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Pandemics are frequent events, and the impact of each pandemic makes a strong and long-term effect on companies and markets. Given the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to investigate the crisis from a different perspective to know how companies have sustained growth in markets. The purpose of this paper is to understand how profit-oriented customer-centric companies (small, medium and large) have responded and adapted to COVID-19 crisis, using the complexity theory.

Drawing upon the complexity theory, a humble attempt is made to develop theoretical propositions by conceptualizing companies as complex adaptive systems. The paper examines companies from three dimensions (i.e. internal mechanism, environment and coevolution).

Companies self-organize, emerge into new states and become adaptive to the changing environment. Companies create knowledge to understand the dynamic anatomy and design survival and growth strategies during and post COVID-19 era. Complex adaptive systems perspective provides companies with insights to deal with complex issues raised due to COVID-19 pandemic. They can handle the impact of pandemic efficiently with complex adaptive systems by developing and implementing appropriate strategies post-COVID-19.

The study reveals how companies evolve and emerge into as complex adaptive systems to adapt themselves to the highly dynamic environment, which are uncertain, unpredictable, nonlinear and multifaceted, in the context of COVID-19. Implications for theory and practice of viewing companies as complex adaptive systems and coevolving structures in the COVID-19 context are discussed.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of political stability on corruption by drawing upon a sample encompassing both developed and developing European and Asian countries.

The dataset, sourced from the Refinitiv database, spans from July 2014 to May 2022. Panel data techniques, specifically pooled estimation and dynamic panel data [generalized method of moments (GMM)] are employed. The analysis encompasses both fixed and random effects models to capture country-specific cross-sectional effects. To validate our findings, we perform a robustness test by including in the investigation four control variables, namely poverty, type of governance, economic freedom and inflation. To test heterogeneity, the dataset is further divided into two distinct subsamples based on the countries’ locations.

Empirical findings substantiate that political stability (viewed as the risk of government destabilization) has a positive and significant impact on corruption in all analyzed samples of European and Asian countries, though some differences are observed in various subsamples. When we take into account the control variables, these analysis results are robust.

This research provided a panel data analysis with GMM, while other empirical methodologies could also be used, like the difference-in-difference approach. However, our results should be validated by extending the time and the sample to a worldwide sample and using alternative measures of corruption and political stability. Moreover, our focus was on a linear and unidirectional relationship between the considered variables, but it would be interesting to test in our further research a non-linear and bidirectional correlation between them. Furthermore, we have introduced in the robustness test only four economic variables, but to consolidate our findings, we plan to include socioeconomic and demographic variables in future studies.

These outcomes imply that authorities should be aware of the necessity of implementing anti-corruption policies designed to establish effective agencies and enforcement structures for combating systemic corruption, to improve the political environment and the quality of institutions and to apply coherent economic strategies to accelerate economic growth because higher political stability and sustainable development determine a decrease in levels of corruption.

At the microeconomic level, the survival of organizations may be in danger from new types of corruption and money laundering. Therefore, in order to prevent financial harm, the top businesses worldwide should respond to instances of corruption through strengthened supervisory procedures. This calls for the creation of a mechanism inside the code of conduct where correct reporting of suspected situations of corruption would have a prompt procedure to be notified of. To avoid corruption in operational procedures, national plans and policies should be developed by government officials, executives and legislators on a national level, as well as by senior management and the board of directors on an organizational level. This might lower organizations' extra corruption-related expenses, assure economic growth and improve global welfare.

A novel feature of our research resides in its broad examination of a sizable sample of European and Asian countries regarding the nexus between corruption and political stability. The paper also investigates a less explored topic in economic literature, namely the impact of political stability on corruption. Furthermore, the study depicts policy recommendations, outlining effective and reasonable measures aimed at improving the political landscape and combating corruption.

Values have long guided special education services and supports for students with extensive support needs; over the past four decades, those values have been backed by research evidence demonstrating the critical nature of values related to inclusive education, self-determination, and seeking strengths and assets. In this chapter, we investigate these values and their supporting research, documenting strengths and needs in extant research. We emphasize the need to continue to embrace and maintain these values while pursuing research that addresses research gaps while centering the priorities, perspectives, and preferences of people with extensive support needs.

This study aims to investigate how the gratifications obtained through brand-related social media content affect brand intimacy and thereby influence customer extra-role behavior.

Using the uses and gratification theory, this study proposes information, entertainment and remuneration content that motivates customers to develop brand intimacy and thereby perform customer extra-role behavior. The study also tests the moderated moderation effect of self-congruence and customer experience using 704 observations from South India in the food industry context.

The study’s results reveal the influence of entertainment and remuneration content on brand intimacy, which further influences customer extra-role behavior (civic virtue, cocreation, sportsmanship and helping behaviors). The study confirms a moderated moderation effect in the relationship between brand intimacy and civic virtue and brand intimacy and sportsmanship behaviors.

The study suggests that brands may include entertainment and remuneration elements in their social media content to build intimate customer relationships, further influencing customers’ extra-role behaviors. Besides, brands should focus on customers’ self-concepts and experiences to encourage them to act voluntarily.

This study makes a unique contribution by investigating the influence of brand-related social media content on customer extra-role behavior through brand intimacy. It uses self-congruence and customer experience to test their moderated moderation effect in the relationship between brand intimacy and customer extra-role behavior.

The work-from-home scheme (WFH) is increasingly being adopted in service firms. However, the blurred border between employees’ work and life can create work–life conflict (WLC) that negatively affects their well-being. Therefore, identifying factors that help employees overcome WLC and nurture their well-being is imperative. From a transformative service research (TSR) and personal psychology perspective, this study aims to explore the roles of service employee state of mindfulness and resilience in reducing WLC, alleviating its negative effects and ultimately nurturing their happiness.

A structural model was proposed. Data were collected from 339 WFH employees in various knowledge-based services such as professional services, information, education and training, financial consulting and marketing. Direct, indirect, mediating and moderating effects were estimated using the CB-SEM method.

Mindfulness is the overarching capability that helps reduce WLC and raise resilience. It nurtures WFH employee happiness not only directly but also via the mediation of resilience and WLC. Resilience, on the other hand, mediates the effect of mindfulness on happiness and moderates the negative impact of WLC on happiness.

Firms are recommended to organize mindfulness and resilience training programs, and encourage organizational- and job-related facilitators. WFH employees should actively participate in such programs and add them to their to-do-list practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical studies of employee mindfulness and resilience in the WFH context. It contributes to the TSR research stream and enriches the concepts of mindfulness and resilience by elucidating different mechanisms in which each of these personal qualities operates to help employees nurture happiness in this specific working condition.

This study aims to explore the dynamics of workplace ostracism and dehumanization behavior and its impact on employees’ psychological contract violation, their revenge intention and psychological well-being.

The study has collected data from 329 IT sector employees working in the northern part of India using standard measures for various constructs utilized in the study. For the purpose of testing the proposed hypothesis, partial least square structural equation modeling is used.

The results show that all the hypotheses were supported, meaning employees experiencing ostracism and dehumanization at the workplace feel stressed and anxious and develop feelings of revenge, leading them to experience irrational feelings.

In the presence of workplace dehumanization and workplace ostracism, employees may experience stress, anxiety and depression. Managers must ensure a psychologically safe environment because if individuals experience ostracism or dehumanization at the workplace, they are going to affect their well-being through revenge intention behavior. Hence, it is important that managers should provide adequate resources to the employees so that they can feel psychologically safe in the workplace and hence can enhance psychological well-being.

This study is unique in terms of its contribution to the existing literature by understanding the nuances of workplace ostracism and dehumanization on employee’s well-being. The study also contributes to highlighting the advantages of using tools to establish psychological safety.

This study aimed at investigating employee training, employee participation and organizational commitment (OC) and the moderating effect of workplace ostracism among bank employees.

The study used a descriptive and cross-sectional design with the aid of a standard scale constructed into a questionnaire. Cluster, convenience and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 1,067 respondents, of which 870 were deemed fit for the study. The theories underpinning the study were the social exchange theory (SET) and social identity theory (SIT). Four hypotheses were developed and tested using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, and moderation using PROCESS macro.

The study found that employee training and employee participation had a significant positive relationship with organizational commitment, while organizational ostracism had a significant but negative relationship with organizational commitment among bank employees. The study also found that workplace ostracism moderated the relationship between organizational climate and organizational commitment The study recommended that organizational commitment requires management training their workforce, allowing employee participation in decisions, and minimizing or outrightly eradicating the practice of organizational ostracism. It is, therefore, concluded that workers place great value on training and participation in decision-making and frown at organizational ostracism.

This paper fills in the gaps left by the paucity of empirical investigation of the moderating role that workplace ostracism plays between employee training, employee participation and organizational commitment – a feat that is lacking in developing countries. It serves as a reminder to management to prevent or entirely eliminate workplace ostracism to allay an employee's impression of being a threat to an organization when commitment is low.

This study aims to identify the political alignment and political activity of the 11 Presidents of Britain’s most important scientific organisation, the Royal Society of London, in its early years 1662–1703, to determine whether or not the institution was politically aligned.

There is almost no information addressing the political alignment of the Royal Society or its Presidents available in the institution’s archives, or in the writings of historians specialising in its administration. Even reliable biographical sources, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography provide very limited information. However, as 10 Presidents were elected Member of Parliament (MP), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social and Local History provides a wealth of accurate, in-depth data, revealing the alignment of both.

All Presidents held senior government offices, the first was a Royalist aristocrat; of the remaining 10, 8 were Royalist or Tory MPs, 2 of whom were falsely imprisoned by the House of Commons, 2 were Whig MPs, while 4 were elevated to the Lords. The institution was Royalist aligned 1662–1680, Tory aligned 1680–1695 and Whig aligned 1695–1703, which reflects changes in Parliament and State.

This study establishes that the early Royal Society was not an apolitical institution and that the political alignment of Presidents and institution continued in later eras. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the election or appointment of an organisation’s most senior officer can be used to signal its political alignment with government and other organisations to serve various ends.

The study explores how the intention to export affects financing and non-financing variables for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a low-income country (LIC). The objectives of this study are (1) to discern between regional and global exporting and (2) to evaluate its policymaking implications.

Primary survey data were collected from 330 Rwandan SMEs and were analysed using ordered logistic models as an application of the expectation-maximisation iterating algorithm, which was tested for robustness using a sampling model variation.

The results show that alternative sources of finance are the predominant choice to finance the intention to export within and outside Africa. As the scope of export intentions broadened from regional to global, there was a shift in preferences from less formal to more formal lending technologies, moving from methods like factoring to lines of credit. Moreover, reliance on bank officers became more significant, with increasing marginal effects. Finally, the study determined that government financing schemes were not relevant for SMEs pursuing either regional or global exporting.

Whilst alternative sources of finance predominate the export intentions of Rwandan SMEs, establishing a robust banking relationship becomes crucial for global exporting. Despite this implication, the intention to export should prompt more transparent communication regarding government financial support programmes. There is an opportunity for increased usage of relationship lending to customise support for SMEs involved in exporting, benefiting both the private and public sectors.

This study accentuates how export distance alters SME financing priorities. The results also contribute to understanding how the value of relationship lending changes when less familiar markets (i.e. global exporting) are the objective. Moreover, the study offers a new perspective on how institutional voids affect entrepreneurial financing decisions in LICs.

The purpose of this review is to evaluate existing learning agility measures and offer recommendations for their use in organizational and scholarly contexts.

This is a general review paper assessing the psychometric qualities of prevalent learning agility measures. Measures were selected based on their predominance and use in the learning agility literature and organizational settings.

Learning agility measurement is an area requiring further research. Multiple conceptualizations of learning agility exist, making the true structure of learning agility unclear. The learning agility measures in the academic literature deviate from learning agility’s traditional conceptualization and require further validation and convergent validity studies. Commercial measures of learning agility exist, but their development procedures are not subjected to peer review and are not widely used in academic research, given the cost associated with their use.

Learning agility is prevalently used in organizational settings and is receiving increased scholarly attention. Various conceptualizations and measurement tools exist, and it is unclear how these theories and measures relate and differ. This paper contributes to practice by providing practical guidelines and limitations for measuring learning agility.

Learning agility was initially conceived as a multidimensional construct comprising people agility, results agility, change agility and mental agility. As the construct has evolved, the dimension structure of the measure has evolved as well. This study addresses a gap in our current understanding of how to conceptualize and measure learning agility.