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The purpose of this paper is to examine the significant contributions of Lillian M. Gilbreth through the lens of critical biography to put her work in the context of her life events, her key roles, the turning points in her life and the societal context within which her contributions to management thought were made.

Critical biography examines the interaction of a person’s life events with the social, economic and political contexts surrounding his or her life and draws inferences as to why the person made specific decisions and contributions.

Key contributions to management thought made by Lillian M. Gilbreth are linked to her biographical events, including the multiple roles she played as daughter, student, wife, mother, author, engineer, psychologist, breadwinner, domestic scientist and teacher. Various turning points in her life are identified, including being allowed to go to college, taking her first psychology course, marrying Frank Gilbreth, publishing Fatigue Studies and Frank’s death. Key societal factors that influenced Gilbreth’s contributions were the growing interest in scientific management, the status of women and the increased interest in domestic science.

The qualitative technique of critical biography is demonstrated as a useful methodology for examining individual contributions to management history. The authors acknowledge the limitation of subjective interpretation.

The reasons behind Lillian Gilbreth’s contributions, which were considered a precursor to the human relations era, are extrapolated from this research.

The influence of social context is examined, as it pertains to the life and work of Lillian Gilbreth.

This paper provides a critical biography of Lillian M. Gilbreth and her work within the context of her life and times.

A characteristic of agile organizations is the development of innovative products and processes. It has been shown that a key factor of success in managing innovative projects is the existence of key persons. Empirical studies on innovation management show that key persons who are able to overcome existing innovation barriers play a decisive role for innovation success. The basic theoretical concepts behind these findings are the “gatekeeper concept” and the “promotor model”. The two concepts are compared under a static and a dynamic perspective. It will be shown that under a dynamic view, one can combine the gatekeeper concept and the promotor model to a powerful management concept for supporting agility in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to take a look at significant contributions of Follett through the lens of critical biography to put her work in the context of her life events, her mentors, and the other major influences on her work.

Critical biography is a qualitative method with which social historians research the individual scholar's or practitioner's critical incidents in life in order to explore and explain the subject's scholarly development and intellectual contributions, situated in the social and historical background of the subject.

Key theoretical contributions of Mary Parker Follett, which seemed ahead of her time and inexplicable given that she did not work in the private sector, are revealed to be linked to her educational, professional and personal experiences.

Qualitative research in general and critical biography in particular are demonstrated to be the useful methods for providing context for management history. The limitation of author interpretation is recognized.

The current usefulness of Follett's ideas are demonstrated and a case is made for increasing management history coverage in today's business schools.

The paper offers a critical biography of Mary Parker Follett and provides a historical, social and political context for the evolution of her work.

While the gap between economic theory and companies’ practice, regarding to the pricing setting, has been extensively explored and explained, the new gap between the marketing normative view and companies’ practice needs further clarification. In this way, the paper aims to investigate whether marketing researchers’ claim that the use of cost-based price approach prevails over the use of value-based price approach is pertinent.

The paper is guided by the following research question: “Does price-setting based on cost plus margin go against the value-based price approach?” The answer to this question is grounded in reflections on results of previous research studies and in a case study conducted in an industrial company. Because of the qualitative focus of the present study, hypotheses are not established, but rather the following proposition: certain companies use the mechanics of cost plus margin in the sale price-setting process, but it does not necessarily mean that these companies set prices based on cost.

The arguments, propositions and the case study findings provide the logical sequence and the support required to conclude that price-setting based on cost plus margin does not always conflict with the value-based price approach. As a result, it may be claimed that the general proposition established is theoretically valid, i.e. using a price formula that contains the elements cost and margin does not necessarily mean that the company sets prices based on cost.

The key contribution of this paper is demonstrating that in certain business environments, such as, B2B, using the price formation mechanics based on cost plus margin is the way found by companies to enable the approach adopted. The approach may be cost-based or value-based price. This is the first study that explicitly reveals how B2B companies may set prices based on value while simultaneously preserving the simplicity of cost plus margin formulas. Researchers have significant misconceptions about these formulas: in previous studies, they classified all price-making companies as those adopting the cost-based price approach simply because they used formulas containing the element cost.

As a crucial soft skill for achieving project success, emotional intelligence (EI) remains an interesting, relevant and emerging research area which requires more researches in the construction industry. This study presents a review of existing studies on EI in the construction industry.

A search of literature was conducted in the Scopus academic database leading to a retrieval of 146 articles. All the articles were subjected to content analysis where 48 articles were accepted to address the research objectives.

The outcome revealed the topmost critical competencies in EI for construction professionals include: strong assertiveness with firmness in decision-making, strong leadership abilities, coherent team-building traits, strong conflict resolution and high self-control amid provocation. Further, the key contributions of EI to the construction industry were discovered as: increased personal and project performance, inspired leadership, built capacity against stress, improved communication skills and increased confidence within project practitioners.

The study contributes to the stimulation of an in-depth knowledge in managing construction professionals, the society and further studies in this research area.

Critical EI competencies of the key stakeholders of the construction projects are provided to guide practice to improve project successes.

This study aims to explore the motivations and business ideation processes of 776 entrepreneurs from three diverse cohorts of technology, youth and arts entrepreneurs.

Using an inductive approach inspired by grounded theory, observations resultant from the use of a Web-based digital test environment are openly coded, in which 776 individual entrepreneurs have stated their objectives for engaging in entrepreneurship and performed a business ideation process.

The study inductively derives a typology of objectives types – “GET GIVE MAKE LIVE” – and finds that beyond the pursuit of profitable opportunities, there is considerable variation, complexity and combinations to the reasons why individuals engage in entrepreneurship. A total of 76 percent of the population in this study have more than one objective, with 48% having more than one type of objective. While the arts entrepreneurs tended to engage in entrepreneurship to “LIVE” and the tech entrepreneurs were more inclined to “GET,” the most frequently observed objective type in all cohorts was to “MAKE.” A total of 74 percent of the entrepreneurs took an effectual approach and began defining their business idea with their core competency, yet technology entrepreneurs were the most likely to start by defining their key market.

Entrepreneurship educators, trainers and helpers should refrain from a standardized approach which assumes that entrepreneurs share the same set of singular motivations. Interventions might benefit from a student-centered program which promotes reflection and articulation of the entrepreneurs’ objectives and their diversity.

This study answers the call for research to embrace entrepreneurial diversity and compliment previous explorations of entrepreneurs’ motivations through an empirically grounded study of three diverse cohorts of entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this study is to assess the key determinants of sustainability practices and policy adoption in small- and medium-sized tourism accommodation firms and its possible impact on the firm’s competitive advantages.

A combined model has been developed and tested with a set of relevant hypotheses based on primary data collected from tourism firm’s owners and personnel. Structural equation modeling has been used to test and validate the hypotheses.

The key results indicate that collaboration and innovation of tourism firms, employee culture, technological infrastructure, tourism intermediary’s sustainability practices and top management support have a significant impact on sustainability practices adoption, whereas government sustainable tourism policy and local’s attitude toward sustainability have an insignificant impact.

The findings assist managers and owners of tourism accommodation firms to re-address their policy and operational processes toward sustainability. This study is an endeavor to bridge the knowledge gap of current literature on sustainable practice adoption and tourism accommodation firm. This would be ensured through encouraging the economic aspect of sustainability practices and also facilitate social well-being, which is a real contribution that ought to practice to other countries where the tourist area is environmentally adverse tremendous.

Considering sustainability is a social commitment, this study positively changes tourists’ behavioral approach reducing the undesirable use of social resources and maximizing the enduring socio-economic and environmental development for social well-being.

The novelty of this empirical study is that sustainability practices and policies adoption is entirely a new phenomenon. However, the mediating impact of the construct on the competitive advantage of small and medium tourism accommodation firms enhances the effectiveness of emerging tourism economy.

Interpersonal relationships can be a key success factor in many service businesses. A capable disc jockey, for example, may help a radio station in improving customer satisfaction. But does he/she help in building customer loyalty too? What happens if this employee leaves the organisation? The purpose of this paper is to assess the overall net effect that customer satisfaction with a key service employee may have on customer loyalty to a service firm.

The radio industry is selected as a specific case where a key service employee exists. A conceptual model is developed and tested on a sample of radio listeners using structural equation modelling.

The results confirm that customer satisfaction with a disc jockey increases personal loyalty to this employee. That outcome, in turn, cancels out part of the positive effects on customer loyalty to the radio station.

The model is tested within a specific service industry and the findings are not generalisable to contexts whose underlying characteristics differ from that industry. The aim is to propose a frame for estimating the net effects of relational trade‐offs with a key service employee. More generally, the study contributes to increased knowledge on the topic of customers' multiple levels of relationships.

When designing a value proposition in service industries where a key employee exists, it becomes especially important to add value elements and satisfaction drivers strictly referable to the firm and not to a specific person (e.g. image and reputation, behavioural consistency, overall experience, etc.).

The concept of “key service employee” is formally introduced and defined. A crossed design to weigh both direct and indirect relational outcomes is proposed. Loyalty to a key employee is explicitly measured as concurrent loyalty toward the firm.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated theoretical framework of the interrelation of the key success factors in the process of standards implementation.

Extensive case study work was carried out in ten American plants that had adopted ISO 9001 and or ISO 14001. First, within-case analysis captures the uniqueness of the implementation processes at each plant and leads to construction of the causal maps. Next, cross-case comparison identifies the key factors and the relationship between them, resulting in the theoretical framework.

The key factors affecting implementation effectiveness include focus on internal improvement, top management support, design of the system around existing processes, use of information technology, positive employees’ attitude, and employees’ usage of the system. The resulting framework suggests three alternative pathways to effective implementation of standards: (i) incentives pathway, i.e., by providing the right incentives; (ii) integration pathway, i.e., by designing the system around existing processes; and (iii) information technology pathway, i.e., by using information technology.

The key contribution of this research is the integrated theoretical framework.

Practically, this framework provides managers a clear depiction of the key actions required at each stage of standard implementation.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first integrated framework of the factors affecting standard adoption. We believe this framework is applicable to other meta-standards.