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Given declining tuition funds and government grants, Kenyan universities need to develop strategies, including increased research grants and collaborations, to diversify their income sources. Well-managed doctoral students can boost a university’s teaching and research outputs. However, numbers of students enrolled in doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities are low, and graduation rates and time-to-graduate statistics are disturbing. Research undertaken elsewhere underline the important role played by supervisors and peers in facilitating students’ sense of belonging and their success. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the influence of supervisory and peer support on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success at Kenyan universities.

In this cross-sectional study, data were gathered through an online questionnaire from 614 students admitted to doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities between 2010 and 2018. We used multi-item scales to collect data on PhD students’ self-efficacy, supervisory and peer support and a sense of belonging.

Structural equation modelling results revealed that PhD students’ modes of study and self-efficacy were significantly associated with the quality of supervision, peer support and a sense of belonging. However, only age, a sense of belonging and the quality of supervision were directly linked to their success.

This study contributes to the literature on doctoral-level education, responding to the need for research on the influence of relationships with supervisors and peers on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success, especially in developing countries.

This chapter discusses work-life interface (WLI) issues for migrant-citizen older British women of South Asian heritage living in the UK. It shows how WLI issues are inevitably entangled with the active ageing agenda for the older workforce and that we need further attention from scholars exploring these issues across life courses to appreciate and understand how ageing across locations, times and contexts unveils unique aspects of WLI. The chapter discussion rethinks some of the existing constructs of WLI and introduces new ones to its periphery, including people’s social identities and the spatio-temporal nature of those identities. Such a rethinking process is supported by critical empirical evidence on the lived experiences of a group of older ethnic minority British women living in Greater Manchester, UK, who juggled between work and caring throughout their lives, and abruptly quit paid work due to unmanageable overlapping demands. The evidence indicates how migrant women from the global south struggle to navigate UK WLI norms/culture and their meanings, especially when irreconcilable differences exist between the community/family norms and the social norms in the host country. The chapter findings have implications for the future of an inclusive labor market as it recommends early planning, provisioning and addressing ageing migrants’ WLI issues to draw sustainable/inclusive future labor market policies.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mechanisms of absorptive capacity (ACAP) in the specific context of digital product development teams. More precisely, it explores the process of internalizing and utilizing external knowledge from sources outside the team to promote the development of innovative ambidexterity.

The study employs the ACAP framework and directs specific attention to the concept of knowledge assimilation, encompassing comprehension, documentation and dissemination. Seventy-five employees of one of Indonesia’s largest commercial banks were surveyed about two initiatives they participated in. To this end, 12 research hypotheses are formulated, tested and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Knowledge comprehension, documentation and dissemination are found to mediate between knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation. At the same time, the relationship between knowledge acquisition and knowledge transformation is mediated by knowledge comprehension and dissemination, but not documentation. The authors also found that knowledge transformation positively mediates between knowledge comprehension and dissemination on the one hand and ambidexterity on the other hand. Importantly, knowledge exploitation negatively mediates between knowledge comprehension and documentation on the one hand and ambidexterity on the other hand.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by offering nuanced insights into the interplay of knowledge assimilation processes within ACAP, particularly in the context of digital product development. The identification of mediating factors and their impacts on ambidexterity provides valuable implications for both theory and practice in this domain.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the role of dynamic capabilities, specifically the sequence of sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities, in highly uncertain, emerging technology environments. Focusing on the extended reality industry, the study aims to understand the antecedents to these dynamic capabilities, their sequential nature, and their subsequent impact on innovation and company performance.

Based on a survey of 130 German companies in the extended reality sector, we built a structural equation model that explores the relationship between dynamic capabilities, their antecedents, and their effect on innovation and company performance.

The analysis suggests that sensing capabilities positively influence seizing and transforming capabilities, while seizing directly contributes to transforming. Transforming capabilities are linked to improved innovation performance, which in turn boosts company performance. Organizational ambidexterity, market orientation, and technology orientation are found to be crucial antecedents, accounting for 33.1% of the variance in sensing capabilities.

This research illuminates the interdependence of dynamic capabilities in highly uncertain business environments, such as emerging technology markets. It contributes original insights by elucidating the sequential nature of dynamic capabilities and identifying their vital antecedents. It also enlarges the understanding of how dynamic capabilities impact firms’ innovation performance.

This study aims to describe and evaluate the impact of a participatory age-management intervention on the knowledge, awareness and engagement of line managers and their HR partners from six health-care organizations in Sweden.

The learning workshops consisted of lectures, discussions, feedback and exchange of experiences with colleagues and invited experts. A total of 19 participants were interviewed six months after the final workshop, and qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze the transcribed interviews.

The intervention design produced promising results in improving line managers’ and HR partners’ knowledge and increasing awareness and engagement. On some occasions, the participants also initiated changes in organizational policies and practices. However, the intervention primarily became a personal learning experience as participants lacked resources and mandates to initiate change in their daily work. To stimulate engagement and change at the organizational level, the authors believe that an intervention must receive support from higher managers, be anchored at the workplace and be aligned with the organization’s goals; moreover, participants must be provided with sufficient resources and mandates to coordinate the implementation of age-management strategies.

Prolonged working life policies and skill shortages are affecting organizations and societies, and for many employers, there are strong reasons for developing strategies to attract, recruit and retain older workers.

This study offers lessons and guidance for future workplace interventions to attract, recruit and retain older workers.

This paper aims to reveal the curvilinear relationships between perceived development human resource practices (DHRPs) and both affective commitment and work stress, and the moderating effects of age on the curvilinear relationships.

Hypotheses were developed from an employee-oriented contingent view based on the person-job fit theory and lifespan development theories. Methods suggested by Haans et al. (2016) and Dawson (2014) to test curvilinear relationships and related moderations, and a two-wave survey data from 742 Chinese employees were used.

The results showed that perceived DHRPs related to affective commitment in an inverted U shape and work stress in a U shape. However, age moderated the nature of the relationships such that both the curvilinear relationships only existed under low age while under high age perceived DHRPs related to affective commitment positively and work stress negatively.

This study advances the prevailing linear (positive or negative) thinking on the DHRPs–outcomes relationships by showing that perceived DHRPs relate to both affective commitment and work stress nonlinearly. Moreover, different from existing findings that age moderates the strength of the linear DHRPs–outcomes relationships, the results indicate that age moderates the nature of the relationships between perceived DHRPs and affective commitment and work stress. This implies a refined age-differential approach to use DHRPs to sustain a committed and healthy workforce in the context of workforce aging.

The authors analyzed the evolution of working from home (WFH) within industries in 12 European countries in the period 2008–2017 and studied its relationship with information and communication technologies (ICT).

The authors used data from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) to document the trends and levels of WFH within industries in 12 European countries. The authors further used the EU-KLEMS database and a difference-in-difference approach to study whether the fall in prices of ICT is associated with a higher share of employees who work from home in industries that depend more on ICT relative to industries that depend less.

The authors show that WFH has increased almost everywhere and that there is significant heterogeneity across industries. The authors provide evidence that the fall in prices of ICT is associated with a higher share of employees who work from home in industries that depend more on ICT relative to industries that depend less. This result also holds within age, gender and occupation groups. While the authors find no significant differences among gender and occupation groups, the positive association between the fall in ICT prices and WFH increases with age.

This paper has two main contributions: First, it reports that WFH has increased in European countries in the period 2008–2017. Second, it provides new explorations about the relationship between ICT and WFH by using the price variation of ICT.

To provide insight into how employees react during challenging economic times, this paper aims to examine employee responses to non-fulfilled employer obligations. More specifically, the authors examine two main issues: first, whether perceptions of organizational obstruction (PO Obstruction) mediate the relationship between psychological contract breach and intent to quit, as well as between psychological contract breach and willingness to support the organization, and second, whether breach moderates the relationship between PO Obstruction and intent to quit as well as between PO Obstruction and willingness to support the organization.

To test the hypotheses, the authors conducted a field study in which 316 employees took part.

The results indicate that PO Obstruction mediates the relationship between breach and employee outcomes. Regarding the moderating effects of the breach, the findings suggest that breach strengthens the positive relationship between PO Obstruction and intent to quit while it weakens the negative relationship between PO Obstruction and willingness to support the organization.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by introducing a new perspective of the breach-outcome relationship.

This study aims to understand differences in perceptions of CEO compensation between working adults and business students in the USA before and after reading CEO pay information.

Participants completed a survey about their perceptions of chief executive officer (CEO) compensation before and after reading CEO compensation information that included the median CEO-to-employee ratio and salary in 2021.

Working adults and business students had similar levels of concern about CEO compensation. Participants were more concerned with CEO compensation after reading information about CEO pay but also believed CEO pay was more justified, contrary to equity theory (Adams, 1965). Among the student and adult samples, women and noninvestors were more likely to have concerns about CEO compensation than other participants.

Individuals may not understand the components of CEO compensation, and the size of CEO salaries may be difficult to comprehend. Educators and the media should consider presenting CEO compensation information in a different way, for example, how long it takes a CEO to earn as much as an average employee does annually, for the public to understand how much more CEOs are paid than their employees.

Little research exists on CEO compensation understanding and concerns. This research opens the opportunity for future studies on CEO compensation, for example, that consider variables other than CEO pay (e.g. equity and other forms of compensation) and what individuals believe CEOs do that justifies their high compensation.

Age-inclusive management practices are crucial for addressing the needs of the older workforce, but there is limited research on these practices. One underexplored area is how workplaces can support older employees dealing with the loss of a loved one. The psychological process of loss differs for older employees and can have adverse effects on their ability to perform in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to explore how workplaces can provide the necessary tools to support their older grieving employees.

This conceptual paper draws on the job-demand resource model and signaling theory to investigate how flexible work arrangements can support older employees after a bereavement and contribute to optimal employee performance.

Flexible work arrangements are theorized to lead to optimal performance via informational support. An ethical climate and stronger cultural competencies are proposed to strengthen this relationship. A theoretical framework is presented for a comprehensive research approach.

This paper advances the current understanding of age-inclusive management and offers a novel perspective on the benefits of flexible working arrangements.