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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct effect of external pressure on environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance and examine the mediating effect of sustainable management practice.

This study draws upon institutional theory and resource-based view to understand how factors such as external pressure and sustainable management relate with environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance. The model specifies previously unexplored direct and mediating relationships between external pressure, sustainable management, environmental outcomes and manufacturing performance. The empirical analysis is based on data collected from the sixth edition of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey. The research hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling.

Results show that while there is a significant direct and mediating relationship between external pressure, adoption of formal sustainability programmes and environmental outcomes, such significant relationships do not exist with manufacturing performance.

The study shows that external pressure can influence adoption of sustainable practices but this does not necessarily lead to an improvement in manufacturing performance. As such managers need to identify the actual benefits of sustainability and weigh them up against costs of implementing such programmes.

The relationship between the adoption of sustainable practices and organisational performance is a complex one. In contrast to previous studies, this study found that while external pressure and sustainable management relate positively with environmental outcomes, no such relationship exists with manufacturing performance. This raises a number of question marks over naive implementation of sustainable strategies.

Despite the fact that previous studies have identified a possible mediator (organizational climate) in the HRM practices-HR outcomes link, the role of organizational climate as a mediator has, however, not been accorded the respect it deserves in the HRM practices-HR outcomes relationship. Moreover, studies on organizational climate are still scarce and have often focused on western organizations. The purpose of this paper, among others, is to examine the direct effect of HRM practices on the HR outcomes within the context of Libyan organizations. It further investigates whether organizational climate mediates the influence of HRM practices on the HR outcomes within the context of Libyan organizations.

This paper uses multiple regression analysis on a sample of Libyan organizations.

Regarding the findings, first, the paper finds that organizations that adopt HRM practices, such as performance appraisal, compensation and rewards and HR planning achieve significant HR outcomes. The finding also indicates that recruitment and selection and training and development are not good predictors of HR outcomes in the organization. Finally, the study reveals that the influence of HRM practice dimensions such as performance appraisal, compensation and reward and HRP on organizational performance is mediated by the presence of organizational climate; on the other hand, organizational climate fails to mediate the influence of both recruitment and selection and training and development on the HR outcomes. This study suggests that not all HRM practices are influenced by organizational climate of the organizations in Libya, and this may be due to the present environmental situation in Libya.

The study is deemed as an initial attempt to investigate the mediating effect of organizational climate on the relationship between HRM practices and HR outcomes in the Libyan public organizations. This finding acts as a springboard for further research and a wake-up call to the organizations in Libya to evaluate the importance of organizational climate in achieving HR outcomes in a volatile environment.

Previous sales control research has limited the definition of outcome controls exclusively to sales outcomes in an outside sales context. In addition to sales outcome controls, inside sales managers use phone operational outcomes to influence inside sales agent performance, supporting the need to expand the broader definition of outcome controls. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore the need to bifurcate outcome controls into two distinct variables: sales and phone operational controls. Researchers know little about the application of sales outcome controls beyond sales-only outcomes, which, in turn, limits the definition of outcome controls.

Through the utilization of survey, secondary operational data and sales manager’s feedback, this paper demonstrates that the definition of outcome controls needs to be divided into two distinct areas, sales and phone operational controls for inside sales agents, which, in turn, acts collectively to impact an inside sales agent’s job performance and satisfaction.

This research demonstrates that inside sales managers depend on both sales and phone operational outcome controls to drive sales agent performance, varying in degrees by industry. Even as inside sales managers focus on creating an employee-centric autonomous motivational work culture, the overarching controlling factors associated with phone operational outcomes dampen an inside sales agent’s performance and job satisfaction.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, as the first sales control research to examine an inside sales context, this study provides support to further study sales controls in an inside sales context. This research can be enhanced by examining business-to-consumer inside sales environments, behavior controls, greater sample size and additional work outcomes such as turnover and tenure.

The findings have important implications because they can help practitioners understand the effect that both sales and phone operational outcomes have on sales agent performance. It also illuminates the need for inside sales managers to be less controlling in their focus on phone operational outcomes, as such a practice has a negative influence on key sales agent job outcomes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to triangulate multiple data sources to illustrate the need to evaluate both sales and phone operational outcomes as broader components of sales outcome controls. The study of sales controls in a different sales context suggests that sales management controls may differ by sales context, opening the door to extend the vast sales control literature beyond its current context of outside sales.

The complex nature of multi-ownership, multi-storey buildings requires the services of property management companies (PMCs). Naturally, homeowners favor PMCs with good performance. Yet, their performances vary. The purpose of this paper is to measure the performance of PMCs in managing high-rise flats using the logic model as the contextual framework with its indicators adapted from the building quality index (BQI) scheme.

For this pilot study, the research was based on visual inspection and interviews with building management staff for the information concerning the output and outcome indicators. The authors also tested the relationship between outcomes and outputs and other factors that affect the performance of PMCs.

Based on our pilot study of 41 high-rise residential buildings, the performance outcomes of the PMCs varied considerably. The same PMC was likely to yield different performance outcomes due to unique building characteristics. The outputs, building ages and rehabilitation statuses of the buildings were the contributing factors to the PMCs’ performance outcomes.

The performance outcomes of the logic model can help homeowners and PMCs understand current PMC performance, which can help trigger the development of a strategy to enhance the health and safety of residential buildings in the future.

Unlike traditional performance measurements that use financial figures or balanced scorecards to measure organizational performance, the authors used the logic model performance measurement system because the performance outcomes of the PMCs were explicitly reflected in the physical building conditions. This framework was relatively straightforward and could be applied to cities dominated by multi-ownership, multi-storey apartments.

The purpose of this study is to synthesize the previous empirical studies on transactive memory systems (TMS) through a meta-analytical approach and test the proposed model for the relationships between TMS and different types of team outcomes.

TMS refers to shared memory systems developed among a group of people for encoding, storage and retrieval of their different knowledge domains. They have been widely used in group or organization settings to describe the cumulative knowledge in a group of multi-disciplinary experts. Previous literature suggests TMS as a critical concept for explaining group performance, but few studies were conducted to integrate the literature findings to identify the relationships between TMS and team outcomes.

The findings suggest that TMS is more strongly linked to affective outcomes than behavioral or performance outcomes. In addition, the authors find that the specific operationalization of TMS does not affect the relationship between TMS and team outcomes. There was not enough support for significant effects of group size and research setting on the relationships between TMS and team outcomes, which indicates that both laboratory and field studies have similar potential to generate valuable results for the research of TMS.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge on team effectiveness by investigating the links between TMS and team effectiveness through a broad definition of outcomes that include tangible constructs, such as performance, as well as behavioral and affective outcomes. By exploring the relationships through this broad conceptualization of team effectiveness, the authors can better understand the particular effects of TMS on different key aspects used to determine success in teams.

This study aims to explore how employees’ meaningful work is associated with organizational outcomes at public Jordanian universities with the existence of individual work performance as a mediating variable.

The population of the study was 7,746 administrative staff working at four public Jordanian universities. Questionnaires were distributed to 576 participants. However, only 442 questionnaires were acceptable for further investigation, and these questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS version 22. Several statistical data analysis techniques were used including exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, descriptive analysis and multiple regression. Moreover, Baron and Kenny’s approach was applied to test the hypotheses developed.

A new dimensionality of variables under investigation emerged at the purification stage using validity and reliability techniques. The findings of the study show that meaningful work has a positive relationship with organizational outcomes. The findings also indicate that individual work performance shows a partial mediating role in the link between meaningful work and organizational outcomes. In addition, the findings imply that any effort to improve individual work performance at public Jordanian universities can help in offering a better understanding of organizational outcomes.

This study recommends that universities focus more on meaningful work and individual work performance programs and practices.

This study provides a framework and understanding of how work meaning and individual work performance relates to organizational outcomes in one model.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which user liaison behavior and outcome control influence the process performance of information technology (IT) projects and how the IT experience, behavior observability, and outcome measurability of user liaisons affect behavior and outcome control.

A research model that integrates the IT experience, behavior observability, outcome measurability, behavior and outcome control, and performance from the perspective of user liaisons is developed. Quantitative data are obtained from 63 completed IT projects. Partial least squares technique is used to evaluate the measurement model. Hypotheses are tested through hierarchical regression analysis.

User liaisons with high IT experience exhibit decreased behavior control but increased outcome control. The outcome control of user liaisons is effective in the process performance of IT projects, whereas their behavior control insignificantly affects performance. However, the behavior observability and outcome measurability of user liaisons strengthen the effectiveness of behavior and outcome control. The behavior and outcome control of user liaisons also vary across different industries and project types.

The results of this study highlight the joint effects of the IT experience, abilities, and control decisions of user liaisons. Although the outcome control of user liaisons is an appropriate control mechanism in IT projects in consideration of the strengths of these liaisons in business knowledge and their control expenditures, the behavior control of user liaisons may also be effective in process performance if these liaisons possess high levels of behavior observability and outcome measurability.

This paper builds on Melynk’s et al. (2010) seminal article by reviving the concept of outcome-driven supply chain (ODSC) and empirically examining its relationship with supply chain practices and performance implications in an attempt to articulate its antecedents and consequences for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand (NZ). The purpose of this study to empirically examine outcome-driven supply chain and its practices from the perspective of small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand.

A theoretical framework is developed drawing on an extensive review of the literature. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse the data collected from 107 NZ SMEs.

The results identify that SMEs can work on three aspects of supply chain practices (process integration, partnership and use of information and communication technology) to deliver blended ODSC outcomes (efficiency, agility and security) to improve performance. The empirical results show the implementation ODSC in the context of NZ SMEs can bring performance benefits.

The research starts a pioneer work on understanding ODSC in the context of NZ SMEs. Also, this study provides a valuable guideline to ODSC practices to improve ODSC outcomes and related performance benefits.

Notes limitations to measuring the performance of design activity in particular, and non‐production activities in general. First, validity and reliability in specific measures are strongly negatively correlated, making it hard to achieve both. Second, outcome measures are jointly determined by engineering design and other activities to varying degrees, and this problem of shared outcomes is only partly reduced by measuring at higher levels of aggregation. Third, there is no definite stopping rule for engineering design activity, yet unambiguous outcome measures rely on the existence of such a rule. Fourth, outcomes attributable to engineering design can sometimes only be measured a long time after completion of the activity, making them ineffective for most managerial purposes. There are also considerable problems in properly accounting for environmental variables. However, the use of performance measures have some benefits, e.g. correcting wrong inferences among engineering managers. Results point to the appropriate use of performance measurement in engineering design for raising questions and detecting discrepancies in performance at aggregate levels. They suggest that using measurement is inappropriate for managerial control, for attributing results to engineers or the environment, and for concluding problem solving activities.

Outsourcing architectural and engineering services is a trend for public-sector construction projects. This study aims to examine what tender selection criteria should be considered when assessing the performance outcomes of consultants in relation to sustainable design, construction and management of buildings within the context of property and facilities management of existing building portfolios.

Combined qualitative-quantitative methods are adopted to examine the causal relationship between sustainable performance outcomes and influencing factors, using primary data collected from the estate offices of the UK universities, which form a unique public sector. The performance factors identified form the basis of selection criteria.

The qualitative multiple-case interviews identify economic, environmental, social and functional sustainability measures as the attributes of performance outcome. The quantitative hierarchical regression analysis generalises that sustainable performance outcomes can be significantly influenced by task and contextual performance factors.

The scope of the study is limited to university estates. Further research should be conducted on other property and facilities management and construction-related organisations so that the sustainable procurement approach developed by this research can become more robust and applicable to the wider public sector.

At the tender stage, estate managers should adopt a sustainable procurement approach for selection of construction consultants: focussing on the significant task performance (project staff and execution approach) and contextual performance (collaborative consultant frameworks) influencing factors to optimise the project sustainability outcomes in relation to economic, environmental, social and functional values.

The sustainable procurement approach developed by this research benefits property and facilities management, as well as construction disciplines within the wider public sector, thus contributing to the government construction policy on promoting sustainability to the built environment.