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The present study used the job-demands and resources (JD-R) framework to understand how the training is transferred to an extreme working context through the analysis of job and personal resources (social support from the leader and colleagues and adaptability). Specifically, the authors tested the mediating role of motivation to transfer in the relationship (1) between the perceived support from the supervisor and colleagues and performance after training and (2) between adaptability and performance in an extreme context of the pandemic crisis – the first peak of COVID-19 in Portugal. Further, an inspection of the factors that predicted knowledge transfer and adaptability under an extreme context was carried out.

To do so, necessary training about the new safety rules regarding the pandemic crisis of COVID-19 was implemented in a healthcare institution as a strategy to help healthcare workers deal with the increasing uncertainty and complexity that was threatening their work. It consisted of three sessions (each with one hour of training) regarding procedures, rules and safety norms. The training occurred in May 2020. Overall, 291 healthcare workers participated in the study and answered one online questionnaire one week after training completion.

The results showed that the motivation to transfer had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between colleagues' and supervisors' support and performance and between adaptability and performance. Additionally, complementary analyses showed that the mediations depended on the levels of self-efficacy in such a way that the indirect relationships were stronger when self-efficacy was higher. Thus, adaptability and support, both from colleagues and the supervisor, are determining factors for knowledge transfer and resultant performance in extreme contexts, such as the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Lastly, the results showed that the most significant predictors of transference were self-efficacy and the motivation to transfer the learned knowledge. On the other hand, self-efficacy, peer support and the opportunity to use the knowledge were the most significant predictors of adaptability.

These findings provide support for the role of employee motivation to transfer as a mechanism connecting both perceived support and adaptability to performance outcomes under extreme working contexts.

This study, conducted in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic context – an extreme and uncertain working context – shows the relevance of both job and individual factors to predict employees' adaptability to such contexts.

This study investigates the mediating role of organizational change capacity (OCC) in the relationship between the perception of extreme contexts and firm product and process innovation, which was not empirically investigated in the literature. In addition, this study explores the moderating role of the perception of extreme contexts-related variables, which were not operationalized in ordinary firms, on the relationship between OCC and firm product and process innovation.

A questionnaire-based research was conducted to test the suggested hypotheses. The data were gathered from 90 firms during the peak period of COVID-19.

This study shows that OCC, which covers contexts, process and learning dimensions, fully mediates the relationship between the perception of extreme contexts and firm product and process innovation. Also, this study discovers that the perception of extreme contexts, including temporal ordering of extremity, the magnitude of consequences, proximity among people and operational deficiencies, positively moderate the relationship between OCC and firm product innovation.

This study has constraints inherited in survey design, primarily sampling and country context.

This study identifies, conceptualizes and operationalizes the term extreme context, conceptually argued for particular organizations/units in ordinary/mundane organization settings so far. In addition, this study extends the current understanding of how the perception of extreme contexts interacts with a firm's capability to increase innovation efforts. Further, this study shows how OCC mediates the relationship between extreme contexts and firm product and process innovation.

The present article analyses extreme context studies published in leading project management journals with the aim of developing a time-based typology that could be of value for the project community at large.

In this study, the authors reviewed 62 articles on extreme contexts published in three main project management journals (IJMPB, PMJ and IJPM) and two specialized outlets Disaster Prevention and Management (DPM) and International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment (IJDRBE).

The authors present a typology, in which emergency, risky and disrupted (RED) contexts are related to the manageability of time. It shows that when pressure rises, due to high levels of urgency, uncertainty and ambiguity, control over time decreases, causing the organizational response to shift from formalized into improvised.

Based on this review, the authors theorize the influence of extreme contexts on project management in general.

The study responds to the scholarly call to advance the academic debate on the relatedness of project and temporary organizations by perceiving temporality as a continuum.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the body of knowledge of authentic leadership in extreme contexts by developing a framework grounded in the Sartrean existentialist perspective on authenticity and illustrating this framework using the works of Xenophon.

The authors use Sartre’s existential view of authenticity to develop a framework of authentic leadership in extreme contexts. They then use this framework to examine Xenophon’s recount of the retreat of the 10,000 in the classic work, Anabasis. For this analysis, the authors iterate between the ideas of the past and the concepts of the present to understand how this classic has influenced and informed the current body of knowledge about leadership.

Using a Sartrean existentialist lens, “in extremis” authentic leaders exhibit an awareness of context extremity, responsibility in leading and following to share risks in extreme contexts and self-determination that inspires mutual trust and loyalty.

A Sartrean existentialist perspective suggests that authentic leaders in extreme contexts reflect authenticity by exhibiting and encouraging freedom of choice. By espousing this perspective, authentic leaders create common goals and interests that appeal to followers' intrinsic motivation which has been found to result in positive individual and organizational outcomes.

This paper contributes to the authentic leadership literature by using an existential conceptualization of authenticity to examine leadership in extreme contexts. This conceptualization might be more appropriate than the Aristotelian virtue-based deterministic philosophy that has dominated authentic leadership research.

This paper aims to specifically analyse the extent to which talent management practices in the post-COVID-19 era differ from those before the pandemic in the extreme work context of Egyptian hospitality sector.

The study uses an exploratory qualitative research approach where semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 full-time employees working at hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt). Moreover, thematic analysis was undertaken on the interview transcripts.

The findings revealed that in the post-COVID-19 era, the case hotels exclusively use the inclusive talent management approach, in which all staff are recognised by the management as talents with the same workplace privileges. This approach helped to mitigate the negative influences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the findings highlighted the criticality of competencies such as multitasking along with in hospitality sector employees in relation to extreme context necessitated by COVID-19. The findings further established that when facing extreme events, such as COVID-19, a shift in training activities towards activating positive mental health and effective shock management among employees is also needed. This study found that organisational support and continuous learning play a vital role in individual employees’ resilience development, which also helped in retaining them.

This paper is one of the pioneering empirical studies on the relationship between talent management practices in extreme contexts and the influences of global disruptions resulting from COVID-19. Moreover, it is one of the few studies to specifically undertake a comparative assessment of the differences in talent management practices pre- and post-COVID-19 time period in the hospitality sector. The study findings contribute to multiple literature streams including extreme context, hospitality, human resource management and transaction stress model.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how male and female leaders define effective leadership in an extreme context.

The authors conducted in-depth interviews with leaders working in an extreme context (a matched sample of female and male Majors and Colonels in the Canadian Armed Forces) and analysed military training materials.

In the military, male and female leadership looks much more similar than might be expected. Further, surprisingly this is not occurring because women are leading in more masculine ways, but rather the opposite; men are leading in more feminine ways.

There is a need for organizations to recognize and acknowledge the role of feminine leadership behaviours. This may also give women a better opportunity to succeed in these types of leadership roles.

This study contributes to the leadership literature by furthering our understanding of the boundary conditions for transformational leadership in relation to gender stereotypes, situational strength, and social identity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of leader potential in an extreme context – it develops and tests a model that describes how subordinate perceptions of individual-focused transformational leadership, subordinate trust in the leader and subordinate identification with the team influence supervisory evaluations of subordinate crisis leader potential.

Surveys were administered to emergency services personnel and their supervisors working in a large fire rescue organization in the Southeastern USA. Survey responses were analyzed using hierarchical regression.

Results support the theoretical model – subordinates reporting high levels of trust in their transformational leader were evaluated by their supervisors as having stronger potential to become crisis leaders. Lower levels of subordinate identification with the team strengthened the transformational leadership to trust association and the indirect effect of perceived transformational leadership on supervisory evaluations of subordinate crisis leader potential (through subordinate trust in the leader).

Supervisors who are viewed as transformational and fostering trusting relationships by subordinates are more likely to evaluate subordinates as having the potential to lead in crisis situations. In an extreme context within an organization facing change, subordinates who identify less with their team might build a more trusting relationship with a leader who is perceived as demonstrating transformational behaviors.

Subordinate focus on the leader appears to enhance supervisory evaluations of subordinate potential (for leader development) in the study. Individual-level rewards for employees that involve competition might counter efforts toward shared mental models and remain the greatest challenge in the public emergency services setting.

Evaluating leader development, in terms of crisis leader potential, in an extreme context using a process model – to understand the interplay of individual-focused transformational leadership and trust given the moderating effect of team identification – is a key strength of the current study.

The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which teamwork (developed either during an initial training phase or during a subsequent deployment phase) is influenced by the nature of the team’s environment (extreme vs non-extreme) and the extent to which teamwork is one of the explaining mechanisms for team performance.

Data was collected from 60 teams at 2 time-points: training phase in The Netherlands or Germany and deployment phase (in locations such as Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina).

This study’s results indicate that when teams consider working in extreme environments, they develop higher levels of teamwork as compared to teams expecting to work in non-extreme environments. These differences remain stable also during the deployment phase, such that teams operating in extreme environments will continue to have higher levels of teamwork as compared to teams operating in non-extreme environments.

With this study, the authors contribute to the teamwork quality research stream by empirically studying how teamwork quality develops in unique military contexts such as extreme environments. Studies in such contexts are relatively rare.

This study extends the concept of managerial efficacy to include managerial means efficacy (MME) attributed to the utility and quality of means external to managers for performing a task. Focusing on its antecedents, the authors theorize and empirically test MME sourced from the organization (MMEO) and situate the examination under extreme events.

This study uses a 2016 national survey of 892 top managers in 273 US largest transit agencies covering 82% of the entire population. Participants report their confidence for their organization to perform effectively under various extreme events. The survey data are matched with data from various institutional data sources to capture organizational characteristics, operations and experience with extreme events.

Findings suggest that organizational-level factors influence MMEO. Specifically, organizational slack and relationship management of key jurisdictional stakeholders positively predict MMEO, whereas political fragmentation is negatively associated with MMEO.

Organizations can bolster MMEO, hence, managerial efficacy through developing organizational slack and engaging in relationships building with jurisdictional stakeholders. Those initiatives have particular importance for those with boundary-spanning service areas.

The study advances understanding of managerial efficacy by directing attention to means external to managers' self. It also brings clarity to the notion of “confident managers” or “managerial confidence” broadly applied in previous studies. Findings provide insights about capacity-building interventions to build managerial efficacy through improving external means, circumventing the need to alter self-efficacy that is typically stable and resistant to change.

The role of creativity in marketing has great importance. In this chapter, the authors discuss the role of creativity in the sports context. The authors discuss creativity and then move onto the various contexts in sports that could be covered. This looks at the worlds of traditional and extreme sports along with a brief exploration of the burgeoning area of esports. The authors then draw from some creative principles that are worth keeping in mind before moving onto future areas that could be covered. The authors hope that this will be useful for practitioners and researchers who are interested in not just creativity, but also the exciting opportunities in sports. In short, the authors hope this provides inspiration for those wishing to explore these areas further. Creativity is a powerful thing, and sport is an area full of potential. As such, the authors believe that these two are a pairing worth exploring more.