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This study explores whether expatriation type (assigned expatriates (AEs) versus self-initiated expatriates (SIEs)) is linked to job exhaustion via possible differences in required efforts for their jobs and the rewards they gain from them, and/or the balance between efforts and rewards. Adopting effort–reward imbalance (ERI) and job demands/resources (JD-R) theories, the authors study the possible role of ERI as a mediator between expatriation type and job exhaustion.

An online survey was carried out in co-operation with two Finnish trade unions, providing representative data from 484 assigned and SIEs. The authors test this study’s hypotheses through latent structural equation modelling, and the analysis was conducted with Stata 17.0 software.

The results show that ERI between them are correlated with the job exhaustion of expatriates in general and there are no direct links between expatriation type and job exhaustion. The required effort from AEs was higher than that from SIEs though no difference was found for rewards, and the match between effort demands and rewards is less favourable for AEs than SIEs. AEs experienced higher job exhaustion than SIEs because of the higher effort demands and greater imbalance between efforts and rewards.

The study examines the work well-being of two types of expatriates and explores the underlying mechanisms that may explain why they may differ from each other.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of deviant workplace behavior on digital transformation in the public sector. This contributes to the current literature on public sector digital transformation as well as to that of deviant workplace behavior in public sector contexts.

The authors conduct a qualitative case study of a digital transformation initiative in a Swedish municipality.

The authors identify three types of institutional drift related to digital transformation, i.e. decelerating digital transformation, maintaining infrastructural stability and accelerating digital transformation. The authors categorize mediators for said drift and theorize on the role of deviant workplace behavior as a strategic driver for digital transformation in public sector organizations.

With the study being a qualitative case study, it is limited in terms of generalizability and transferability. Through this study, the authors sensitize the notion of digital transformation and show how deviant behavior results in strategic polyphony. Future studies are informed through offering a new perspective to public sector digital transformation strategy.

Practice should view deviant workplace behavior as simultaneously constructive and destructive in lieu of planned digital transformation, as well as see its presence as a potential sign of subpar prerequisites for digital transformation in the public sector.

Through this study, deviant workplace behavior is highlighted as a source of strategic polyphony and hence an important aspect of public sector digital transformation strategy.

Through being the first paper, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to apply the theory of institutional drift to digital transformation settings as well as identifying the impact of deviant workplace behavior on digital transformation, the study offers novel insights.

The authors examine how performance measurement systems (PMSs) and academic agency influence the meaning of research quality in practice. The worries are that the notion of research quality is becoming too simplistically and narrowly determined by research quality's measurable proxies and that academics, especially manager-academics, do not sufficiently realise this risk. Whilst prior literature has covered the effects of performance measurement in the university sector broadly and how PMSs are mobilised locally, there is only little understanding of whether and how PMSs affect the meaning of research quality in practice.

The study is designed as a comparative case study of two university faculties in Finland. The role of conceptual analysis plays a notable role in the study, too.

The authors find that manager-academics of the two examined faculties have rather similar conceptual understandings of research quality. However, there were differences in the degree of slippage between the “espoused-meaning” of research quality and “meaning-in-practice” of research quality. The authors traced these differences to how the local PMS and manager-academics’ agency relate to one another within the context of increasing global and national performance pressures. The authors developed a tentative framework for the various “styles of agency”. This suggests how the relationship between the local PMS and manager-academics’ exerted agency shapes the “degrees of freedom” of the meaning of research quality in practice.

Given that research quality lies at the heart of academic work, the authors' paper indicates that exploring the three matters – performance measurement, the agency of manager-academics and the meaning of research quality in practice – in combination is crucial for the sustainability of the academe. The authors contribute to the literature by detailing the way in which local PMS and manager-academics' agency have material impacts on what research quality means in practice. The authors conclude by highlighting the pressing need for manager-academics to exercise the agency in efforts to safeguard a broad and pluralistic understanding of research quality in practice.

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to assess the moderating effect of the psychological contract (PC) type (relational, transactional and balanced) on the relationship between psychological contract breach (PCB) and organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs).

The authors administered a survey to a sample of 159 nurses working in a large public hospital. To analyse the survey data, the authors used partial least squares with SmartPLS v.3.3, a variance-based structural equation modelling technique that combines principal component analysis, path analysis and regression analysis.

This study shows that nurses counteract the loss of resources following a PCB by investing more in stronger interpersonal relationships with co-workers and patients as a way to recuperate from resource loss and gain social resources. In addition, the moderating effect of the PC type reinforces the relationship between a PCB and OCB in a way that relational and balanced PC types support OCB-I positively but negatively OCB-O. Furthermore, the transactional PC does not reinforce negatively the link between PCB and OCB-I, and the negative interacting effect on the PCB and OCB-O link is only partially supported.

The study findings are grounded on a cross-sectional research design and a convenience sampling strategy.

The results highlight the relevance of human resources management practices centred on employee involvement and participatory supervision styles for ensuring OCB display at the workplace.

The results add new evidence to COR theory by highlighting the importance of social resources as a mitigator in the relationship between nurses’ PCB and OCB towards co-workers and patients (OCB-I). Hence, the OCB-I display will vary in function of the target and the moderating effect of PC type (relational, balanced or transactional).

This study aims to explore the role of rebel group legitimacy and ideology in durable peace (DP) following peace agreements to end civil wars. It builds on earlier research showing that justice and civil society involvement are critical in achieving DP. This study adds the impacts of rebel group activities and support on DP. Activities include service delivery and mobilization. Support is gauged with outcomes of presidential and parliamentary elections held following peace agreements.

Five data sets were used to measure the key variables: DP, inclusive commissions (IC), legitimacy symmetry (electoral outcomes), service delivery and ideological mobilization. A measure of rebel group integration in the political system was also constructed. Impacts of the integration, legitimacy and ideology variables were assessed with a hierarchical regression model (HRM). This study begins with a base model drawn from earlier research showing the key predictors were procedural justice (PJ) and IC. The authors ask about the extent to which the rebel group variables contribute additional variance to the prediction of DP.

The main contributors to the prediction of DP were PJ, IC and integration in the political system. None of the legitimacy or mobilization variables added significant variance to the prediction. Only one of the mobilization variables, forced recruitment, was significant. The decision to integrate into the political system following the agreement did not mediate the relationship between PJ in the negotiation process and DP. Results of a factor analysis showed that DP, PJ, IC and integration formed a cluster with strong loadings on the first factor.

The negative results for the legitimacy and mobilization variables may not be the last word on rebel group influences. Lack of support for the key hypotheses spurs attempts to discover other sources that contribute to the survival of rebel group actors in the political system and, in turn, to DP.

The issues raised by this study contribute to debates about ways to attain peaceful relations among competing groups following a civil war. It appears that attention to factors inside and around the negotiation process (PJ, ICs and conversion) may be more important than rebel group activities outside of these processes. The results call attention, in particular, to the important role played by political integration. From a policy perspective, it would be useful to develop levers for encouraging rebel groups to emerge as political actors in the post-agreement environment.

Developing measures of the symmetry of rebel group legitimacy and integration in the context of a comparative case study are the primary original contributions of this study. Furthermore, the mode of analysis (HRM) is novel in this literature. This approach builds on and extends the earlier research on factors influencing DP.

A major paradigm shift focusing on the dark side of leadership has generated lots of concern for organizations as leadership has cascading effects on employees’ behaviour. This study aims to understand negative behaviours in the organization as a system of interrelated interaction initiated from the top which trickles down to employees.

Drawing on the theories of social exchange and norms of reciprocity, social learning and displaced aggression, this study models how and when abusive supervision relates to employees’ task performance. The model is empirically tested and extended to cover mediation and moderation processes. Drawing data from 218 bank supervisors and employees, this study uses the structural equation modelling to analyse a trickle-down model of abusive supervision.

Results from multi-waved, multi-sourced data indicated a mediating effect on the abusive supervision–performance relationships and provided support for employees’ guilt proneness and emotional dissonance as moderators. Overall, the results provided support for a moderated mediation relationship in the trickle-down model.

This study provides new knowledge into the potential boundary conditions of employees’ guilt proneness and emotional dissonance in affecting the relationship between abusive supervision, counterproductive work behaviour and task performance.

Digital technology's integration into education has transformed learning frameworks, necessitating the exploration of factors influencing students’ engagement in digital informal settings. This study, grounded in self-determination theory (SDT), proposes a model comprising artificial intelligence (AI) competence, chatbot usage, perceived autonomy (PA), digital informal learning (DIL) and students’ engagement.

The study collected survey data from 409 participants at Saudi Arabian universities, ultimately using 387 valid responses for analysis. This dataset was subjected to a thorough examination to confirm the validity of our proposed model. To decipher the complex interactions within our model, we utilized partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The study adopted a disjoint two-stage method to formulate a reflective-formative higher-order construct (HOC).

The study's findings showed that cognitive learning (CL), metacognitive learning (MCL) and social and motivational learning (SML) are the essential components of DIL. Significantly, the study determined that AI competence, chatbot usage, PA and DIL markedly affect students’ engagement. Moreover, the R² value of 0.592 for student engagement indicates the model's robustness in explaining 59.2% of the variance, highlighting its effectiveness in identifying key drivers of student engagement in DIL contexts.

This research enhances understanding by detailing the intricate relationships among AI competence, chatbot usage, and students’ engagement in informal digital learning. It extends SDT to emphasize intrinsic motivations and AI capabilities, introducing reflective-formative HOCs for comprehending educational intricacies. It provides practical strategies for enhancing AI abilities and chatbot use in education, promoting personalized, engaging and autonomous digital learning spaces, thereby advancing educational theory and practice.

This study aims to investigate the drivers of bank automation system performance expectancy compared to that of bank employees. The purpose is to shed light on the role played by consumers' cognitive schema on automation that is the perfect automation schema (PAS).

A survey was administered to about 500 Italian subjects to measure their PAS; financial knowledge, anxiety, and security; and sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables. Ordered probit regressions and an instrumental variable two-stage least squares regression are run.

The analyses reveal that cognitive schemas play a crucial role in consumer expectations in banking. Individuals with stronger PAS tend to have more positive expectations about bank automation performance compared to employee performance. Financial anxiety and knowledge positively affect bank automation performance expectancy while women, older people, and financially insecure subjects have poor expectations of automated banking systems.

This study extends the understanding of key consumer characteristics that affect bank automation performance expectancy compared to that of bank employees in services delivery in the Italian context. Moreover, it provides useful results for researchers, practitioners, banking institutions, and regulators.

This paper aims to examine the role of a large competitor’s entry and level of innovativeness in consumer adoption of new products.

This paper is based on a comparison between market uncertainty and technological uncertainty. This paper henceforth defines and analyzes the following key factors affecting the purchase intention of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) new products: type of new products and entry of large competitors. The study further verifies mediator variables that exert impacts: uncertainties regarding both technology and market.

The findings are as follows: purchase intention of SME new products does vary according primarily to the product types and entry of large competitors. More specifically, the entry of large competitors reduces uncertainties about really new products, thereby positively affecting SME new products.

There was no causal relationship found, however, on incrementally new products. Further findings clarify that the mediator variables affecting reciprocal interactions between purchase intention of SME new products and the entry of large competitors hold valid only for market uncertainties and not for technological uncertainties.

Task conflict and relationship conflict are common in organizations. This paper aims to present a unique case of the use of the targeted conflict-resolution technique. The revival of positive group dynamics is aptly shown.

This descriptive case study is developed as a practice insight to showcase how a peculiar case of misunderstanding is resolved in the most unconventional way through the intervention of a mediator who unearths the real cause of contention. The mediator works through logic and emotion to remove negativity. Narration, a necessary component of the case study approach, peeps into the research subject involving flashbacks, flash forward, backstories and foreshadowing. The mediator uses reframing as a tool very efficiently, encouraging the people in conflict to understand the nothingness in their cold war and eventually prompting them to collaborate and compromise.

The shifts in communication dynamics post-mediator’s intervention are subtle and full of wisdom, encouraging introspection and constructive interaction, eventually bridging the differences. The possibility of achieving a state of homeostasis in the future magnifies. The belief in the power of affirmation and manifestation is validated. The heavy, difficult, hardened negativity loses ground and gets transformed.

Conversation/prayers at the deepest level in several meetings are the communication tools that have immense social relevance in the Indian context.

A unique combination of intermediation encompassing written communication and energy transformation is adopted to resolve ongoing conflict by stroking the positive psychology of the partakers. To some, the method may appear to have a spiritual connotation.