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This paper aims to explore the effect of government support (short work allowances – SWA) on SME employees' job performance and employee motivation perceptions, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey.

Survey data were collected from 2,781 employees working in SMEs registered to Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (SMEDO) in Turkey. The relationships were assessed through structural equation modeling with bootstrap estimation.

The results support the proposed framework illustrating the positive effect of government support on employees' perceived motivation and job performance. Findings indicate that employee motivation has exhibited a mediating effect between government support and job performance. Another important finding is that, contrary to the classical understanding of Herzberg's two-factor theory, SWA system was able to perform as a motivating factor during the pandemic by meeting the hygiene needs.

Since this is a cross-sectional research study, causal inferences cannot be derived from the research results.

There is a lack of empirical study on SME employees' perceptions on the government support during the pandemic, especially on the perspectives of emerging economies are infrequent. Turkey's case is unique in terms of providing insights on how perceived employee motivation is increased by the government supports (SWA) in Turkey, and how this motivation mediates the job performance perceptions. Besides, the impacts of government support are mostly studied at the firm or macro-levels, this study's unit of analysis is at individual level. Regarding the criticism from the motivation perspective of two-factor theory, COVID-19 context and its impact on the motivation needs have not been elaborated before. This article starts new discussions on how crisis contexts influence individual motivator factors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the life and work, both fiction and nonfiction, of the American author Upton Sinclair, for the purposes of better understanding his impact on management theory and practice.

Critical biography is a historiographical approach that analyzes aspects of an individual’s life events and the context that surrounds those events to better understand the contributions of an individual. In this case, this paper analyzes Sinclair’s biography, his work-related fiction and nonfiction and his interactions with business leaders and management thinkers of the day, including scientific management founder Frederick Winslow Taylor, auto industry leader Henry Ford and safety razor magnate King Gillette.

This paper identified four themes which are related to management and workplace history that pervade his fiction and nonfiction writing and link these events to the events of his life as well as the context of the times.

Although others have cited certain aspects of Sinclair’s work for specific purposes, this paper presents a systematic review of Sinclair’s broad oeuvre and its relevance to management and workplace history using a critical biography approach.

This study aims to examine why women transition from wage work to self-employed entrepreneurship, the seemingly insecure and unruly economic sector compared with the stable iron rice bowl and the fancy spring rice jobs.

Based on in-depth interviews in Zhejiang, the entrepreneurial hotbed in coastal China, this study examines the experiences of self-employed female entrepreneurs who used to work in the iron rice bowl and the spring rice jobs and explores their nonconventional career transition and its gendered implications.

This study finds that these women quit their previous jobs to escape from gendered suppression in wage work where their femininity was stereotyped, devalued or disciplined. By working for themselves, these women embrace a rubber rice bowl that allows them to improvise different forms of femininity that are better rewarded and recognized.

The study contributes to studies on gender and work by framing femininity as a fluid rather than a fixed set of qualities and fills the research gap by illustrating women’s agency in reacting to gender expectations in certain workplaces. The study develops a new concept of rubber rice bowl to describe how entrepreneurship, a seemingly women-unfriendly sphere, attracts women by allowing them to comply with, resist, or improvise normative gender expectations.

Operational excellence (OpEx) is a proven philosophy focusing on continuous improvement in processes and systems for superior performance and efficiency. It plays a crucial role in the energy sector, acting as a catalyst for safety, customer satisfaction, sustainability and competitiveness. This research aims to assess OpEx methodologies in Oman’s energy sector, examining methods, approaches, motivations and sustainability.

This study applies qualitative analysis methodology, involving interviews with 18 industry experts, from the energy sector in a sizeable energy country.

The analysis revealed a growing demand, particularly, in the oil and gas industry, driven by emerging business needs. Qualitative data analysis has identified 10 themes such as implemented methodologies, motivation drivers, deployment approaches, sustainability factors, benefits and challenges. Additionally, new themes emerged, including influencers to start OpEx, resource requirements, enablers for successful OpEx and systems.

This research was limited to Oman and the findings drawn from Omani energy companies may have limited applicability to energy companies in other regions. Therefore, if these findings were to be used, the validation of the findings in relation to other countries should be conducted, to ensure the validity of the context and outcome.

These findings contribute to understanding OpEx dynamics in the Omani energy sector, offering valuable insights for effective utilisation and organisational goal achievement. Furthermore, the study offers valuable insights on how to effectively employ OpEx initiatives in the energy sector to achieve their goals and create value. It addresses the lack of knowledge, offers a framework for successful OpEx implementation, bridges the theory-practice gap and provides insights for optimal utilisation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study on assessing OpEx methodologies in the energy sector, and therefore it serves as a foundation for many future studies. The study provides a theoretical foundation for the OpEx methodologies in terms of organisational readiness for successful OpEx implementation.

Three deaths at Cawston Park Hospital shed a bright light on Norfolk’s services for people with learning disabilities and autism, including those operated by the company that ran the hospital. The purpose of this paper is to review Norfolk County Council's current position from the unique aspect of a senior manager wihtin the system.

This paper reviews the unique perspective of a social worker from within the system.

The process of making change included engagement and action concerning such thorny challenges as the pressures on community services; the undervaluing of care-giving as a career; and the continuing admissions to specialist mental health services at a time when hospital discharges are being expedited.

Norfolk’s investment in improving its services involves the adoption of a human rights approach; a capital programme to facilitate new developments; nurturing care-giving as a career; and bringing a clearer evidence base to this work programme.

Given the adversity of the COVID-19 pandemic, there remains an incomplete understanding of the gender disparities in the affectedness and recovery of micro-entrepreneurs from the crisis. Consequently, this paper aims to scrutinise gender disparities in the initial repercussions of the crisis and throughout the recovery phase.

Acknowledging the interconnectedness of micro-entrepreneurs’ professional and private spheres, the study adopts a mixed-methods approach combining a representative quantitative study with qualitative data from 36 semi-structured interviews with self-employed individuals in Germany amidst the COVID-19 crisis.

The findings indicate a gender gap in the impact and recovery trajectory, particularly affecting female entrepreneurs in caregiving roles beyond immediate financial repercussions. These disparities did not result in more pronounced business measures for recovery but rather involved more experimentation and prosocial behaviours, with a preference for alternatives to state aid, such as personal reserves and social networks.

Unveiling the dual influence of economic and social factors as essential for female entrepreneurs’ recovery from the crisis adds to the literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of gender-specifics.

This paper aims to explore the potential effect of key audit matters (KAM) on the audit report lag (ARL). In particular, it aims to discover whether the number of KAMs reported by an audit firm in Jordan is related to the length of its ARL.

The authors analysed data from the first three years of KAM reporting in Jordan (2017–2019) for 194 public listed Jordanian companies to examine the relation between the number of KAMs and the ARL, taking into account several control variables related to the Jordanian context.

This study found that there is no statistically significant relation between the number of KAMs reported by Jordanian audit firms and their ARLs, suggesting that the KAM reporting in Jordan is somewhat superficial, with the selection of what is actually reported as a KAM not directly related to the efforts needed to deal with its concerns. However, this study also found statistically significant positive relations between the ARL and each of audit fees, audit firm size, the issuance of a qualified audit opinion and company leverage and a statistically significant negative relation between the ARL and company profitability.

This is one of the very few studies to cover the potential relation between KAM reporting and the ARL. In a developing country context characterised by limited demand for an external audit of high quality, this study finds that auditors may decouple on their reporting of KAMs by not actually making significant efforts to deal with them.

This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the impact of the gig economy on the hospitality workforce. The impact of the gig economy on hospitality workforce management is explored, with the paper delving into both theoretical insights and practical implications.

This paper offers reflections on the emerging trend of the gig economy and its impacts on the hospitality workforce, based on evidence collected from the selected literature, industry report and authors’ personal reflections. A micro-meso-macro analytical framework was also applied to assist authors in building the arguments and propositions.

The findings not only revealed the impacts of the gig economy on the hospitality workforce at micro-meso-macro levels but also underscored its close relationships with various concepts in the hospitality management literature. Both future research directions and practical implications are provided.

Amid the gig economy’s transformative influence, stakeholders must continually innovate for an empowering and secure work environment. A holistic approach is necessary to establish a harmonious gig ecosystem, ensuring fair treatment, benefits and protection for workers while fostering growth and well-being.

Throughout the paper, a critical reflection on the impact of the gig economy on the hospitality workforce is presented, along with suggestions for coping with current labor issues in hospitality and tourism. Future research directions are outlined.

Over the years, the impact of the business cycle on firm strategy has been neglected in the area of strategic management and remains one of the most important but least developed research streams in management scholarship. Studies in this area are scattered across time and domains, therefore, there is a need to consolidate this fragmented literature to provide a comprehensive review and thus avenues for further research. This study aims to address this gap.

In this study, the systematic literature review (SLR) method is used to select and examine research articles in the area of firm responses and decisions during recession. This SLR examines 127 studies and carries out a thematic synthesis of the literature.

Based on the SLR and thematic synthesis of the literature, the themes identified in this study include – severity of recession impact (Theme 1); firm specific characteristics (Theme 2); resource adjustment activities (Theme 3); and firm performance (Theme 4), based on these themes and analysis this paper maps and proposes various relationships and linkages in this research domain that can be explored further for the development of scholarship in this field of study.

This paper fulfills the need for a systematic review of the extant literature on firms’ responses during recession. The study synthesizes literature and carries out a thematic analysis from 1980 till the period February 2024 to provide directions to advance this domain of literature.

The planning of massive vaccination campaigns often falls to nongovernmental organizations that have to face the critical challenge of vaccinating the largest number of people in the shortest time. This study aims to provide an easy tool for minimizing the duration of mass vaccination campaigns in rural and remote areas of developing countries.

This paper presents a linear mathematical model that combines location, scheduling and routing decisions that allows determining where to locate the vaccination centers, as well as the schedule/route that each medical team must follow to meet the target demand in the shortest time possible. In addition, the paper proposes an heuristic approach that can be integrated in a spreadsheet.

As the numerical experiments show, the proposed heuristic provides good solutions in a short time. Due to its simplicity and flexibility, the proposed approach allows decision-makers to analyze and evaluate several possible scenarios for decision-making by simply playing with input parameters.

The integration of the heuristic approach in a spreadsheet provides a simple and efficient tool to help decision-makers while avoiding the need for large investments in information systems infrastructure by user organizations.

Motivated by a real-life problem and different from previous studies, the objective of the planning is to reduce the length of the vaccination campaigns with the available resources and ensure a target coverage instead of planning for minimizing costs or maximizing coverage. Furthermore, for helping implementation to practitioners, the heuristic can be solved in a spreadsheet.