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After deciding to become agile, many information technology (IT) units struggle; they underestimate the needed managerial expertise to alter their current culture toward an agile one, particularly when cross-cultural (f)actors are involved. Given that work values are the key to an organizational culture, the study derived a set of agile work values of culturally diverse IT professionals together with a set of well-known generic work values. Consequently, the authors illustrate that managers in charge of the transition to an effective agile culture must pay serious attention to the specific value constellations of its often highly diverse workforce.

A literature review resulted in an initial list of agile work values. Then, mainly through a Delphi round, 12 agile-specific work values were established. These were survey rated, along with the validated set of 18 generic work values, by 102 British and Indian IT professionals in a digital service and consulting firm that was requested by its client to become agile. The observations made in 14 feedback group-interview-type dialogs enriched the surveyed data further.

In the current exploratory study, four generic value dimensions were complemented by two agile-specific ones: team communication and shared responsibility. Among the British and Indian (on-site and offshore) workers, only 2 of the 30 current work values were shared while 7 significant value differences were found, explaining the noted employee bitterness, productivity losses and client disengagement. This situation was reflected in the many discrepancies between the professionals' ideal agile way of working and how their unit was currently functioning.

The multi-method study shows an over-optimistic approach to becoming agile in a common cross-cultural context; insights are gained on how to optimize agile ways of organizing IT work when British IT workers collaborate with Indian IT workers. It may benefit many agile practitioners and managers working with(in) cross-culturally mixed and partly remote teams.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss relationships between transformational leadership and job crafting. Using the job demands-resource (JD-R) theory, this study investigates the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between transformational leadership and job crafting. The author has also tested the moderating roles of personal values.

This study is based on data from 450 knowledge workers representing companies of various sizes from the knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) sector in Poland. The questionnaires were completed using the computer-assisted telephone interview method. The statistical verification of the mediation and moderation analyses was conducted using macro PROCESS (ver. 3.3).

The findings show that transformational leadership was positively related to job crafting. Statistical analysis also confirmed the research hypothesis that as a personal resource, self-enhancement values moderate relationships between transformational leadership and work engagement, thus strengthening them. The study integrated research on leadership and personal and organisational resources to examine the collective impact of these variables on employee job crafting.

The study is the first to explore the mediating mechanism (through work engagement) between transformational leadership and job crafting in the context of KIBS companies in Poland.

This study aims to integrate social identity and leader–member exchange (LMX) theory to investigate the processes and boundary conditions around LMX–performance relationships. Through the application of two leader–follower subsamples, the authors test three main objectives. What is the effect of multi-dimensional dyad value-congruence on LMX and how does congruence on these dimensions differentially influence leader and follower perceptions of LMX? In a subsample of followers including supervisor-rated performance, the authors develop a model that examines how individual values moderate the effect of dyad contact on supervisor-rated job performance mediated by follower LMX.

The participants for this study include graduate and undergraduate social work students who were taking part in a one-year work placement within a social work organization as well as their immediate supervisors. Across a four-month period, participants filled out measures of their supervisor contact, work values and LMX. Supervisor-rated performance was also included.

Findings from the dyadic subsample show that growth value congruence is a predictor of follower-rated LMX, with value congruence across all values having no effect on leader-rated LMX. Within a subsample of followers, findings suggest that follower-rated LMX mediates the relationship between dyad contact and supervisor-rated job performance, with individual work values moderating this effect.

The current study offers several contributions to the literature on LMX and job performance. First, in this study’s dyadic leader–follower sample, the authors extend propositions made by social identity theory around value congruence and LMX by offering support for a multi-dimensional and multi-target approach to questions of values and LMX. Second, within this study’s larger non-dyadic sample, the authors offer insights into previous conflicting findings around dyad contact and LMX, by offering support for the indirect effect of dyad contact on supervisor-rated performance via LMX. Third, within this second sample, the authors also extend the literature on values and LMX to show that the process through which LMX influences job performance is dependent on follower values.

This study aims to investigate the associations among decent work (DW), capabilities and the flourishing of employees in a South African context.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a convenience sample (N = 436) of early childhood development practitioners from two South African provinces. A demographic questionnaire, the Decent Work Scale, the Capability Set for Work Questionnaire and the Flourishing-at-Work Scale were administered.

Latent class analysis showed four capability sets: robust, relational, knowledge/skills and weak capability sets. Employees with a robust capability set were more inclined to report DW than those with knowledge/skills and weak capability sets. Employees with a weak capability set were significantly less inclined to report organisational values that complement family and social values than the other three capability sets. Employees with a robust capability set reported significantly higher emotional well-being (EWB), psychological well-being (PWB) and social well-being (SWB) levels than those with relational, knowledge/skills and weak capability sets. DW was significantly related to EWB, PWB and SWB.

This study contributes to the literature regarding DW, capabilities and flourishing of employees in a non-western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic and non-POSH context. The study highlights the need for well-being policies that focus on DW and the capabilities of people in disadvantaged positions. These together would strengthen their agency for converting capabilities into well-being.

Why are some lean workfloor teams able to improve their already high performance, over time, and others not? By studying teams' and leaders' behaviour-value patterns, this abductive field study uncovers a dynamic capability at the team level.

Various methods were employed over three consecutive years to thoroughly examine five initially high-performing lean workfloor teams, including their leaders. These methods encompassed micro-behavioural coding of 59 h of film footage, surveys, individual and group interviews, participant observation and archival data, involving objective and perceptual team-performance indicators. Two of the five teams continued to improve and perform highly.

Continuously improving high lean team performance is found to be associated with (1) team behaviours such as frequent performance monitoring, information sharing, peer support and process improvement; (2) team leaders who balance, over time, task- and relations-oriented behaviours; (3) higher-level leaders who keep offering the team face-to-face support, strategic clarity and tangible resources; (4) these three actors' endorsement of self-transcendence and openness-to-change work values and alignment, over time, with their behaviours; and (5) coactive vicarious learning-by-doing as a “stable collective activity pattern” among team, team leader, and higher-level leadership.

Since lean has been undertheorised, the authors invoked insights from organisational behaviour and management theories, in combination with various fine- and coarse-grained data, over time. The authors uncovered actors' behaviour-value patterns and a collective learning-by-doing pattern that may explain continuous lean team performance improvement. Four theory-enriching propositions were developed and visualised in a refined model which may already benefit lean practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore existing and desired methodologies for systematic quality work to promote quality in preschools from the principal’s perspective.

A collaborative approach was used in this research project, and principals were asked to complete portfolio assignments. Their answers to those portfolio assignments were analysed by the research team and subsequently compared to total quality management values.

Existing and desired methodologies for systematic quality work are presented and sorted into 13 and 17 groups, respectively. The principals desire four times more methodologies than they are presently using to promote systematic quality work, and the results show that they must extend their methodologies to support TQM values.

This research is based on answers collected from 18 principals in one municipality in Sweden.

The use of the cornerstone model provides a framework to illustrate the application of TQM in preschools.

Principals struggle to find time for systemic quality work. The presented results can be used to work systematically with quality in preschools and other organizations.

As the global presence of Chinese firms grows, increasing numbers of Chinese managers are working abroad as expatriates. However, little attention has been paid to such Chinese expatriate managers and their leadership challenges in an inter-cultural context, especially across a large cultural distance. To fill the gap in the literature concerning the leadership challenges for expatriate managers in an inter-cultural context, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the leadership styles of Chinese expatriate managers from the perspectives of three traditional Chinese philosophies (i.e. Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism) in the inter-cultural context of the Netherlands.

The data for this qualitative study were collected via semi-structured, open-ended, narrative interviews with 30 Chinese expatriate managers in the Netherlands.

The results clearly show that the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is deeply rooted in the three traditional Chinese philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism, even in an inter-cultural context. Specifically, the study reveals two salient aspects of how Chinese expatriate managers frame and interact with a foreign cultural context from the perspectives of traditional Chinese philosophies. First, the Chinese expatriate managers reported an initial cultural shock related to frictions between the foreign cultural context and Confucianism or Taoism, but less so in the case of Legalism. Second, the Chinese expatriate managers also reported that their interactions with the Dutch culture are best described as a balance between partial conflict and partial complementarity (thus, a duality). In this sense, the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is influenced jointly by the three traditional Chinese philosophies and certain elements of the foreign cultural context. This is consistent with the Chinese perspective of yin-yang balancing.

This study is among the first to offer a more nuanced and highly contextualized understanding of leadership in the unique case of expatriate managers from an emerging market (e.g. China) in an advanced economy (e.g. the Netherlands). The authors call for more research to apply the unique perspective of yin-yang balancing in an inter-cultural context. The authors posit that this approach represents the most salient implication of this study. For practical implications, the authors argue that expatriate leaders should carefully manage the interplay between their deep-rooted home-country philosophies and their salient host-country culture. Reflecting on traditional philosophies in another culture can facilitate inter-cultural leadership training for Chinese expatriates.

This paper aims to examine employees’ evaluative repertoires of tourism and hospitality jobs and segments them based on a set of job attribute preferences. Understanding the social–cultural underpinnings of employees’ job preferences is vital if employers are to overcome the challenging task of finding and retaining talented employees in the tourism and hospitality industry.

A discrete-choice experiment with waiters, barkeepers, cooks and front-desk employees working in the Tyrolean tourism industry was conducted. Employees were categorized into distinct segments using a hierarchical Bayesian analysis and a cluster analysis.

Results show that flexible working hours and the ability to balance professional and private aspirations are the most important job attributes for employees. Overall, the evaluative repertoires of the “green” and “domestic (family)” conventions are most prevalent.

This study contributes to literature on talent management by providing insights into employees’ evaluations of jobs and their evaluative repertoires embedded in the broader social–cultural context.

Industry representatives and employers can adapt their recruiting and retention strategies based on employees’ job preferences.

Adapting job attributes according to employees’ evaluative repertoires helps to ensure the long-term sustainability of the industry workforce.

Applying the Economics of Convention (EC) perspective, combining organizational job attributes and socially embedded evaluative repertoires provides a new approach to analysing and understanding employees’ job preferences.

Building on the resource-based view (RBV) and the theory of other orientation, this study aims to examine the association between Islamic work ethics (IWEs) and organizational performance highlighting the role of employee relations climate as an underlying mechanism.

Data were collected from 239 employees working in diverse sectors in the state of Qatar. Structural equation modeling of partial least squares was used to analyze the data of the study.

The results suggest that IWEs positively impact organizational performance and employee relations climate. Furthermore, employee relations climate demonstrated to play a mediating role in the IWEs-organizational performance link.

The study can be used by administrators pertaining to the importance of IWE and employee relations climate to cultivate higher organizational outcomes such as organizational performance.

This research is distinctive as it examines the connection between IWEs and organizational performance in Qatar, a country where the influence of Islamic values and beliefs on work ethics is profound. In addition, the research sheds light on a topic that has received little attention in the literature: the significance of the workplace climate in determining how IWEs affect organizational performance. Finally, the research integrates two important theoretical frameworks, the RBV and the theory of other orientation, to create a comprehensive model that explains the complex relationship between IWEs, employee relations climate and organizational performance.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine hospitality and tourism undergraduate students' attitudes to work and career expectations as they prepare to enter the workforce in the hospitality industry in both the United States and South Korea.

The measurement instrument was developed from previous studies (Chen and Shen, 2012; Kong, 2013) and included questions related to job attitudes, job satisfaction, job motivations, job involvement, and career expectations and aspirations upon graduation. T-tests were conducted first for the mean values of the constructs between the United States and South Korea to ensure the comparison of two different cultural groups.

First, students from the United States (US) have more and better work attitude than those students from South Korea. Second, students from South Korea appear to be less motivated to work and less satisfied with their current jobs and earnings than students from the US. Third, the results also have managerial implications for both countries. It is very important to know that higher grade point average is not an answer to find the right person but more likely, positive attitudes to work and higher levels of job involvement are more likely to have higher job expectations and aspirations for employment in the industry.

This study adds to the hospitality literature by examining the different perspectives of hospitality and tourism undergraduate students from the US and South Korea, specifically examining their attitudes toward work, job satisfaction, work involvement and job expectations as they prepare for careers in the industry. The results of this study help stakeholders (i.e. students, educators and practitioners) in the hospitality and tourism industry gain a better understanding of their undergraduate students as they prepare for careers in the industry. In addition, the study contributed to understanding cultural differences present among hospitality and tourism students from individualist and collectivist cultures.