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The purpose of this paper is explore an organizational design that allows firms to invest in transferable strategic human capital. Strategic human capital requires considerable investment in training costs, effective compensation, opportunities for professional development and expectancy of long employment relationship within a firm. A firm can undertake investment in strategic knowledge and workers can engage in learning only in these circumstances. However, there are a number of risks that are associated with investment in strategic human capital within a firm. In this paper, the author argues that providing strategic human capital to other firms within alliances could be a strategy for leveraging resource. Strategic knowledge facilitates transactions between firms possessing co-specialized human capital and tangible resources. Organizational design of an alliance based on co-specialization allows to balance costs and returns for the human capital supplier, as well as for beneficiary and workers. Within an alliance, the human capital supplier provides workers to a beneficiary firm and coordinates their activities. Supplier specialized in human capital investment ensures improved performance, productivity and efficiency of workers. Possibility to form a greater pool of labor force and to centralize training allows optimizing cost and sharing risks associated with investment activity among alliance participants. Human resource practices in an alliance system foster long-term employment relationship. Entering an alliance increases number of job positions, professional development opportunities through horizontal mobility, promotion and learning opportunities for workers. Finally, alliances allow leveraging investment in human capital beyond a single organization.

This paper conceptualizes the use of alliance based on co-specialization as a strategy to optimize investment in strategic human capital resource. It draws upon the resource-based view (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1995) and transaction cost theory (Coase, 1937; Williamson, 1981) to examine an alliance as a strategy for leveraging the human capital resources for accessing new markets, building reputation and sharing the risks across more than one organization.

First, the paper reviews the theoretical literature on human capital as a strategic resource (Becker, 1962; Coff, 1997), its sourcing on internal and external labor markets and respective employment systems (Delery and Doty, 1996; Doeringer and Piore, 1971). Second, it focuses on the features of human capital resource (Barney, 1986; Chi, 1994; Doz and Hamel, 1998). Third, it conceptualizes the use of alliances based on co-specialization as organizational structures for investment in human capital across organizations and examines respective employment system and HR practices (Delery and Doty, 1996; Doeringer and Piore, 1971). As result, the author argues that an alliance can be an alternative mean to optimize returns on investment in human capital with strategic transferable knowledge. By consequence, the author describes an alliance employment system and illustrates the arguments with a case of human capital trading in a co-specialization alliance under a long-term management contract in the luxury hotel industry.

This paper discusses collaborative ventures as a sourcing strategy of the human capital. An alliance strategy is relevant for sourcing the strategic human capital resources. Human capital resource can be accessed by firms through transfer of skills and organizational routines within collaborative agreements, such as alliances based on co-specialization. In this case, alliance is an organizational architecture between organizations that improves the efficiency and productivity, reduces marginal cost on training due to larger scale of operations and reduces risk by splitting investment in human capital and by offering more career and development opportunities for strategic knowledge workers.

In this paper we seek to provide insight as to how wisdom is, or might be, perceived and enacted in Higher Education contexts. Selected constructs of wisdom derived from the Bhagavad Gita provided a platform from which seven invited College of Education faculty participants considered their own framings of wisdom in the contexts of their own professional and personal lives.

This case study has drawn upon constructs of wisdom proffered by key Indian scholars who share this epistemological stance. A three-stage process was deployed, comprised of an introductory close-ended survey, an open-ended questionnaire to determine personalised insights and semi-structured interviews to clarify and member-check the data.

The participant academics' reflections offered a convergence on rich potential to pursue wisdom in Education and promote ethics, integrity, skilful action and inclusion. Furthermore, a general concern among the group of seven faculty who participated, was a perceived lack of humility in academia.

A sample of seven participants precludes generalizable findings. Some ambiguities of constructs like “Love of God”, “Duty” and “Inner peace” provided space for participants to interrogate their own understandings.

“Wisdom” in Higher Education has not been an explicit topic of research until relatively recently. Based on the present study, which entailed in-depth written responses to questions that asked faculty respondents about their perceptions of the place and role of “wisdom” in Higher Education settings, we can however, suggest possible directions for wisdom-focused research in pluricultural Higher Education contexts.

The notion of “sustainable development” has had a short and tumultuous history, including a departure from economic reductionism by focusing on a multidimensional aspect and addressing the issues of its scope across many disciplines. It has become a project enabling a rethinking of capitalism based on the concept of a reformed type of capitalism. The purpose of this paper is to study this issue.

The paper is based on the following arguments: the presentation of sustainable development as a “vague” theory, an empirical proof of this vagueness with regard to corporate actions whose justification is based around the notion of sustainable development, and finally the ambiguities of the notion.

The notion of sustainable development raises the question of an apparent consensus on its correlates: solidarity, responsibility, equity, etc. It tends to establish a protean sense of the firms' responsibility, particularly the larger ones. The largely political dimension of the notion has today consequences on its usage. Sustainable development as addressed in the firm tends to take on the dimension of a management issue, which is likely to persist due to its larger political dimension.

The paper provides insight on the catch‐all dimension of the notion and its appealing rhetorical character and bases the ambiguity related with references to an “in‐between.” On the institutional level, it refers to a social and fair economy that stands arguably in between the state and the market. On the methodological level, it refers to heuristics of fear and hope.

The concept of contract contributes extensively to an essentialist conception of the organization (the contract would then be its essence), a descriptive method (describing the organization as a contract or set of contracts), and a normative standpoint. More recently, it has been epitomized by the “psychological contract”. The concept of contract is about will, agreement, obligation, promise, commitment, staying true to one's commitments, cooperation, sanction and bond. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these manifestations prior to comparing the notion of social contract with psychological contract based on two criteria: an anthropology of the individual and an anthropology of the contract.

After delineating the notion of contract (and its correlates agency, gift, exchange and association) and reviewing the “epithet‐based” contracts, the two dimensions of the contract (social and psychological) will be addressed and compared based on two anthropologies, one of the individual and one of the contract.

This comparison underscores the relevance of contractualism today and the richness of comparing across different eras and perimeters. If these two aspects have anything in common, it is whatever links the contract with sociality.

This comparing process must underscore two limitations, namely anachronism (the two texts were written two centuries apart), and underpinning, a political underpinning in the social contract and an organizational underpinning in the psychological contract. It thus looks as though the organization was made of the same substance as the nation, which – like the notion of governance – may lead to some kind of confusion between contract and constitution, contracting power and constituent powers.

The paper discusses a key notion in political philosophy and organization science.

The paper presents a comparison between two key conceptions of the notion of contract.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the notion of “responsibility”.

Discussing the notion of “responsibility” according to two main philosophers (Paul Ricoeur and Hans Jonas) and its legal conception.

In philosophy, the issue of responsibility appears as a second‐level question, thus pointing up the first‐level ones (e.g. action, liberty, causality, autonomy). As such, responsibility necessarily reduces the philosophical field, otherwise the issue becomes unmanageable – if the issue ever was manageable! The concept of responsibility is both recent and fuzzy. The most commonly associated word is obligation. The notion of responsibility raises the problem of its conditions of possibility with the issue of imputation and the binary: imputation and sanction. Self‐referentiality and the circumstances surrounding calculation (of sanctions) are key aspects.

The question arises: What is hidden behind the notion?

Beware of the performative aspects linked to the notion of “responsibility”.

The current meaning of responsibility is embedded in today's political ideology (the “liberal moment”).

The paper takes into account the philosophical background of a notion currently used in management.

Cross-cultural studies on differences in eating and consumer behavior have several limitations due to differences between countries, for example, in national health policies. Switzerland combines cultural diversity between the language regions, but with a common national health policy. Therefore, Switzerland provides an ideal framework to investigate cross-cultural eating and consumer behavior. The aim of this study was to combine food consumption, purchase data and sales data to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of cultural dietary differences.

Six national Swiss studies on food consumption, one study of food sales from the largest supermarket chain in Switzerland and one national study of food purchasing were included. The estimated marginal mean of each food category in each language region was calculated using linear regression and respective linear random effect models.

In the French- and Italian-speaking regions more fish was sold, bought and consumed than in the German-speaking region of Switzerland. In contrast, in the German-speaking region, more milk and dairy products were sold, bought and consumed. Language regions explained sales, purchase and consumption of foods, but the findings were only consistent for fish and milk and dairy products.

If possible limitations of cross-culture studies between countries are eliminated, cultural eating and consumer differences are still visible, even in a small country like Switzerland. For the first time, the complexity of studying food consumption, purchasing and sales is shown in one study. This indicates the importance of further studies which consider these three perspectives to better understand cultural differences in eating and consumption behavior.

This research conceptualizes service recovery process (SRPs) within pre-recovery, recovery and post-recovery. This study aims to provide a summary of factors and strategies with respect to SRPs. Also, this research highlights different responses by organizations to SRPs. These responses are synthesized in this research in the context of SRPs.

This study provides a systemic literature review that considers only studies that have been published within the past 11 years to highlight the different response options used today. This study only selected papers that are included in a rigorous review process such that they explicitly contribute towards practice, theory and policy.

The pre-recovery is about the awareness of the problem whereby communication between the customer and organization is initiated to resolve the issue, and it provides a critical foundation for the recovery expectations. The recovery phase concluded with either a satisfactory resolution of the problem or when the customer gives up on his/her query due to another failure of the organization. Post-recovery encompasses the period in which the recovery efforts have concluded, and the customers have now started to evaluate their experience of preceding phases. A major contribution of this study is that it provides a summary of factors and strategies with respect to SRPs.

The managers of service-providing organization can use this synthesis to evaluate the response of their organization to different instances of service failures along SRPs. They can then modify their responses. Managers can also use this synthesis as part of an employee training programme to ensure wide coverage of potential responses of the organization following a failure of service.

This research then highlights different questions that can be explored in future studies regarding the various phases involved in SRPs. Finally, this research outlines the recommendations for businesses looking to benefit from adopting SRPs by also considering the related managerial implications. This study will provide a conceptual framework as to the future direction of the overall study through highlighting gaps of understanding related to SRPs.