articles retrieved from Scopus to analyze the evolution of the knowledge of sustainability branding and suggest future research. The analysis used various methods such as performance analysis, keyword analysis, cluster analysis and bibliographic coupling.

The topics of corporate image, philanthropy and stakeholder pressures were core in the foundation phase. Then rose the topics of sustainable development goals and global supply chains. Green marketing and the new paradigms of circularity, ethical consumerism and hyperconnected societies emerged more recently. Six thematic clusters represent the field’s knowledge structure: (1) corporate branding and reputation, (2) sustainable business development, (3) sustainable branding and ethical consumption, (4) corporate social responsibility, (5) brand equity and green marketing and (6) sustainability branding in hospitality and tourism.

This paper provides readers with an overview of sustainability branding core themes, key contributions and challenges, which can be used as a toolkit for brand management studies and practice.

The study’s uniqueness lies in bibliometric analysis (combined with network analysis and science mapping techniques) of the sustainability branding field from the identification and evolution of the thematic clusters to propose future research directions.

The sharing economy has evolved as a result of the diffusion of information and communication technology and facilitates collaborative consumption and production otherwise known as value co-creation. The present research aims to explore the consumer responses to value co-creation in sharing economy such as satisfaction, brand preference and enduring buyer–platform relationships, amid consumer's CSR concerns.

Drawing on the sharing economy and value co-creation literature and rooted in the stimulus-organism-response framework, an online panel data provider was employed to recruit 393 actual sharing economy consumers from the United States. Empirical analyses are performed using structural equation modeling through Amos, version.27.

Findings confirm that value co-creation intentions contribute to consumers' satisfaction, brand preference and sustainable social relationships in the sharing economy. As expected, heightened concerns of corporate social responsibility (CSR) led to decreased consumer satisfaction with the sharing economy platform.

The study contributes to the digital sharing economy literature by emphasizing the role of CSR perceptions for building long-term relationships (buyer–platform relationships) where value co-creation is crucial.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of an industry’s connectedness to foreign countries on knowledge sourcing.

The authors examine the research model through probit regression techniques to the 472,303-patent data across 16 industries derived from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The results suggest that international connectedness increases the accessibility of foreign knowledge and helps the accumulation of technological capability. Thus, this paper provides a better understanding that international connectedness can be critical for exploiting knowledge dispersed worldwide and influencing intra- and interindustry knowledge-sourcing behavior in the home country.

While prior studies have mainly paid attention to the relationship between parents and subsidiaries in foreign countries for international knowledge sourcing, the authors attempt to analyze international and local knowledge sourcing with a broader set of knowledge sourcing channels at an aggregate level. By considering an industry’s export intensity and inward foreign direct investment, this study reveals specifically how the extent of an industry’s international connectedness influences knowledge sourcing from both abroad and locally.

The authors of this study aim to investigate possible explanations of the prevalence of price clustering in the final offer prices of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

The authors use final offer price in M&A deals to investigate the price clustering phenomena. The authors used regressions and logistic regressions to examine potential factors that might affect pricing strategy by looking into one-time acquirers and experienced serial acquirers.

Price clustering increases with negotiation uncertainties characterized as competitive bidding, number of bidders, challenged deals and duration. Moreover, the authors find persistent price clustering in experienced serial acquirers that are more experienced and better equipped with handling uncertainties, suggesting a preference of using round numbers regardless of levels of uncertainties. The authors' evidence shows that price clustering results from a combination of Harris' (1991) costly negotiation hypothesis where round prices may be used to lower search costs and psychological bias and preference.

The authors appear to be the first to investigate alternative theories that support M&A offer price clustering behavior, finding that both the costly negotiation and psychological bias and preference theories apply to M&A final price formation. Thus, the authors' major contribution, specific to the M&A process, is a clarification of physical and psychological factors associated with bidding and negotiation behavior. The authors are confident that the authors' study impacts conventional knowledge regarding M&A deal negotiation strategies, including bidding behavior, contract negotiation, financial analysis, management practices and risk management.