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The purpose of this paper is to extend management innovation theory and research by going beyond analysis at a single level. Focussing on management innovation at the lower level in the organizational hierarchy, the authors develop a multilevel framework; in doing so, the authors answer earlier calls for a study of the effects of multilevel transformational leadership (TFL) on management innovation and innovation in general.

This study collected multisource and multilevel data from 169 managers, 423 employees of 141 units from 21 banking service firms in an emerging economy.

The results from hierarchial linear modeling analysis reveal that unit-level TFL was positively related to unit-level management innovation. Furthermore, firm-level TFL was positively associated with firm-level empowerment climate, which in turn enhanced unit-level management innovation. In addition, firm-level empowerment climate strengthened the relationship between unit-level TFL and unit-level management innovation. Finally, the unit-level trust mediates the relationship between firm-level empowerment climate and unit-level management innovation.

Firms operate more effectively when they generate management innovation. To help ensure the effectiveness of management innovation, it is essential that firms, especially those from the banking sector, encourage their managers to engage in TFL behaviors. The managers must consider how to utilize their TFL behaviors to create trusting relationships in order to achieve the organizational goals. Firms can also take steps to develop a supportive climate of higher levels of autonomy, delegation, freedom and task accountability, in order to promote higher levels of trust at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy.

The current study develops and tests a mediation model that links firm-level TFL to unit-level management innovation, and identifies unit-level trust as the intermediate outcome. With this theorizing and the findings, the authors deepen the current knowledge regarding the organizational implications of TFL behaviors for management innovation.

Purpose – This chapter explores the determinants of trust, a manifestation of the relational dimension of social capital, between interaction partners in multinational corporations at interpersonal and inter-unit levels of analysis.

Methodology – The study is based on two quantitative data sets from the Finnish subsidiaries of foreign MNCs, one at the individual level and another at the unit level (n= 265/102).

Findings – Our results indicate that the drivers of trust exhibit similar patterns across both levels of analysis, but are stronger at the interpersonal level. Trust was significantly and positively related to the length of the relationship between the two individuals or units, and to the frequency of the communication between them whereas it was found to be unrelated with cultural distance.

Limitations – The key limitations of the study were as follows. First, the samples at both levels were relatively small, a factor that may partly explain why some of the statistical relationships were relatively weak. Second, the study was carried out in one location only, and our findings need to be corroborated in other cultural settings. Third, we only examined the level of trust from one side of the relationship, as a dyadic analysis was not possible with the present data.

Practical implications – For practicing managers, the main message from our research is that communication frequency and the length of the relationship matter for the relational social capital that exists within MNCs – both at the interpersonal and unit levels.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how knowledge hoarding, functions as antecedent and consequent of work related negative acts, as a measure of bullying. The authors investigate the relation as mediated by trust and justice.

Data stem from a longitudinal study in which questionnaire responses were collected twice from 1,650 employees in 52 workplaces. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the two models. Design-based corrections were made to accommodate the multi-level structure of data.

The analyses showed that knowledge hoarding was both an antecedent and a consequent of negative acts. First, over time, knowledge hoarding was indirectly related to negative acts mediated by trust and justice. Second, negative acts were both directly and indirectly related to knowledge hoarding over time. The study thus points to the existence of a vicious circle of negative acts, psychological states of trust and justice, and knowledge hoarding behaviours, which presumably will affect both individual and organizational outcomes negatively.

The use of already collected, self-report data, single-item measures, and the two-year time lag could pose potential limitations to the study.

Preventive and repair actions could potentially impact both negative acts and knowledge hoarding by focusing on increasing the social exchange quality at work unit level.

This paper combines two strands of research, that of bullying at work and that of knowledge management, within which research on knowledge hoarding has been an under-researched area.

The purpose of this article is to develop a cross-level, theoretical model describing the process by which interpersonal helping becomes conspicuous, as well as the process by which interpersonal helping subsequently prospers or becomes eradicated in the organization.

A theoretical analysis was performed by drawing upon various management-related theories.

We propose that organizational crises foster the emergence of interpersonal helping. Additionally, the positive relationship between organizational crises and interpersonal helping is stronger (or weaker) when individuals possess higher levels of other-oriented (or self-oriented) motives. Furthermore, we propose that a sympathetic climate at the unit level and employee job crafting at the individual level result in the prosperity of interpersonal helping, whereas interpersonal helping is eradicated by a sarcastic atmosphere at the unit level and citizenship pressure at the individual level.

Theoretically, we advance the literature by providing future research with a theoretical base for understanding interpersonal helping from a temporal and cross-level perspective. Practically, this article offers some managerial recommendations that help managers nurture interpersonal helping in organizations effectively.

This paper aims to investigate how blockchain has moved beyond cryptocurrencies and is being deployed to enhance visibility and trust in supply chains, their limitations and potential impact.

Qualitative analysis are undertaken via case studies drawn from food companies using semi-structured interviews.

Blockchain is demonstrated as an enabler of visibility in supply chains. Applications at scale are most likely for products where the end consumer is prepared to pay the premium currently required to fund the technology, e.g. baby food. Challenges remain in four areas: trust of the technology, human error and fraud at the boundaries, governance, consumer data access and willingness to pay.

The paper shows that blockchain can be utilised as part of a system generating visibility and trust in supply chains. Research directs academic attention to issues that remain to be addressed. The challenges pertaining to the technology itself we believe to be generalisable; those specific to the food industry may not hold elsewhere.

From live case studies, we provide empirical evidence that blockchain provides visibility of exchanges and reliable data in fully digitised supply chains. This provides provenance and guards against counterfeit goods. However, firms will need to work to gain consumer buy-in for the technology following repeated past claims of trustworthiness.

This paper provides primary evidence from blockchain use cases “in the wild”. The exploratory case studies examine application of blockchain for supply chain visibility.

This volume is the outcome of the 33rd European International Business Academy (EIBA) conference held at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Catania (Italy). This conference brought together more than 300 scholars from around the world to discuss theoretical and empirical issues in international business (IB), as well as their consequences and challenges to IB scholars and policy-makers. Organized around 10 thematic tracks, the conference is the annual forum for discussing major research issues in the IB realm. This volume is a collection of the best papers, which, selected through a blind refereeing process for presentation at the conference, make significant contributions by providing fresh new perspectives on a variety of relevant topics.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the combined impact of the ethical environment, organizational trust and workplace optimism on individual performance.

A structural model is theorized and data from 250 individuals working for private organizations were analyzed using partial-least-squares structural equation modeling.

Both the ethical environment and organizational trust positively impact workplace optimism. Of the ethical environment, organizational trust and workplace optimism, only workplace optimism directly impacts individual performance. The impact of the ethical environment and organizational trust on individual performance is indirect through workplace optimism.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study to assess the combined impact of the ethical environment, organizational trust and workplace optimism on individual performance. It is important to conduct similar studies to verify these findings.

An ethical environment and organizational trust foster high levels of workplace optimism that in turn lead to improved employee performance.

The important role that workplace optimism plays within the ethical climate of organizations is theorized and assessed. This is the first empirical assessment of the mediational role of workplace optimism on the established relationships between ethical environment and individual performance, and organizational trust and individual performance.

An employee's willingness to share knowledge may be contingent on whether the organization equitably fulfills its reward obligations. This paper seeks to examine how managers and organizations can be vehicles for managing psychological contract perceptions favoring knowledge sharing among current employees, newcomers, and applicants.

The authors propose an integrative model to discuss psychological contract issues within each stage of employment and HRM initiatives that can encourage knowledge‐sharing behaviors.

The implicit psychological contracts that often influence knowledge worker attitudes for sharing knowledge are easy to overlook and challenging to manage. Managers must properly assess the nature of psychological contracts maintained by such workers so that knowledge‐sharing messages address employees' key motivators. Different psychological contracts exist at various stages of employment. Several prescriptions for effectively managing each type of psychological contract and reducing perceptions of PC breach were offered.

Empirical studies should seek to investigate whether different psychological contracts actually exist within a field setting. In addition, how workers move between transitional, transactional, balanced and relational psychological contracts should be empirically examined.

The authors sought to better understand the different psychological contract perceptions of knowledge workers at various stages of employment, which has not been done to date. Such workers are keenly aware of the impact of their knowledge and effective management for sharing rather than hoarding becomes a critical success factor for knowledge‐intensive organizations.

This chapter explores the adoption and implementation of a conflict management system (CMS) in a hospital setting. In particular, it uncovers the different motivations and challenges associated with a CMS across various stakeholders within the organization.

The chapter is based on qualitative research conducted in a large American hospital that adopted and implemented a CMS over the course of 15 months. The author conducted extensive interviews with stakeholders across the organization, including top management, union leaders, middle managers, clinicians, and frontline staff. Findings are also based on an array of observations, including stakeholder meetings and conflict management sessions.

The case study demonstrates the centrality of underexplored, generalizable, and industry-specific pressures that may lead organizations to reconsider their use of traditional dispute resolution practices and to institute a CMS. It also highlights the inherent organizational ambivalence toward the design and adoption, initiation and implementation, and routine use of a CMS and it documents the different types of outcomes delivered to various stakeholders.

The chapter provides a nuanced portrait of the antecedents to and consequences of the transformation of conflict management within one organization. It contributes to the existing body of research exploring the 30-year rise of alternative dispute resolution and CMSs in a growing proportion of firms in the United States. The use of an in-depth case-study method to examine this CMS experience offers a number of important insights, particularly regarding different stakeholder motivations and outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of discretion and social capital on the relationship between individual perceptions of team conflict and employee-level outcomes. The authors propose that both employee discretion and unit-level social capital influence the negative effects of perceived conflict on employee stress and turnover intentions. They argue that an individual’s perceptions of these central organizational characteristics are likely to alter the consequences associated with conflict and the manner in which individuals respond to it.

This study empirically tests the moderating effects of discretion and unit-level social capital on the relationship between individual’s perception of team conflict and employee-level outcomes. Analysis was conducted with survey data from a sample of health care care providers in 90 units across 20 nursing home organizations. We applied hierarchical linear modeling analyses to test our hypotheses.

Results demonstrate that employee discretion moderates the relationship between perceived task conflict and job stress. Unit-level social capital was shown to moderate the relationship between perceived relationship conflict and employee turnover intentions. Our findings also document a varied moderation effect at low to moderate levels of conflict versus high levels of conflict. This finding suggests that the moderating role of contextual variables is more nuanced and complex than the existing conceptual frameworks acknowledge.

This study contributes to the research on conflict and conflict management by extending a multilevel approach to the effect of conflict and by providing new insights regarding the contextual manner in which conflict affects workplace outcomes.

The effects of discretion and unit-level social capital on how conflict is metabolized by organizations and their members varied. Contextual factors matter differently for different individual level outcomes. In attempting to manage the consequences associated with workplace conflict, organizations and their managers must consider different contextual factors.

This study contributes to the research on conflict and its management in organization by providing new insights regarding the contextual manner in which conflict affects organizational and individual outcomes. This study provides support for the claim that the relational and task-related context under which employees experience conflict affects employee stress levels and the extent to which they report their intentions to leave the organization.