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We explore how NGO’s local entrepreneurial initiatives to empower women entrepreneurs can compensate for weak state policies for women in a context of male-dominated socio-cultural norms.

We use the case of a local entrepreneurial initiative launched in the Atlas region of Morocco, the Empowering Women in the Atlas Initiative (EWA). We collected data through 51 semi-structured interviews of women entrepreneurs in three cooperatives which exploit the natural resources of their region to establish a social venture. Our data are longitudinal as they were collected at two time periods: before and after the initiative.

The findings of this study suggest that local entrepreneurial initiatives can have a significant impact on rural women entrepreneurs’ empowerment. The improved perception of empowerment has not only helped them develop capacities to leverage the business opportunities linked to the natural resources of their region, but it has also increased their status and role within their family and community.

We make recommendations for policymakers to encourage this type of initiative to compensate for the absence of supporting policies geared toward women.

Our study is one of the first to look at empowerment as a policy instrument to develop women entrepreneurial activities in rural areas of developing countries. Our paper uses a unique hierarchical perspective and a multidimensional framework for analyzing social cooperative ventures and rural women entrepreneurs’ empowerment. Our paper unravels interesting insights for women entrepreneurs’ narration strategies.

Front-line lean leadership is critical for implementing and sustaining lean production systems (LPS). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between front-line lean leader (FLL) capacities (cognitive, social, motivational, knowledge and experience), lean leader practices (developing people and supporting daily kaizen) and the degree of implementation of lean tools (pull system, involvement of employees and process control) in manufacturing companies.

A survey was conducted with FLLs from large Brazilian manufacturing companies. The survey collected 103 responses, 99 of which were validated. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

There was a positive, significant and direct relationship between FLL capacities, leadership practices and a degree of implementation of LPS tools on the shop floor. The validated model is a reference base for planning FLL capacities and practices that result in more effectively implementing LPS on the shop floor.

The findings provide managers with a new perspective on the importance of the development and training of FLLs focusing on leadership capacities. As decisions about developing lean capabilities impact the application of Lean leadership practices and the use of lean tools, they are also related to day-to-day lean activities and improved operational results. Additionally, the proposed model can be used by managers as a basis to diagnose, develop and select lean leaders.

This study seeks to fill a theoretical gap of knowledge on front-line lean leadership as it jointly addresses and empirically analyzes the existing relationships between lean leadership capacities, encompassing the perspective of psychology, lean practices and tools on the shop floor.

Regarding human resource and labour relations management, academia focuses mainly on cities; however, rural areas are an integral part of China's economic structure. This study focuses on the movie projection industry in China's rural areas and explores how human resource practices (HRPs) are transformed and the labour process is reconstructed in digital transformation.

We adopt a case study of a rural movie projection company. The company's HRPs reconstructed the labour process of movie projection, and they have been promoted as national standards. Data were collected from in-depth interviews, files and observations.

Rural movie projection companies combine high-performance and paternalistic HRPs in the media industry's digital transformation. HRPs and digital technology jointly reconstruct the labour process. First, the HRPs direct labour process practices towards standardisation. Second, the digital supervision platform guides the control style from simple to technical, placing projectionists under pressure while increasing management efficiency. Third, rural movies made using digital technology have disenchanted rural residents. Accordingly, the conventional relationships between the “country and its citizens,” “individuals themselves,” and “models and individuals” have been removed, and a new relationship between “individuals themselves” is formed thanks to the novel HRPs.

This research plays a crucial role in exposing researchers to the labour process of rural movie projection, which is significant in China but often ignored by Western academia and advances the Chinese contextualisation of research on labour relations.

This study aims to investigate the potential positive correlation between inclusive leadership and hotel frontline employees’ (FLEs) customer stewardship (CS) behavior, using the conservation of resource theory as its foundation. It hypothesizes that role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE) acts as a mediating factor in this relationship, with employee conscientiousness serving as a significant moderating variable.

A time-lagged survey design was used, spanning over three rounds to collect data from 348 hotel FLEs and 42 managers. The analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling in Mplus version 8.6.

The study revealed a positive association between inclusive leadership and FLE CS, both directly and indirectly through RBSE. The results also showed that FLE conscientiousness moderated the direct link between inclusive leadership and RBSE, as well as the indirect link between inclusive leadership and FLE CS.

The evidence suggests that inclusive leadership behaviors among hospitality managers may elevate FLE CS behaviors, implying significant benefits for the success of hospitality organizations. Managers should focus on enhancing FLEs’ RBSE to further improve CS behaviors. In addition, by considering FLE conscientiousness, managers can craft targeted strategies to maximize the impact of inclusive leadership on CS behaviors.

This research contributes to the limited body of knowledge on the precursors of CS behavior by explaining both direct and indirect connections with inclusive leadership. Furthermore, it broadens the understanding of the conditions under which leadership most effectively shapes such behaviors.

This paper argues that accent modification acts as a mechanism that (re)produces workplace accentism, which is a set of ideologies and practices positioning some English accents as inherently superior/inferior to others in the context of work and careers.

This conceptual paper draws on existing literature mainly from critical sociolinguistic and labor studies to support its central argument.

Through acting as a skill, a technology and a commodified service, accent modification naturalizes linguistic hierarchies, which are racist, classist and colonial constructions, and reinforces the structural status quo in different contexts.

In order to move away from accent modification as a means to enhance oral communication at work, organizational attempts at fostering mutual intelligibility and undoing the role of accent in workplace communication are necessary.

Contrary to research that presents accentism as a purely interpersonal issue, the paper explores how accentism is institutionalized and is connected to linguistic profiling.

This study aims to investigate the dynamic capabilities of Indonesia’s local government internal auditors (LGIAs). LGIAs are the functional civil apparatus that is responsible for the main task of auditing local governments at the provincial, regency and municipal levels. Meanwhile, the LGIAs are also a spearhead in identifying and analysing errors, irregularities and fraudulent actions in the finance and development of local government.

The exploratory case study methodology was used, gathering insights from 18 individuals through interviews. In addition, the authors use a critical perspective of the LGIAs’ behaviours in enhancing their capabilities in compliance with the regulations. Moreover, the authors discuss the low motivation of LGIAs in terms of achievement in knowledge acquisition, a mechanistic curriculum creating a climate of low spirit, mental models in rooted ordinariness and behavioural anxiety in hierarchical systems of expertise.

This paper infers that the LGIAs reflect inertia in terms of capabilities because its curriculum, environment and organisation have pervasively changed the culture of the work environment. Consequently, although immorally convenient and practical, the LGIAs work with professional discipline and expedient behaviours. In addition, the LGIAs behave performativity, presenting task performances with undynamic capabilities. Lastly, these behaviours imply the need to enhance the LGIAs’ dynamic capabilities by structuring local governments’ adaptive environment. Hence, this adaptive environment, in turn, could facilitate LGIAs’ further being in high spirits in enhancing knowledge-based expertise.

This study firstly implies that the research findings indicate the need for environmental-, organisational- and curriculum-made transformations to change the capabilities and competencies of LGIAs in the future, facilitating them to increase assimilation-learning abilities. Furthermore, the research shows that mental models dominate LGIAs, resulting in low spirits and reluctance to develop their dynamic capabilities. The paper recommends creating a work culture where anxiety is not dominant and changing the flexibility of the professional structure for LGIAs so that they can be promoted from functional to structural officers.

LGIAs work in a cultural environment that is always structured to fulfil what the regulations require. So, this study’s first novelty is that it underlines the ordinary job practices of LGIAs and the low incentives to enhance their dynamic capabilities. Secondly, it is highlighted that the institution’s auspices do not facilitate LGIAs to advance their dynamic capabilities because of the static competency-based development curriculum. Thirdly, the research shows that the LGIAs are a civil apparatus whose employment system in Indonesia implies a no-dismissal culture and halo effect in measuring performance.

The study aims to drive conceptual clarity around resistance to information technology projects, integrating multiple facets of the phenomenon from earlier studies.

The study conducts a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies on resistance to technology projects; it analyzes those studies at a case-specific level, compares and contrasts emergent concepts against each other, and “translates” those to the rest of the studies. The study uses the seven-step meta-ethnography method by Noblit and Hare to reciprocally translate emergent concepts to construct the conceptual model.

Through meta-synthesis, the study derives a new conceptual model for resistance to information technology projects, exemplifying how the identified antecedents create user resistance and how the phenomenon progresses within organizations.

This study enriches the observations and conclusions of past individual studies while explicating various facets of the mechanisms that generate and progress technology resistance within organizations. It offers fresh insights into the equivocal nature of the phenomenon and the distinctive ways it progresses from individual to group level.

Many ambitious and costly digital transformation efforts do not succeed due to user resistance. Understanding the mechanisms that create user resistance can help organizations manage technology projects better, thereby reducing the technology assimilation gap and protecting returns on related investments.

There have been extensive studies on technology acceptance (enablers) within organizations, while those relating to technology inhibitors are somewhat limited. However, the symmetry of understanding between enablers and inhibitors is vital for organizations to assimilate promising technologies and transform their business models. This model uses a new lens of sensemaking theory to explain how the antecedents trigger perceived threats and resistance behavior; it highlights the nuances around the development of resistance within individuals and its progression to groups. The resultant model offers better generalizability in organizational contexts.

This study aims to analyze the determinants influencing Chinese manufacturing companies in implementing lean manufacturing (LM).

The determinants to be explored in this study consist of technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) dimensions. A questionnaire survey was conducted on Chinese manufacturing companies, and 208 samples were analyzed.

The findings show that the relative advantage of LM and organizational support have significantly positive effects on Chinese manufacturing firms’ adoption of LM. The complexity of LM, quality of human resources, organizational readiness, customer pressure, international situation, governmental support and environmental uncertainty do not have significant effects.

This paper contributes to the literature by using the TOE model to explore the factors influencing LM adoption in the Chinese manufacturing industry.

Our study aims to explore the interplay between dysfunctional cognitive schemas and rationality for decision comprehensiveness in organizational strategic decisions.

We used a cross-sectional design in which we evaluated individual decision rationality using an objective decision competence test and dysfunctional cognitive schemas in a sample of 270 managers (145 women with an average age of 41 years old). In addition, we asked managers to rate the decision comprehensiveness of their organization’s strategic decision processes.

Our findings support the detrimental impact of dysfunctional cognition in strategic decision-making in such a way that the association between individual managerial rationality and the comprehensiveness of organizational strategic decisions was positive only when managers reported low dysfunctional cognition, while when managers reported high levels of dysfunctional cognitive schemas, the association between rationality and comprehensiveness was negative.

Our study provides initial empirical evidence for the interplay between dysfunctional cognition and managerial rationality in strategic decision processes, and it opens venues for future research to explore the detrimental role of dysfunctional cognitive schemas in strategy processes.

The view that dynamic capabilities theory can help explain how lean organizations improve has been put forward by scholars. However, there is still a lack of research on the matching relationship between the application of lean practice and the internal elements of enterprise organization from the perspective of dynamic capabilities. The purpose of this study is to validate the moderating effect of dynamic capabilities on the relationship between lean practices and operational performance.

This study used the method of survey and empirical research to collect sample data from 263 enterprises in China. Through literature review, this study put forward the moderating hypotheses around dynamic capabilities, lean practices and operation performance and used the method of regression analysis to validate these hypotheses.

The results showed that dynamic capabilities have a partially moderating effect on the application of lean practices. Specifically, dynamic capabilities have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between just-in-time, total quality management, total preventive maintenance and operational performance, while dynamic capabilities have no significant moderating effect on the relationship between human resource management and operational performance.

The research conclusion complements and enriches the lean practices literature from the perspective of dynamic capabilities. Existing studies mainly focus on the moderating role of external environmental factors, while there is a lack of empirical research on the role of dynamic capabilities in lean practices literature. The research results will help enterprises further understand the matching relationship between lean practices and dynamic capabilities and then improve the success of lean practices application.