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Digital transformations of business processes are on the rise and the result is a need for a better understanding of how the elements of intellectual capital (IC) play a role in achieving successful digital project outcomes. New structural capital in the form of digital technologies must be identified and understood. Evolving skills of human capital in assimilating digital elements must also be considered, while collaboration within the development process involving relational capital provides a critical integration among these IC elements. This study illustrates the importance of identifying and managing the integration of IC components within an agile project management framework that are essential to achieving success for a digital initiative. More specifically, this study describes the process by which a multinational technology-based products company successfully developed a dynamic decision support platform utilizing an agile approach to guide a project management team to better manage the company's operations.

This study focuses on a case analysis approach of a multinational commercial and consumer products company. The paper presents existing research on the evolving state of project management for digital initiatives and focuses on agile methods. This study then delves into the case analysis that illustrates how IC played an integral role in the company successfully developing effective decision support involving an interactive dashboard using agile Project Management (PM), which enabled the project management team to better manage resources.

An examination at the case level illustrates that effective management and integration of IC has positive effects on project outcomes. While a balanced approach is evident as a requirement, the unique characteristics of the agile project management approach entails greater emphasis on select elements to adapt to a more dynamic development process.

This work depicts the complexities in providing analytic-based decision support in an agile/flexible project management scenario. This work adds to existing research by illustrating elements within IC categories and the elements' interdependencies that play an essential role in achieving success in this more flexible project environment.

This study aims to analyse the influence of digitalisation on the management control function of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular, it aims to illuminate how digitalisation influences management control elements, organisation and roles/competencies and to identify obstacles to digitalisation of management control in SMEs and measures taken to overcome them.

The study is based on guideline-supported expert interviews conducted with 14 financial managers from SMEs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

This study reveals the influence of digitalisation on management control elements, organisation, and roles/competencies. The automation and standardisation of management control processes result in new elements for management control, such as strategic support for management. In addition, the increased availability and transparency of data enable the use of instruments within a company that allow for quick analyses of the company's development. Digitalisation leads to the integration of management control into the corporate network and, thus, a change in the organisation of management control. It also triggers the expansion of management control competencies, especially IT competencies. A shortage of internal digitalisation resources, unclear corporate roadmaps, and a lack of managerial experience loom as central challenges for digitalising the management control function. Measures derived from the interviews can help SMEs overcome the obstacles to the digitalisation of management control.

This research is the first interview-based study of the impact of digitalisation on management control in SMEs, potential obstacles to that digitalisation, and measures to overcome those obstacles. Thus, it contributes to the emerging debate on factors that may explain why SMEs lag in terms of the digitalisation of their internal processes.

The purpose of the paper is to afford a comprehensive conceptualization and operationalization of the construct of talent management through an inclusive exploration of conceptual clarifications for existing confusions while developing a complete measuring instrument.

The archival method was adopted together with a systematic review based on Khan et al.’s (2003) five steps of systematic literature review. The systematic review has encircled published research articles between 1982 and 2023 in the human resource management (HRM) arena. A total of 130 articles were initially scrutinized, and 106 were systematically reviewed to conceptualize, operationalize and explore clarifications for confusions and instrument development for talent management.

This study explored conceptual clarifications for existing confusions towards talent management while recognizing definitions that come under the main philosophical schools for the underlying concept of talent. A novel practical definition has been established for talent management while recognizing dimensions, and then certain elements. A comprehensive instrument has been developed to measure talent management.

This study is limited to instrument development in measuring talent management; nevertheless, there is an enormous scope for using the instrument to empirically measure talent management through organizational and employees perspectives linked to diverse global contexts in future studies.

The developed comprehensive instrument is a vibrant contribution to future investigations related to empirically measuring talent management associated with organizational and employee perspectives related to diverse global contexts in winning “war for talent.” This study endows a significant input to the whole frame of HRM knowledge as it resolves existing conceptual ambiguities towards talent management while defining and operationalizing it.

In 2016, the ISO/TS 16949 quality management standard for the automotive industry evolved to IATF 16949. The update brought new requirements that need to be analyzed before being implemented in organizations. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to propose guidelines to assist organizations in the automotive sector in the implementation of the elements added in the update to the IATF 16949 standard.

To fulfill this objective, the identification and analysis of the elements added in the evolution from ISO/TS 16949 to IATF 16949 was carried out, and four case studies were conducted in Brazilian automotive companies.

The main elements added to IATF 16949 with the update of the standard are the use of process failure mode effects analysis (PFMEA) for risk analysis; the development of a communication channel for employees to report cases of misconduct and non-conformities; procedures for controlling repaired/reworked products and temporary changes; and the inclusion of autonomous maintenance for the full implementation of total productive maintenance (TPM).

The main practical implication/contribution of the research is the proposed guidelines, which can support managers and automotive companies that want to implement, or will go through, the IATF certification process. The article's originality lies in the combination of a theoretical framework and case study analyses to develop the guidelines.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three core elements of critical management studies (CMSs), “de-naturalisation”, “reflexivity” and “(non)-performative intent”, can help expand the current debate in the supply chain management (SCM) field.

The authors used a systematic literature review to select 103 articles published in 12 high-ranking journals in the SCM field based on the Academic Journal Guide of the Chartered Association of Business Schools.

The findings of this study suggest that SCM studies can be narrowed down into four major CMSs themes: “power”, “ethics and environmental issues”, “diversity” and “working conditions”, but even these themes are still under-discussed and undertheorized in SCM. The literature the authors reviewed is more concerned with explaining these phenomena than questioning them and proposing new agendas. This paper, therefore, will discuss how these three core elements of CMS can help transform the “hidden” issues of SCM, which it will do by illustrating it in the context of buyer–supplier relationships and lean manufacturing.

This research will encourage SCM scholars who are interested in conducting more critical studies and teaching the harmful effects of global supply chains.

This paper highlights that a combination of SCM and CMS approaches is important when we decide to adopt a more critical “constructive” view of supply chain challenges and engage practical and critical views, respectively, to generate knowledge that not only increases (corporate) performance but also highlights social needs and values.

Traditional approaches to organizational performance management that emphasize objectivity, control and predictability are rapidly losing relevance in an environment characterized by increasing levels of complexity and dynamism. This paper draws on complexity theory to suggest a new paradigm for managing performance in organizations.

The paper draws on the common features of complex systems and the corresponding concept of emergence to revisit key themes in organizational performance management and propose a set of implications for research and practice.

Understanding organizations as complex systems and performance as an emergent property of such systems leads to a set of new research questions, the adoption of alternative methods and the formulation of novel propositions. It also has various implications for both academic research and managerial practice, from moving away from the traditional notion of organizational alignment to adopting a more explicit stakeholder-based view in the design and use of measurement systems.

The paper highlights the great potential of complexity theory for addressing contemporary issues in the field of organizational performance management and charting the landscape for its future development.

The conceptual foundations of performance measurement and management (PMM) are predominantly rooted in control systems research. However, the appropriateness of this paradigm for volatile and uncertain environments has been questioned. This paper explores whether grounding PMM in social systems theory and viewing uncertainty from an organisational behaviour perspective provides new insights into the PMM theory–practice gap.

A framework, rooted in social systems theory and practice theory, is created that describes how organisational behaviour shapes the social processes associated with organisational change. Semi-structured interviews of 35 people from 16 organisations coupled with thematic analysis are employed to identify the organisational behavioural characteristics that influence how PMM is executed in practice. PMM is then reconceptualised from the perspective of this social systems-based framework.

This investigation proposes (1) performance management is concerned with elements of PMM-related practices open to flexible interpretation by human agents that change the effectiveness of organisational practices, whereas performance measurement is concerned with elements of PMM-related practices not open to interpretation but deliberately reproduced to provide a consistent comparison with the past; (2) the purpose of PMM should be to achieve organisational effectiveness (OE) and (3) the mechanisms underlying performance management and performance measurement are social intervention and embeddedness, respectively.

This first social systems perspective of PMM advances the development of PMM's theoretical foundations by providing a behaviour-based interpretation of, and framework for, PMM-mediated organisational change. This competing approach has strong links to practice.

COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements and adapt their ways of working. Yet, we know little about how management control might be enacted in the future of the sustainable workplace. The objective of the study is to examine the patterns of management control change in the Big 4 accounting firms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adopting an exploratory qualitative research design, the authors draw on 42 interviews with directors and associates in the Big 4 professional services firms.

The findings reveal two pathways of management control change including alignment and displacement. The authors found that relatively minor adaptions to action and result controls were relied upon to respond to substantial cultural and personnel control changes.

The contributions are threefold: the authors take a temporal perspective to (1) unpack the changes to management control arrangements; (2) theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways encompassing pace, scope and longevity of management control change and (3) contextualise management control arrangements in a hybrid work setting.

1. COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements.

2. Literature has focused on traditional, onsite work settings and largely ignored change pathways.

3. The authors take a temporal perspective to unpack changes to management control arrangements.

4. Big 4 firms adapted to hybrid work with substantial changes to personnel and cultural controls.

5. The authors theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways.

COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements.

Literature has focused on traditional, onsite work settings and largely ignored change pathways.

The authors take a temporal perspective to unpack changes to management control arrangements.

Big 4 firms adapted to hybrid work with substantial changes to personnel and cultural controls.

The authors theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways.

Lean management tools are becoming increasingly applied in different types of organizations around the world. These tools have shown their significant contribution to improving business performance. In this vein, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of lean management on both occupational safety and operational excellence in Tunisian companies.

A survey was conducted among Tunisian companies, and it resulted in the collection of 62 responses that were analyzed using the software SPSS. In addition, a conceptual model linking the practices of the three basic concepts was designed to highlight the hypotheses of the research. Subsequently, factor analysis and structural equation method analysis were conducted to assess the validation of the assumptions.

The results obtained have shown that lean management has a significant impact on occupational safety. Similarly, occupational safety has a significant impact on operational excellence. However, lean management does not have a significant impact on operational excellence.

This work highlighted the involvement of small and medium-sized enterprise’s managers from emerging economies in the studied concepts’ practices. Likewise, it testified to the impacts of lean management on occupational safety and operational excellence in the Tunisian context.

Agile project management methods are on the rise compared to linear approaches. The demand for the demonstrable resilience of enterprise processes is likewise strongly increasing in many domains. This paper explores the potential contribution of agility within the domain of agile project management to the resilience of the operating model of an organization.

The article builds upon case studies and semi-structured interviews at selected larger Danish enterprises.

Responding to disruptions favors adaptive and flexible approaches, which are more achievable with agile methods. By exploring the patterns of agility and resilience throughout case studies, the authors derive at a 7-step approach for considering the potentials of agility to ensure the resilience of the operating model from the top level of leadership to the foundational level of technology.

This article seeks to contribute to a more profound understanding of the impact, potential and actionability of agile project management in the light of operational resilience.

It is demonstrated that agile methods are attractive for ensuring the constitutive elements of the resilience of the operating model in terms of conscious contingencies and choices involving (rapid) changes.

During the COVID-19 period, agility has been a key instrument in ensuring business survival, e.g. by switching markets, products or sales channels.

Agility has the potential to build a strategic dimension of resilience, a synergistic relationship, which is linked to the responsiveness of an organization to change promptly, with a view toward renewal and transformation.