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The purpose of this paper is to discuss what could be done before the promotion to management to help first-time managers succeed in their new roles.

The paper reviews literature from scholarly and professional journals and magazines and uses the author’s professional experience as a training and development consultant.

The paper argues that organizations should offer support to first-time managers before they get promoted. This period could be called a preparation period. The paper suggests to differentiate between the preparation and transition periods because each has different goals. On the basis of the goals of the preparation period, the paper suggest activities that could be used by organizations.

Conversations about support of first-time managers to ease their transition to management usually evolve around either the ways newly promoted managers could help themselves by developing certain skills, knowledge base, and attitudes or the ways in which organizations could implement certain training and development activities after employees are promoted to managerial positions. Very little has been said about “the before” or the preparation period.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of humor work climate on innovative work behavior of back-office employees in the banking industry in Russia.

Data was collected via an online survey that included scales to measure humor climate and innovative work behavior. The survey was distributed electronically among employees of one department of a bank. The sample included 104 back-office employees (response rate 60.4%). Correlation and regression analyses were used.

The results indicate that humor climate fosters employee innovative work behavior. Positive humor contributes to innovative work behavior more than remaining humor climate dimensions (i.e. negative humor, outgroup humor and supervisory support). Only position type (managers vs non-managers), and not gender, education and job tenure, was found to have a significant impact on employee perceptions of humor climate and innovative work behavior exhibition.

This study adds to the limited empirical evidence on the links between humor and innovative work behavior, especially at a group level. This study focused on humor climate as a multidimensional construct, whereas previous research mostly explored positive forms of humor in relation to different social aspects of the organization. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is first to use a validated scale to explore connections between innovative work behavior and humor climate.

The purpose of this paper is to share how the concept of organizational justice could help to explore employee satisfaction with the mystery shopping appraisal system.

The research was conducted at a fast-food restaurant chain located in Russia. Data were collected through an online-questionnaire distributed among all 516 chef-cashiers of the 86 restaurants of the chain located in Saint Petersburg. The questionnaire consisted of 17 closed-ended and one open-ended questions.

Violations of norms of procedural, distributive, and informational justice were identified. The majority of the chief-cashiers thought that the norms of interpersonal justice were met.

The paper also discusses how training and development professionals could use the concept of organizational justice to improve employee satisfaction with a mystery shopping appraisal process. The results collected through the questionnaire can be used in at least two ways: to implement structural changes in the process and to determine and address training needs of three groups of employees.

Perceptions of organizational justice predict employee satisfaction with different aspects of a performance appraisal system. This paper is first to explore how the concept of organizational justice could be useful in evaluating employee satisfaction with such performance appraisal method as mystery shopping.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between participation in case competitions and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) of university students.

The sample included 273 Russian university students; 109 (40%) of them had never participated in case competitions, whereas 164 (60%) participated at least once in case competitions related to business, management and economics. Data were collected via an online survey that included the CDMSE scale–short form. Descriptive, correlation and linear regression analyses of data were conducted to test five hypotheses.

The research study showed a significant difference in CDMSE between those who had never participated in case competitions and those who had participated at least once. However, the study did not show a significant influence of participation in case competitions on the level of CDMSE. The results also indicated that the level of CDMSE could be explained by the participants' work experience, career choice status and age, as well as the highest level achieved during participation in case competitions.

The study provides limitations and implications for future research as well as practice, including career centers and career counselors, university faculty, organizers of case competitions and recruitment specialists in organizations.

Prior research suggests that participation in case competitions helps students’ transition into the workplace. Despite their global popularity, empirical research on case competitions is very limited and focused primarily on skill development. This study contributes to the knowledge base by exploring links between case participation and CDMSE.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a perceived organizational culture on organizational identification and commitment of employees of a Russian university that is transforming to become an English-medium instruction (EMI) university.

Data were collected between February and March 2018, via an online survey that was disseminated among 115 new employees; 90 were completed and used for analyses. The survey included three scales.

Employees of the EMI university perceived its culture as market, which is not a common characteristic of universities that usually have a clan culture. The study has also demonstrated a discrepancy between the perceived (market) and the preferred (clan) organizational culture. The study has also showed that a clan, and not a market, culture strengthens employee organizational commitment and identification.

Most research has examined EMI universities from the perspectives of teaching and learning. This study contributes to the limited conceptual and theoretical base around these universities by examining their processes from a perspective of management. This paper suggests that the adoption of English as a medium of instruction requires organizational change that leads to change in organizational culture.

The purpose of this study was to investigate attractiveness of internship advertisements to the prospective applicants through the lens of employer branding. By giving attention to internship attractiveness, universities and companies expand current collaborations around internship provision to enhance student internship experiences, satisfaction and employment prospects and to foster long-term sustainability of internship programs.

The study used a mixed-methods design employing a concurrent triangulation strategy. The authors conducted a content analysis of 94 internship listings published in the largest Russian job portal, HeadHunter, and collected surveys from 274 prospective interns.

The study shows a mismatch between employer branding strategies and prospective interns' perceptions of employer attractiveness. Companies emphasize economic value and visual identity as well as functional attributes, while prospective interns prioritize development value and symbolic attributes. The findings suggest internship advertisements do not appeal to potential applicants.

The results are limited to business students from specific universities in Russia, so further research is needed to include students with different majors and from other countries. The study is also limited to advertisements available via a large online job portal. A comparative analysis of effectiveness of various communication channels for internship promotion could yield useful results.

Career center advisors, academic program directors and internship coordinators should work with company leaders, human resources and marketing decision-makers, and recruitment specialists to better understand interns' drivers of attraction and audit the internship advertisements. Employers could use the study results to strengthen recruiting messages and, hence, attractiveness of the employer brand to potential interns.

The study contributes by applying the employer branding theory to an understudied population of interns, hence providing new insights into internships as collaboration between universities and companies. By focusing on internship positions, which differ from full-time permanent positions across many aspects, including the positions' duration, pay, supervision and purpose, the study assists in understanding the distinct drivers of attraction of interns, which are missing from published research on the topic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine an employee's unique experience of being engaged in their work.

Following Yin's case study design method, researchers collected documents, conducted semi‐structured interviews and recorded observations at a large multinational service corporation ranked as one of the best places to work. Post data collection, content analysis is used to interpret engagement efforts and experiences. Work by Kahn and Maslow are integrated as conceptual frameworks.

Post analysis, three themes emerged: relationship development and attachment to co‐workers, workplace climate and opportunities for learning. Findings highlighted the development of relationships in the workplace, the importance of an employee's direct manager and their role in shaping organizational culture and the critical role of learning in an engaged employee's interpretation of their work. Scaffolding and discussion of an emergent model is provided.

Three propositions for human resource development (HRD) research and practice are presented: first, environment and person interact to create engagement or disengagement; second, an employee's manager plays a critical role in developing engagement; and third, personality can effect engagement, however, everyone can engage. An integrated model is proposed as a synthesis of findings providing HRD researchers and practitioner's opportunity to re‐examine current engagement efforts. Specific action steps are outlined to spur further theory building and organizational practice.

The objective of the emergent model is to provide researchers and practitioners a new framework to consider, grounded in both early and contemporary theories of engagement. The emergent model could serve as the basis for new strategies and structures related to engagement development and could shed new light on how employees interpret the experience of engagement in work. This research is the first known qualitative study of employee engagement in the HRD literature, second only to the original qualitative research by Kahn.

In the digital age, the development of students’ career intentions requires serious concentration since these are associated with the students’ future employment and, ultimately, their survival. This study attempted to demonstrate in Pakistan’s Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs) the role of soft skills towards the students' career development (CD) and their future career intentions (CI).

In this study, the researchers used a quantitative approach and a questionnaire to collect the data from the surveyed participants. Finally, the researchers based this study’s findings on 392 useable samples.

By employing the structural equation model (SEM), this study’s findings show that soft skills, such as Creative Self-Efficacy (CSE), Problem-Solving Confidence (PSC) and Teamwork (TW) have a positive and significant effect on CD and CI. However, while Critical thinking and Creativity (CRC) has a positive and significant effect on CD, it has no effect on CI. In addition, this study’s findings confirm, also, that CD has a positive and significant effect on CI.

This study’s findings assist policymakers and university administrators to understand the importance of soft skills in creating CD and CI. These promote the development of employability skills and fulfill its part in preparing graduates for the unpredictable job market. This study’s findings help, also, to develop logical reasoning in making decisions and in dealing with complex organizational issues.

In a practical way, in Pakistan, this study’s findings confirm the role of soft skills towards students' CD and CI.