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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that might contribute to the ease with which marketing executives in UK charities who have been promoted to senior general management positions adjust to the occupancy of these roles.

In total, 37 individuals with functional marketing backgrounds currently holding top general management positions in large fundraising charities were interviewed using a frame-worked occupational autobiographic narrative approach. The research was informed by aspects of newcomer adjustment theory, notably uncertainty reduction theory.

Social and personal considerations were much more important determinants of the ease of assimilation into top management positions in charities than were technical job-related matters. Role ambiguity constituted the main barrier to smooth adjustment. Mentoring, planned induction programmes, the nature of a person’s past work experience and the individual’s social status critically affected how readily a marketer fitted into a top management role. Disparate sets of factors influenced different elements of managerial newcomer adjustment (role clarity, self-efficacy, and social acceptance).

As the participants in the study needed to satisfy certain narrowly defined criteria and to work in a single sector (large fundraising charities) the sample was necessarily small. It was not possible to explore the effects on operational performance of varying degrees of ease of newcomer adjustment.

Individuals promoted to top management posts in charities should try psychologically to break with the past and should not be afraid of projecting a strong functional professional identity to their new peers. These recommendations can be expected to apply to organisations in general which, like large charities, need senior management mentoring and induction programmes to assist recently promoted individuals from function-specific backgrounds; job descriptions for top management posts that are clear and embody realistic expectations; and “shadowing” and training activities for newly appointed senior managers with function-specific backgrounds.

The study is the first to apply newcomer adjustment theory to the assimilation of functional managers into more senior general management. It examines a broader range of potential variables affecting managerial newcomer adjustment than has previously been considered. Relevant issues are examined in the context of an important sector: fundraising charities.

The purpose of the study is to examine the role of top management in effective key account management (KAM) relationships, making a distinction between top management commitment and top management involvement.

The study uses data from 304 suppliers from different sectors to test the research model and hypotheses developed. Data were collected by means of personal interviews. The survey instrument was a structured questionnaire.

Results show that top management commitment positively affects top management involvement. In addition, top management involvement totally mediates the relationship between top management commitment and relationship quality. Finally, relationship quality positively relates to financial performance.

The study focuses on the role of top management in KAM. Future research that considers the top management’s role simultaneously with other internal or external factors would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of effective KAM. Future studies can also examine the potential detrimental impact of top management involvement in KAM.

Top managers should get actively involved in KAM. The study provides managers with guidance concerning how top management can have the greatest effect on KAM effectiveness.

The study adds to our understanding of the role of top management in KAM. The study provides an integrative empirical examination of the influence of top management in KAM and offer insights on which ways top management determines KAM success.

Despite the often stated importance, little about top management's role in supply chain management (SCM) practices is known. The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore the role of top management in two retail companies that successfully utilise opportunities given by SCM practices.

As an empirical basis for the research, two Swedish retail companies are explored. Members of the top management teams have been interviewed about their role in the company and their priorities.

The top management role is described by introducing four archetypes; the supply chain thinker, the relationship manager, the controller and the organiser for the future.

This paper adds to existing theory by giving a more detailed description of top management's role in SCM practices, i.e. how SCM practices could actually be managed, and, in the extension, to the understanding for what is needed to implement more SCM practices in real existing companies and supply chains.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable project performance. Specifically, the study aims to examine the mediating role of knowledge integration, examining how knowledge integration within an organization influences project outcomes. In addition, the study seeks to explore the moderating role of top management knowledge values, examining how the values and beliefs of top management influence the relationship between sustainable leadership and project performance.

A three-wave survey of 392 employees working in construction sector projects in Pakistan used both hierarchical regression analysis and Hayes’ PROCESS macro method to evaluate the hypotheses.

The study results show that sustainable leadership positively relates to sustainable project performance and knowledge integration mediating this relationship. In addition, the top management knowledge value moderates the indirect effect of sustainable leadership on sustainable project performance via knowledge integration.

Although the model was tested using three-wave data, it is important to note that the data were obtained from a single source. Therefore, it is possible that common method bias may have influenced the results, and this cannot be disregarded.

Organizations seek to prioritize sustainability and integrate sustainability considerations into their project management processes. Organizations can achieve improved sustainable project performance by investing in sustainable leadership development, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and learning, prioritizing top management support for sustainable performance and integrating sustainable considerations into project management processes.

The study’s grounding on organizational learning theory adds an original and valuable perspective to the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable project performance. This investigation is original, as it combines sustainable leadership, knowledge integration and the moderating role of top management knowledge value to understand their impact on sustainable project performance. This unique approach contributes to the literature by providing new insights into these relationships and mechanisms in the construction industry.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of top management support and organizational capabilities in achieving e-business entrepreneurship.

Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from 26 manufacturing firms with a sample of 282 respondents. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS.

The results show a significant impact of top management support on e-business entrepreneurship. The findings also show a direct impact of organizational capabilities, involving organizational agility and organizational learning on the e-business entrepreneurship. Moreover, the results of the study highlight the pivotal role of top management in preparing an organizational environment that fosters organizational learning and organizational agility capabilities to establish e-business entrepreneurship.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge and understanding of e-business entrepreneurship and the pivotal role of top management support in today’s very dynamic environment. Furthermore, the present study offers new insights into the impact of organizational capabilities on establishing e-business entrepreneurship.

We study the decision-making process behind business model change, focusing specifically on the tactics managers employ to gain support for such changes. We first argue for the prominent role of middle management in business model change, and second, we revisit the literature on issue selling and championing as they may apply to business model change decision-making. We subsequently analyze the case of a business model change initiative in the Dutch water authority sector, revealing two specific tactics that middle management employed to obtain top management’s agreement to business model change: leveraging external agreements and continuously informing top management. We discuss how these findings extend and in some ways suggest a rethink of the literature on organizational change. Finally, we describe the specificities of business model change that distinguish it from other types of change. In sum, this paper demonstrates the interest of research at the nexus of business models and organizational change.

The present work investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility and top management support on employee ecological behaviour (EEB) with the mediating role of green culture and green commitment. Social identity theory (SIT) was used to describe the association between green culture, green commitment and EEB. Further, a conceptual model that summarises the interaction between perceived corporate social responsibility, top management support, green commitment, green culture and the adoption of ecological behaviour was developed.

The paper opted for a quantitative design using convenience sampling by collecting the data through a structured questionnaire gathered from 308 academics working in five Malaysian higher education institutions.

Corporate social responsibility and top management support positively influence green culture and commitment. Moreover, green commitment positively influenced EEB and fully mediated the relationship between corporate social responsibility and EEB and between top management support and EEB.

The academic staff of universities was the target population of this research. Nevertheless, universities have a diverse population with complex activities that can affect the implementation of a sustainable workplace within the campus. Future research should also examine non-academic staff, including administrative, technical and operational staff, due to different employees' perceptions.

As far as the authors know, this is the first study to assign the mediator role to green culture in a relationship between top management support and EEB amongst academic staff in the Malaysian context. Future research should consider other intervening variables that influence adopting ecological behaviour.

The purpose of this study is to examine linkages of gender and gender-related variables to aspirations to top management over a period spanning five decades.

During each of the past five decades, samples from two early-career populations (n = 2131), undergraduate business students and part-time (evening) MBAs, completed an aspirations to top management measure and described themselves on an instrument that assessed self-ascribed masculinity and femininity.

Aspirations to top management were predicted by respondent gender for undergraduates, with women’s aspirations lower than those of men, and by masculinity for both populations. Suggesting a shifting role of gender, undergraduate women’s aspirations to top management declined during the 21st century, whereas undergraduate men’s aspirations did not.

Any decline in early-career women’s aspirations to top management over a sustained period may contribute in the long run to perpetuating the under-representation of women in top management.

The finding of a striking decline in women’s aspirations to top management during the 21st century in an early-career population is an original contribution to the gender in management literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of top management control in stimulating innovation through their effect on the creation of knowledge in new product development (NPD) projects. Top management has a crucial role in stimulating innovation in companies, in particular as top managers affect knowledge creation through their interaction with project teams before and during an NPD project, which can of course affect innovation.

Through comparative case‐based research in two companies in high‐velocity industries, chosen through theoretical sampling, the authors have studied six NPD projects.

The control top management exercise over an NPD project influences the creation of knowledge in different ways, both hampering and facilitating knowledge creation. In particular, this control focuses on explicit knowledge, and not tacit knowledge, which may reduce the overall capacity for knowledge creation and ultimately innovation.

The results are considered to be generalizable within high‐velocity industries. In terms of future research the results should be tested in other industries using either case‐based research or by increasing the sample and doing survey‐type research.

The advice, or perhaps challenge, for managers is to know when to exercise control, when not to and what type of control to exercise. In particular the paper highlights the importance of managers not solely controlling projects by focusing on explicit knowledge in the project, but also by understanding that tacit knowledge is necessary in order to facilitate knowledge creation and innovation.

The paper helps clarify the relationship between top management control and knowledge creation by specially examining how and why top management control hampers or facilitates knowledge creation.

In the context of the digital economy, information technology (IT) investment has become a necessary way for enterprises to transform digitally. However, why and how IT investment can enhance digital transformation is lacking in the literature. Based on the resource-based view (RBV), this study explored the impact mechanism of IT infrastructure on the digital transformation of enterprises from the perspective of the digital transformation strategy. Further, this study examined the moderating role of top management on the relationships between IT infrastructure and digital transformation strategy and between digital transformation strategy and enterprise's digital transformation.

Through a questionnaire survey of Chinese enterprises, 180 sample data were collected, and the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used to test the hypothesis.

Digital transformation strategy fully mediates the relationship between IT infrastructure and enterprise digital transformation. Furthermore, top management has a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between IT infrastructure and digital transformation strategy, as well as the relationship between digital transformation strategy and digital transformation.

This study explores the moderating role of top management in the relationship between IT and enterprise performance, as well as the mediating role of digital transformation strategy in the relationship between IT infrastructure investment and digital transformation performance. As a result, the study adds significantly to the body of knowledge on IT business value, digital transformation and strategic management. The authors' findings can help update managers' perceptions of IT value and provide theoretical guidance on deriving digital transformation performance from IT infrastructure investments.