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Due to the global labor market challenges, international companies react and adjust fast to these circumstances by implementing digital solutions into all business processes. Organizational ambidexterity is seen as the response of digital transformation and it can be divided into structural, contextual, and sequential dimensions. In this context, organizations representing the smart industry will need employees with specific competencies which let them meet technological challenges.

This chapter aims to clarify the state of opinion on expectations towards, and preparedness for, the impact of Industry 4.0 on human resources management and the implementation of various types of ambidexterity in these companies. We have conducted interviews with key HR informants from manufacturing companies operating in Germany and Poland. We have found that Industry 4.0 has a significant impact on HR practices. In both international companies, various digital solutions in employee recruitment, development, and performance, have been implemented. There have also been mature examples in both companies of structural, contextual, and sequential ambidexterity.

This paper aims to unpack how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can operationalise coopetition in talent management, addressing ongoing talent shortages in the hospitality industry which were intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This conceptual paper draws from literature on coopetition and talent management in SMEs. Specifically, the authors take an interorganisational talent pool lens and develop a framework following the principles of open-systems theory.

The authors find that the traditional use of talent pools is often impractical for SMEs because of a lack of resources and capabilities. Instead, interorganisational talent pools, through coopetition in talent management, can aid these firms to address talent shortages. The authors identify potential for SME coopetition at various stages, including attraction, development and retention of talent.

Coopetition in talent management can aid industries in establishing market-thickening pipelines. Through co-attracting, co-developing and co-retaining talent, SMEs can create interorganisational talent pools. To develop talent management coopetition, a set of prerequisites, catalysts and potential inhibitors must be analysed and managed.

This paper moves the talent management debate beyond competition for talent, introducing coopetition as a viable alternative. Taking an open-systems perspective, the authors develop an integrative framework for coopetition in talent management in SMEs encompassing input, process and output components. The authors reveal the dynamic and complex nature of this coopetition process, highlighting the essential role of coopetition context and illustrating open-system principles.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) cope with the need for labour flexibility. Most previous studies ignore the labour flexibility practices of SMEs, especially in times of economic growth and tight labour markets.

A multiple case study approach is applied, with ten Dutch SMEs located in one small province with a similar labour market. A survey was executed as an intake, followed by 48 interviews with the entrepreneurs, HR and other managers and employees, and two focus groups in each company. The findings are based on an analysis of the approved case descriptions.

SMEs, like big companies, do not rely on one flexibility practice. Volume fluctuations are countered with all flexibility strategies, the mix fluctuations and the product innovations are mostly countered with flexible functions and flexible production technology. In general, the data suggest that flexibility strategies of SMEs can be characterised as ad hoc, reactive and with a short-term orientation.

Future research should include other sectors and regions enabling to generalise the findings. Future research should have a longitudinal design to include the pathway dependencies of flexibility practices.

This study identifies the need to analyse flexibility demands; reduce flexibility demands before investments in flexibility practices; create production process flexibility; invest in labour flexibility practices only after the first three steps are taken; and develop basic and more advanced levels of flexible contracts, flexible functions and flexible working times.

This study contributes to the authors’ knowledge on the use of labour flexibility practices in SMEs. In addition, it brings empirical data on how these labour flexibility practices relate to the needs for flexibility and how they relate to other sources of organisational flexibility, such as a flexible market approach and flexible production technologies. Dynamic capabilities should include the suggested operationalisation of the flexibility practices.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the role of talent management (TM) in strategic renewal. Furthermore, the authors extend the existing knowledge on the process of TM implementation by underlining particular activities, which are involved in this process during strategic renewal.

The authors report a qualitative study of a TM program in a Finnish–Swedish Multinational corporation undergoing major strategic renewal. The data consist of 46 semi-structured interviews and secondary data.

The role of TM in the context of strategic renewal is to provide the conditions for the self-initiation and identification of potential change agents and for the development of the talented employees to perform in their roles of change agent. In the context of strategic renewal, TM process consists of identification of key projects to address critical business opportunities and challenges, the identification of talented employees to execute them, and the identification and creation of key positions.

The authors encourage scholars to explore the empirical settings characterized by change and unpredictability in more detail, and thus examine the role of talented employees and TM in other specific contexts. Future studies are also encouraged to study other cultural settings and examine to what degree the process of TM implementation may positively influence attitudes and behaviors of talented employees and, consequently, the overall organizational performance.

This study offers practical advice for top management and HR managers. First, the process of TM implementation during strategic renewal should start with the identification of “must-win-battles” that can have a more profound impact on change. Furthermore, top management should allow and enable motivated potential talented employees to volunteer for the job of aiding company-wide changes. Next, top management should provide the talented employees with the space to come up with novel ideas and conceive new business opportunities. Finally, the importance of transparent and spot-on evaluation criteria should be emphasized.

The study contributes to advancing our understanding of TM and strategic management in practice.

Based on social exchange theory, the study examines the influence of informational and relational internal communication on cognitive and affective responses and job engagement during organizational crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data were collected by means of an online survey among people working in organizations with a minimum of 10 employees (N = 1,033) and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results show that informational and relational communication as organizational resources have a significant but distinct influence on how employees support their employer during the crisis. While informational communication influences employees' acceptance of managerial decisions, relational communication exerts most influence on affective commitment, which is the strongest driver of job engagement.

The cross-sectional design, specific crisis situation and geographic location are limitations of the study.

Delivering relevant information to employees quickly and reliably is important. Yet, relationship-oriented communication that demonstrates appreciation and allows for participation has even stronger effects on job engagement, which is essential to mastering challenges arising from a crisis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations demanded much from their employees. In exchange, organizations should provide the resources information, status and love (Foa and Foa, 1980) by means of internal crisis communication.

The study demonstrates the role of different types of internal communication during organizational crises used to convey organizational resources, and it highlights the mediating role of acceptance and commitment to enhance employees' engagement at work.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between top management team bricolage and performance and also examines unit ambidexterity's mediating role. More essentially, to understand the black box of organizational knowledge dynamism, a multilevel moderated mediating model is established by exploring the effects of two firm-level moderators, namely, potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity.

To test the cross-level moderated mediation model, this study used multisource data from 90 R&D units in 45 Taiwanese manufacturing firms through two-wave surveys and retrieving the archival data for assessing unit performance.

This study’s evidence revealed that unit-level ambidexterity mediates the effect between firm-level top management teams’ (TMT) bricolage and unit-level performance. This study also found that firm-level potential absorptive capacity positively moderates the effect between firm-level TMT bricolage and unit-level ambidexterity. Moreover, firm-level realized absorptive capacity strengthens the indirect relationships between firm-level TMT bricolage and unit-level performance via unit-level ambidexterity. The findings shed light on how and why TMT bricolage influences unit ambidexterity and performance in knowledge-intensive sectors.

This paper adds to the existing knowledge-based theory literature by disentangling the association between top management team bricolage and unit performance and identifying the pivotal role of absorptive capacity at both the firm and unit levels.

Digital start-ups have limited resources. With the demands of rapid growth, digital start-ups need to rely on their ability to explore external knowledge and exploit it into swift innovation. Developing absorptive capacity is an alternative to overcome this difficulty. This study aims to demonstrate how the potential and realized an increase in absorptive capacity enables organizations to innovate moderated by structural ambidexterity. Empirical evidence places more emphasis on the impact of absorptive capacity on innovation but still leaves the “black-box” question of innovation and how potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) can achieve realized absorptive capacity (RACAP).

This study tests, with a structural equation model, samples collected from 143 digital start-ups in Indonesia.

The finding of this study suggests that PACAP influences the ability to innovate only if RACAP mediates it and structural ambidexterity positively moderates the relationship between these two variables.

First, this study uses digital start-up organizations as respondents. Second, this study explores the role of the structural ambidexterity that moderates the relationship between PACAP and RACAP manifested in digital start-ups organizations that are identical to temporary companies with limited resources. Third, digital start-ups have a fast-growth life cycle, unlike regular companies. Finally, the validated scale is based on data collected entirely from digital start-ups located in Indonesia, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other industry contexts.

Start-ups suffer from the ability to innovate that increases their propensity to fail. They overcome this failure by increasing the absorptive capacity of the founding team to improve their ability to innovate. Because of limited resources available at digital start-ups, the flexibility of their management style can overcome these barriers, allowing the pursuit of both knowledge exploration and exploitation in a balanced way.

Most of the studies explained that the ability to innovate comes from absorptive capacity. In fact, they do not explore PACAP and RACAP and their relationships. Moreover, the studies also indicated that the contextual ambidexterity moderated PACAP and RACAP. Meanwhile, digital start-ups in this study revealed that structural ambidexterity with two dimensions, i.e. shared value, and behavioral integration, enables and positively moderates the relationship between PACAP and RACAP.

India is the first country to have mandated compulsory corporate social responsibility (CSR) spends through changes in its legislative framework. Focus has thus shifted from the “why” to the “how” of CSR and, therefore, a shift in the “locus” of CSR responsibility from the “influencer” chief executive officer toward the “implementer” CSR professionals. The purpose of this paper is to study the role of management education in developing individual competencies among the implementers and impacting effective CSR implementation.

This paper, using a case study design, studies the role of management education in developing individual competencies among the implementers and impacting effective CSR implementation. Building on theoretical frameworks, this paper carries out an exploratory research of an Indian business school’s management education program for development practitioners. It uses qualitative inputs gathered from relevant stakeholders of the program to understand the role of management education in facilitating the paradigm shift in CSR in the Indian context.

The paper finds that the program has impacted outcomes at three levels, namely through developing key individual CSR-related competencies; impacting participants’ professional performance; and organizational impact in effective CSR implementation.

The case study provides a roadmap to business schools for designing and implementing programs for CSR professionals.

Extant research in the Indian context is silent on key competencies required for CSR implementation and also on the role of management education in developing the same. Such competencies can ensure the efficiency of the expected large CSR spends by private corporates under the new legal requirements and alter the country’s social development path.

The research is aimed at elaborating a model in which dynamic capabilities affect sustainable competitiveness via organisational sustainability practices and the mediating role of organisational ambidexterity.

Emphasising the need for business sustainability in the face of technological breakthroughs, resource depletion and increasing expectations of stakeholders, it is necessary to reflect on a long-term organisational resilience that would enable sustainable competitiveness through dynamic capabilities. Hence, the paper provides insights on how an organisation can sustain its competitiveness by constantly balancing between the need for continuous improvement due to the pressure in economic, social and ecological environment, and the pursuit of continuous improvement of performance. The authors used structural equation modelling on data collected via a survey of 455 organisations from the Baltic region.

The results confirm the relationships between sensing and reconfiguring capabilities and sustainability practices, but reject them for scanning capabilities. They also confirm the impact of sustainability practices on some of the pillars of sustainable competitiveness. The research disclosed that ambidexterity was a mediator between dynamic capabilities and sustainable competitiveness.

The paper discloses the link between dynamic capabilities and sustainable competitive advantage by identifying the main characteristics of the constructs and revealing the linkage between them.

This paper aims to report on a case study concerning the development of sustainable energy partnerships involving engineering faculty and undergraduate students at the University of Girona, Catalonia, Spain.

Faculty were motivated to seek partnerships with public and private entities in the local area for the purposes of realising mutually beneficial outcomes. The educational programmes of future engineers, when sustainability is considered, are analysed. Education for sustainable development has to include multidisciplinary active learning as a desirable competence. Active learning can be obtained when problems are based on real life because they are most motivating for students. Constructive alignment component is obtained because learning objectives are linked with learning activities related to the needs of public and private entities.

Through the provision of technical expertise, the adoption and success of renewable energy projects was facilitated on the one hand, while final year undergraduate students benefited in terms of hands-on experience in helping to bring these projects to life, drawing on the knowledge and skills they had acquired throughout their degree programmes. These works are addressed to students by faculty members with the aim of developing and promoting renewable energies. Outcomes from partnerships surpassed expectations; not only were different benefits realised as were initially hoped for, but this success led to partnerships being sustained over time.

Fossil fuel-based energy systems are associated with a myriad of negative environmental and social externalities. It is difficult to overstate the importance of transitioning towards alternative low carbon energy sources for climate change mitigation which are less centralised compared to the status-quo for energy security and energy independence. By actively facilitating the development of decentralised renewable energy sources in Catalonia, the projects reported herein are of significant value in social environmental and educational terms.