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For many of the current leadership theories, models, and approaches, the answer to the question posed in the title, “Is leadership more than ‘I like my boss’?,” is “no,” as there appears to be a hierarchy of leadership concepts with Liking of the leader as the primary dimension or general factor foundation. There are then secondary dimensions or specific sub-factors of liking of Relationship Leadership and Task Leadership; and subsequently, tertiary dimensions or actual sub-sub-factors that comprise the numerous leadership views as well as their operationalizations (e.g., via surveys). There are, however, some leadership views that go beyond simply liking of the leader and liking of relationship leadership and task leadership. For these, which involve explicit levels of analysis formulations, often beyond the leader, or are multi-level in nature, the answer to the title question is “yes.” We clarify and discuss these various “no” and “yes” leadership views and implications of our work for future research and personnel and human resources management practice.

Digital transformation has had controversial impacts on the way small retailers and stakeholders interact, make decisions, and jointly create value while also transforming the nature of relationships. This paper examines the enabling factors of digital transformation in the small retailers' context through the lens of stakeholder theory, deepening the knowledge about the implications of such transformations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors employed a mixed methodology based on a single case study, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and a survey to illustrate the dynamics behind and the impacts of the development of a digital platform created to support the commercial activity of 100 small retailer entrepreneurs located in Italy during the 2020 lockdowns. The platform has been developed in partnership with public and private local stakeholders with different degrees of involvement in the project.

The authors demonstrated that stakeholder relationships based on trust, engagement and empowerment are enablers of digital transformation in entrepreneurial contexts based on analogic relationships and communal sharing relational models. The authors also outlined the implications of empowerment and digital contamination among small retailers.

The authors’ findings foster the understanding of digital transformation in small entrepreneurial contexts by highlighting the potential of digital transformation as a powerful bridge between the urgent call for digitalisation and the maintenance of valuable relationships with customers by small retailer entrepreneurs, supporting the creation of entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Numerous Chinese management studies have demonstrated significant differences between Chinese and Western management. This exploratory paper investigates the impact of Chinese culture and Western traditions on China's contemporary school leaders' views of leadership and management, particularly in the areas of relationship building, delegation, and promotion. Data were drawn from questionnaires completed by school leaders and individual interviews with principals from different parts of China. The findings indicate that the differences between Chinese and Western management practices in Chinese schools are not static and should not be over-stressed. To different extents, the respondent school leaders of China were affected by both Chinese and Western values and practices in school leadership and management. Specifically, they were more influenced by Chinese culture in the areas of school management and organization and by Western values and practices in the areas of relationship building, staff performance, and promotion. Their leadership and management preferences were also influenced by other factors, including gender, domestic politics, and development.

This study develops a conceptualization of NPD (new product development) complexity and explores how inter-organizational collaboration and conflict influence NPD performance.

An empirical examination tests the proposed relationships in the context of Korean manufacturing firms, which currently engage in NPD projects with their key partners. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the hypotheses.

The findings suggest that a higher level of NPD complexity simultaneously calls for inter-organizational collaboration and conflict, and these two factors influence NPD performance in a conflicting manner: inter-organizational collaboration serves as a driver, and inter-organizational conflict acts as a barrier against NPD performance.

This study provides answers to the academic and practical calls by providing how NPD complexity should be managed in a way to increase NPD performance. This study provides insight into how manufacturing firms form inter-organizational collaboration practices and why they need to mitigate inter-organizational conflict.

The provision of value, as a marketing issue, is receiving increasing attention from managers and scholars. This attention, in combination with strong calls for better quantification and stronger measures in marketing, has lead to increased interest in the assessment, quantified where possible, of the provision of value through buyer–seller relationships. This paper identifies dimensions of value provision through relationships in business markets with specific emphasis on the intangible aspects of value, which are important to long-term competitive advantage. The provision of value to the seller is the prime focus in this paper. The paper discusses the meaning of both tangible and intangible relationship value and the interplay between them and notes the importance of assessing the intangible part of the value, particularly the part which derives from the human aspects of the relationship. Despite their importance, the human aspects of relationships and their contribution to value is a sparse topic among researchers. The paper compares and evaluates potentially useful relationship and value conceptualizations. The paper discusses studies of relationship value and then outlines the results of a recent line of empirical research into the provision of value by a buyer to a seller that utilizes a framework synthesized from the intellectual capital literature. This recent research conceptualizes the potential for a seller's relationship with a buyer to provide intangible value to the seller in terms of, first, the resources available in the buyer and second, the capabilities of the buyer's boundary personnel to aid in facilitating the flow of those resources to the seller. The paper also includes the softer human aspects in the dimensions of value. These latter aspects are important to a full assessment of value. The paper concludes with a discussion of aspects of intangible relationship value that need further elucidation and will thus provide opportunities for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of a followers’ perception of charisma to the followers’ perceived quality of each of the four sub-dimensions of LMX quality, and the moderating effect of communication frequency on such a relationship. The study hopes to assess the relationship of the four sub-factors of LMX to charisma and, thereby, to advance the current understanding of relationship-based views of leadership.

In total, 208 employed adults who are currently residing within the USA completed surveys that assessed charisma, LMX and it’s sub-factors, and communication frequency. The surveys were validated and the relationships between the variables were tested using partial least squares regression.

Charismatic leadership was shown to have significant effects on all the LMX sub-factors suggesting that charisma is not a simple trait possessed by some leaders. Additionally, the data suggests that there is a significant yet different level of effect of communication frequency on all the LMX sub-factors.

Implications of the research findings are discussed; however, there are some shortcomings in the research. As the variables of communication frequency and LMX quality were rated by the same individual, a limitation to this study exists by way of possible same source bias. A further limitation results from the measurement method utilized to determine communication frequency and its dependence upon the ability of the survey respondent to accurately recall this information free from any type of recall bias (Raphael, 1987). Further study needs to be done into the nature of the moderating effects present on the four lower order factors of LMX. If there are intervening factors that influence the quality of the moderating effects, such as role expectation and role congruence, then the authors may be able to gain further insight into the positive and negative nature of these moderating effects.

The findings suggest that charisma is not a simple, one-dimensional factor and also suggests that the authors need to reconceptualize the ideas of charisma. At a minimum, the authors must rethink how to train people to become leaders.

The study advances the understanding of the relationship between charisma and LMX and its composite factors.

Economic theories applied to the study of buyer‐seller relationships draw to a large extent on the problems caused by specific investments. This contribution aims to develop a new perspective on specific investments that accounts for their value‐adding character and also to present a transaction‐centred definition of customer relationships.

The contribution draws on a comparative review on literature on business networks and economic theories focused on industrial buying behaviour.

Provides a transaction‐related definition of customer relationships in order to distinguish between different kinds of relationships and provides a framework to how relationship management is able to enhance marketing activities.

Specific investments are a powerful tool for differentiating the market offerings of a company. One central implication is for managers to realise on which stage of the market arena such differentiation is likely to be successful: transaction, relationship, segment or value network. This is the starting‐point for investing in a relationship portfolio conducive for the value generation of the company.

The paper shows that the value potential generated by specific investments is not fulfilled in the realms of present marketing literature. Also it is the first contribution to present a framework capable of treating phenomena of customer relationship management, relationship marketing and network marketing on the same footing, while still respecting the original motivations of those approaches.

Recently, 181 CEOs of notable corporations signed a joint statement at the Business Roundtable (2019) on the “Purpose of a Corporation” – declaring its aim as the creation of benefits for “all stakeholders.” This will likely accelerate the circular economy transition process. Harmonizing the interests of various stakeholders is essential for managing successful organizations and supply chains, which is similar to the first principle of using natural ecosystem thinking. According to that principle, it is essential to strike a balance between the producers, consumers, scavengers, and decomposers. We draw on stakeholder theory to identify various challenges and risks that restrict businesses from building sustainable circular systems. We turn our attention toward increasing the numbers of “scavengers” and “decomposers” in the system for attaining sustainable growth. Our emphasis is on (1) empowering organizational life cycle stages, (2) designing for “decomposability” and “scavengers,” and (3) suggesting the use of advanced optimization models for harmonizing stakeholder relationships.

In the UK healthcare sector, funding and provision of public care facilities has been primarily the responsibility of government through the National Health Service (NHS). After decades of under-investment and consequent effects on the quality of care, new procurement routes are currently being used to improve the standards of facilities to meet the requirements of modern care services. This paper critically reviews these new procurement routes in terms of concepts and suitable areas of application, and examines how the principal procurement methods have evolved into the forms used for UK healthcare facilities. The paper outlines recommendations for further research in assessing the suitability or otherwise of these new procurement methods, both for construction projects generally and specifically for healthcare facilities.

Although ethnographic research requires researchers to become highly involved in the lives of their respondents, in research reports or articles one rarely finds how the researcher dealt with his or her involvement, how this influenced the execution of the research, the interpretations and the outcome. In this chapter, I would like to discuss the issues that I faced during my research among children and young people living in so-called child-headed households in a disadvantaged community in South Africa.

Although children are recognized as social actors in the social sciences, ethical issues in research following from this new view have received less attention. Ethical considerations are part of any research project, but it is often argued that research among children raises some particular issues. I shall reflect on my emotional involvement and ethical issues on the basis of the principles of informed consent, maximum benefit and protection from harm and the influence of my interpreters on these issues. Doing research to children and young people in such difficult situations requires emotion work. In the conclusions I will make some suggestions for dealing with the emotions of respondents and one own emotional involvement.