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The purpose of this paper is to explore the positive association between job resources, i.e. autonomy and co-workers support, and psychological capital (PsyCap). In addition, it is aimed to assess the mediational role of PsyCap in the relationship between job resources, on the one hand, and work engagement and psychological distress on the other hand.

A sample of 235 employees working in a large-scale retail company completed a structured questionnaire. To test the hypotheses, the collected data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

The results fully supported the hypotheses and showed that autonomy and co-workers’ support were positively associated with PsyCap. In addition, PsyCap fully mediated the effect of job resources on work engagement and psychological distress.

The results indicate that a greater degree of autonomy allowed to employees in performing their work, and social support from co-workers may significantly contribute to building employees’ personal resources such as PsyCap. This positive association between job resources and PsyCap, in turn, leads employees to feel more engaged in their work and prevents them from harmful outcomes such as symptoms of psychological distress.

This study extends prior research on the motivational process of the job demands-resources model. Furthermore, it develops the notion of resources caravans postulated by the conservation of resources theory in its attempt to examine PsyCap as a mediator in the association between job resources and different individual outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between general self-efficacy (GSE), job search self-efficacy (JSSE), extraversion and job search success within a sample of new entrants in the labour market. It is hypothesised that JSSE acts as a mediator between GSE and job search success. Evaluation of the hireability – made by expert interviewers – of new entrants involved in a job interview simulation is proposed as a job search success criterion. Moreover, the moderating role of extraversion on the relationship between JSSE and job search success is explored.

Data were collected on 177 graduates from an Italian university. Participants were involved in a simulation of an interview conducted by experts of the personnel selection process, who gave an evaluation. Macro PROCESS for SPSS was used to test the hypotheses.

GSE has an indirect effect on job search success via JSSE. Moreover, extraversion has a moderating effect on the JSSE–job search success relationship for more extraverted job seekers.

Job search and counselling practitioners should consider extraversion and personal differences to improve the effectiveness of interventions aimed at fostering new entrants' self-regulatory resources and behaviours during the job search.

This study contributes to the existing research about the job search process by testing a new and important job search success criterion, showing that GSE could help new graduates in establishing a specific self-efficacy, such as JSSE, and demonstrating that extraversion interacts with JSSE.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between organizational age stereotypes and occupational self-efficacy. First, the authors intend to test the measurement invariance of Henkens’s (2005) age stereotypes scale across two age group, respectively, under 50 and 50 years and older. Then, the moderator role of age groups in the relationship between age stereotypes and occupational self-efficacy is investigated.

The survey involved a large sample of 4,667 Italian bank sector’s employees.

The results show the invariance of the three dimensional structure of organizational stereotypes towards older workers scale: productivity, reliability and adaptability. Furthermore, the moderation is confirmed: the relationship between organizational age stereotypes and occupational self-efficacy is significant only for older respondents.

Future studies should aim to replicate the findings with longitudinal designs.

The study suggests the importance to emphasize the positive characteristics of older workers and to reduce the presence of negative age stereotypes in the workplace, especially in order to foster the occupational self-efficacy of older workers.

The findings are especially relevant in view of the lack of evidence about the relationship between age stereotypes and occupational self-efficacy.

The purpose of this paper is to compare how the dimension of attitudes toward future that consists in perception of dynamic future may be affected by desirable goals (desired job flexibility) and probable events (probable job flexibility) in a group of permanent vs temporary employees. Moreover the aim is to explore the gender differences in respect to variables studied.

The data were collected using self-report questionnaires on a sample of 710 employees, of which 63 percent women, 57.2 percent permanent employees, and 42.8 percent fixed-term employees.

The results showed that probable job flexibility mediated the relationship between desired job flexibility and the perception of a dynamic professional future. In addition, the type of contract moderated the interaction effect of job mastery on the relationship between desired and probable flexibility. Job mastery, however, has a direct effect on probable flexibility only on women in fixed-term employment.

The study presented some limitations: the data derived from the self-report questionnaires, respondents participated on a voluntary basis, and the research design was cross-sectional.

The results of this study could be used to influence guidance practitioners’ decisions on the role of antecedents of future orientation (desired flexibility, probable flexibility, and job mastery) in designing programs and interventions for career management that also take gender into account.

Overall, these results provided some insight into the relationship between specific guidance actions and goal-oriented career planning.

The aim of this study is to compare the Spanish and Italian early work retirement (EWR) models in a sample comprising individuals from both countries based on the level of voluntariness involved in labour market exit, psychosocial outcomes, perceived consequences, socio‐demographic variables and motivation.

The authors used a cluster analysis approach to carry out a cross‐sectional study based on a total sample of 1,131 early retirees (605 Spaniards and 526 Italians) drawn from different industries.

In the Spanish but not in the Italian case, EWR was predominantly perceived as forced. K‐means cluster analysis identified four groups of early retirees in both countries based on perceived outcomes of EWR. Two of these clusters represent extreme positive and negative assessments of early retirement consequences, while the remaining two reflect intermediate positions.

These results show that the involuntary Spanish EWR model is associated with a significant negative outcomes cluster, whereas voluntary early retirees in Italy are significantly grouped in the positive outcomes cluster. Variables referring to early exit motives, attitudes towards work and post‐working life and psychosocial adjustment are employed to define the clusters.

This study reveals the existence of significant differences in the level of voluntariness between EWR in Spain and its Italian counterpart, in line with the findings obtained by other researchers. The findings support the conclusions of studies that suggest the existence of differences in post‐employment life depending on the level of voluntariness concerned in retirement from the labour market.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relational dimension of a networked business incubator (NBI), by investigating the intermediary role of incubator management in fostering social and business ties linking tenants among each other, with the incubator management and external actors.

The paper offers a literature review on the NBIs and advances a comprehensive analytical framework of the networked incubation model. This framework is empirically illustrated through a case study research on a leading Italian private NBI, namely, H-Farm. The collection of primary data was conducted by means of face-to-face in-depth interviews and a survey. Data were processed through social network analysis (SNA) tools.

The results highlight the co-presence and interaction of social and business ties, which build up a vital environment nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Community-based relationships and the intermediation of incubator management are crucial for supporting tenants in product and business development activities.

These results pave the way to further research, oriented to the conceptualization of a NBI as a (small) cluster. Moreover, the application of the SNA tools adopted invites further research on networked incubators, applying the same methodology in new directions.

This paper adds to previous literature on NBIs by providing evidence of the intermediary role of incubator management in promoting and facilitating social and business relationships occurring among tenants, between tenants and the incubator management, as well as with external advisors, clients and suppliers.

The fragmentation of the production process is a major theme of research in international business. Trade benefits arise from the “slicing up” of the aggregate value chain, as well as the entry of new countries bearing low labor costs. If, initially, multinational corporations (MNCs) relocated only standardized, low-value manufacturing activities in new emerging economies (exploitative offshoring), now they are also offshoring their knowledge-intensive activities (explorative offshoring). In the past, the literature on internationalization was mainly focused on the characterization of the MNC as a specific monolithic organization active in the international production. In the present, numerous analyses have discussed the international location of R&D activities, mainly in advanced countries. The foreign R&D subsidiaries are still tightly linked to the headquarters, maintaining a controlled position. Future research must address two orders of issues. The first is the progressive autonomy of the foreign subsidiaries, which are more and more developing new and independent lines of research. This process leads MNCs to mobilize and leverage untapped pools of knowledge scattered around the world. The second is the R&D offshoring toward emerging economies. This complex process can be characterized as a move from the smile model discussed extensively by Ram Mudambi (where emerging economies were considered as pools of low-cost labor tout court) to a new model, called here the λ (lambda) model (where emerging economies are also pools of skilled labor). This paper will explore these new trends using some illustrative cases: L'Oréal (FR), Pfizer (US), ST Microelectronics (CH), and Geox (I). The cases reveal the double orientation of MNCs toward emerging economies, where both explorative and exploitative offshoring takes place.

We address the following research questions: (1) Is the innovation trajectory of the acquirer affected by previous acquisitions? (2) In which direction knowledge recombination from the acquisition is pushed further? (3) Is the technological acquisition more a means for knowledge exploration and radical innovation or, on the contrary, a way for consolidating previous technological specialization?

The nature of this study is exploratory; therefore, we opted for an inductive approach based on the L'Oréal case study analysis. Data were triangulated from different sources: (a) the L'Oréal website and press releases collected in the 2009–2015 period; (b) journal articles and books on the global cosmetics industry and the insightful work of Jones (2010); (c) the Questel Orbit database containing data on patents; and (d) the Zephyr – Bureau van Dijk database containing information on the acquisitions of firms.

Empirical evidence from a patent data analysis reveals a paradoxical path. On the one hand, acquisitions enable the company to explore new technological spaces; on the other hand, they allow it to reinforce a preexisting technological trajectory, even when the knowledge base of the target is distant from that of the acquirer. Thus, in our case study, the absorption and recombination of knowledge from a variety of domains support specialization more than diversification technology strategies.

We add to innovation management literature a new perspective, by offering a detailed analysis, through patent data, of the knowledge recombination process, led by technological acquisitions.

This paper explores how exaptive innovation process might be considered a useful innovation model in constraint-based environments. Through an in-depth case study, it illustrates clearly the antecedents of exaptation processes, which are particularly relevant in rapidly changing environments requiring new solutions under time and resource constraints.

The authors adopt a single case study approach that is particularly suitable in case of an inductive research design, which is required because of the novelty of the topic. The research is inspired by the use of the snorkeling mask EASYBREATH, commercialized by the giant Decathlon, as a medical device, a respirator to treat patients affected by coronavirus in Italy. The authors organized the evidence according to a novel taxonomy grounded in the literature.

The case study stimulates reflections on the existence of some antecedents to the exaptive innovation process in constraint-based environments: (1) the availability of specific actors in the innovation process; (2) the creation of platforms of interaction between people with different competences, nurtured by collective bottom-up financing systems; (3) the role of the community of makers, in particular, and of the 4th industrial revolution, in general, for creating enabling technologies; (4) multidisciplinary individual background of key actors in the innovation process is crucial to ensure the exaptive path to be in place.

This work has some limitations, due to the choice of limiting the analysis to a single case, nevertheless, it offers a first glance on a new technological trajectory available in constraint-based environments.

The case study results underline the importance of new digital collaboration platforms as knowledge multipliers, and illuminate on the potential of the fourth manufacturing revolution, which, through new technologies, creates opportunities for distributed forms of innovation that cross long distances.