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Integrating the lifespan perspectives on job design and creativity/innovation, the purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of chronological age in the relationship between cognitive job demands (i.e. job complexity and job innovation requirements) and individual innovative work behavior (IWB).

Multilevel regression analyses are employed to analyze survey data of 336 employee–supervisor dyads from 61 departments across three organizations.

Results demonstrate that age was a significant moderator of the cognitive job demands-IWB relationship. Under the condition of high job complexity, younger employees outperformed their older counterparts. Conversely, older employees attained the same level of IWB as younger colleagues when more job innovation requirements were placed upon them.

IWB needs to be stimulated following different paths and by making job design decisions with regards to cognitive job demands that are dependent on employee age.

Empirical evidence has been provided to support the lifespan perspective on job design, with a special focus given to the cognitive job demands–IWB relationship.

Academic knowledge work often presumes collaboration among interdependent individuals. However, this work also involves competitive pressures to perform and even outperform others. While knowledge hiding has not yet been extensively examined in the academic environment, this study aims to deepen the understanding of the personal (individual-level) and situational (job-related) factors that affect evasive knowledge hiding (EKH) within academia.

A field study was conducted on a nation-wide sample of 210 scholars from both public and private business schools in a European Union member state. A series of paired sample t-tests were followed by hierarchical regression analyses to test moderation using the PROCESS macro.

The results suggest that scholars hide more tacit than explicit knowledge. The findings also indicate a consistent pattern of positive and significant relationships between trait competitiveness and EKH. Furthermore, task interdependence and social support buffer the detrimental relationship between personal competitiveness and evasive hiding of explicit knowledge, but not tacit knowledge.

The research provides insights into several important antecedents of EKH that have not been previously examined. It contributes to research on knowledge transfer in academia by focusing on situations where colleagues respond to explicit requests by hiding knowledge. The moderating role of collaborative job design offers practical solutions on how to improve knowledge transfer between mistrusted and competitive scholars. The collaboration–competition framework is extended by introducing personal competitiveness and relational job design, and suggesting how to manage the cross-level tension of differing collaborative and competitive motivations within academia.

Building on the premise of conservation of resources theory (COR) that people protect their knowledge as a resource, the authors questioned whether the contextual nature of job resources buffers the counterintuitive positive relationship between evasive knowledge hiding (KH) and task performance.

Two multisource field survey studies were conducted to examine the moderating influence of task-job resources on the knowledge hiders' task performance. Hierarchical regression analyses tested the main effect of evasive KH on task performance. In addition, conditional process analyses were applied to examine two-way and three-way interactions of evasive KH, job autonomy and task variety.

The data analysis showed a positive relationship between evasive KH and task performance. Moreover, the authors found that employees receiving accumulative task-job resources continued to hide knowledge and used abundant resources to increase their task performance further. However, contrary to expectations, for employees—who received partial task-job resources—their task performance deteriorated when evasively hiding knowledge.

Managers and human resource practitioners should acknowledge that employees' evasive KH to co-workers is not always wrong and should not be treated like it is. Moreover, they are endorsed to pay attention and invest in job resources since job autonomy and task variety create a beneficial context for knowledge holders' task performance.

The authors provided novel theoretical (the gain-loss perspective of COR theory) and consistent empirical (confirmed by two field-study evidence) arguments for an important contextual role of an HRM practice of job design in shaping the underrepresented knowledge behavior–task performance relationship.

Organizations profoundly create development paths of individual’s careers. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to gain understanding about how organizational context (shaped by the complex relationship between trade union strength and HRM strength) influences the application of organizational career management (OCM) practices seen through the lens of the theory of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1949; Tjosvold, 1984).

Inferential statistical analyses (Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney tests) were applied to test the CRANET survey data collected from 92 large-sized private-sector organizations within an EU country characterized by a medium to high-trade union density.

Results offered consistent empirical evidence that a comprehensive set of OCM practices are applied differently across four distinctive modalities of the union-HRM relationship. Specifically, the “union-HRM synergy” relationship (high-HRM/high-unionization) has been recognized as the most promising for adopting such developmental practices, providing an evidence of complementarities between trade unions and HRM professionalism.

The research suggests that synergistic collaboration between trade unions and HRM might provide employees with even more career development opportunities than when organizations pursue the asynchronous single-sided “Total HRM strategy.”

This study rejuvenate a traditional career management research agenda by introducing a new theoretical lens for studying the interplay between trade unions and HRM and have put an emphasis on how their strength is related to the incidence of OCM practices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how business process management (BPM) is incorporated within organisational structure. The authors demonstrate how a strategic interest in BPM and formal responsibilities for BPM activities shape the efficiency, quality and agility of BPM initiatives. By conducting field research, useful empirical insights were drawn about the necessary conditions for ensuring the success of BPM initiatives.

A questionnaire survey of BPM adoption practices was conducted among private- and public-sector organisations with more than 50 employees. A cross-national sample of 60 Croatian and 51 Slovenian companies is analysed by applying a subsampling strategy and using inferential statistics methods.

The study clearly shows how particular structural decisions can foster the operational excellence of BPM initiatives. Formal process roles and specialised BPM units were recognised as important drivers of organisational success. In addition, how strategic support and related structural choices create a synergistic effect and make process efforts worthwhile is explained.

The research findings offer useful benchmarking of current BPM practices. The developed BPM commitment matrix represents a simple tool for self-assessment. Its path-dependent logic provides guidelines for improving the outcomes of BPM governance in general, and BPM initiatives specifically.

The paper extends previous research by showing the performance effects of several BPM governance practices. The results clearly suggest that the best outcomes of BPM initiatives were achieved by organisations that had introduced a strategic approach to BPM, along with having defined a centralised BPM responsibility and assigned decentralised process ownership roles.

Technological development creates technological imperative for organisations. The most recent is dedicated to digital technologies with a strong influence on the way of managing and organising. To gain a better understanding of the latest business practice, the authors use a multilevel perspective and apply the historical analysis method. Specifically, this chapter explores organisational design (OD) of the future through the evolutionary perspective (spanning across the four industrial revolutions) and brings into focus how technological imperatives modified organisational structure, coordination mechanisms and people/job practices. By reflecting on the historical changes in OD practices that happened throughout different phases of industrialisation, the authors analyse how building blocks of digital OD shape managerial and employee behaviours, thus unleashing the performance potential of digital technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the nature of job characteristics related to different generational cohorts (Baby-boomers, Generation X and Generation Y). Significant differences between four task and four social job characteristics across generational cohorts have been revealed.

The empirical research was conducted through a field study of employees from large-sized Croatian organizations. A cross-sectional and cross-occupational research design was applied. A total of 512 knowledge workers (139 managers and 373 professionals) participated in the research. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods were used to determine and compare work design across generations.

The results indicate that job characteristics are not equally represented within different generational cohorts. While the nature of task job characteristics is mostly irrespective of generations, social job characteristics to some extent differ among generational cohorts. High task variety, reasonably high task identity, and a moderate level of both received interdependence and task significance are recognized as common job characteristics of knowledge workers across generations. However, jobs of Baby-boomers, Xers, and Yers are idiosyncratic for work autonomy, interaction with others, initiated interdependence, and teamwork. Additionally, the inclusion of the work type as a control variable revealed that interaction with others does differ but only among generations of professionals.

The present study is the first research in which generational similarities and differences have been empirically examined through job characteristics. The authors focused on knowledge workers within an under-researched context (studies about knowledge workers, work design and generational differences are rare or non-existent in south-eastern European countries), making this systematic investigation unique and practically significant.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a specific pattern of relationships among various task, knowledge and social characteristics of work design and work outcomes. It clearly shows how particular work characteristics influence task and contextual performance.

The empirical research was conducted through a field survey of the largest Croatian organizations with more than 500 employees. A cross-sectional and cross-occupational sample of 512 knowledge workers from 48 organizations is analyzed by applying the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique.

The results confirmed the existence and importance of the interaction between work characteristics and work outcomes. However, the findings suggest that only knowledge characteristics of work design exhibit a significant effect on both dimensions of work behavior, while task and social characteristics showed different effects on task and contextual performance, respectively.

The research findings clearly show that work design efforts are not straightforward but rather context-specific, and with diverging performance effects. Organizations can significantly enhance their bottom-line performance by designing challenging and cognitively demanding configurations of work tasks for their knowledge workers.

The paper extends previous research by capturing a broader set of work characteristics of knowledge workers. The results suggest that different categories of work characteristics have different effects on task and contextual performance. By revealing the nature of work design in the central and eastern European context, this study indicates the existence of possible differences in work design practices in various backgrounds.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the way strategic approach to business process management (BPM) impacts organizational performance, both its financial and non‐financial aspects, using empirical data from Croatian firms. The impact of strategic approach to BPM on process performance measurement (PPM) is examined as well.

A questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of 194 manufacturing and service firms in Croatia and propositions were tested using a structural equation model with SAS software.

The results suggest that PPM practice is positively related to strategic approach to BPM. The impact of PPM on non‐financial performance has been found, as well as the impact of non‐financial performance on financial performance, thus indicating an indirect influence of PPM on financial performance.

The paper extends the previous research that exclusively investigated impact of BPM to organizational performance. The authors extended results of previous research and found that strategic approach to BPM is an important push factor for implementation of PPM, and that PPM is an important link between BPM and improved organizational performance.