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Meaningfulness at work means experience of work as important, satisfying and valuable. It is a key factor in promoting individual growth, strengthening the belief in one's own abilities and supporting a sense of belonging and commitment to the organization. In this paper, we explore managers' perceptions of meaningful work in the future, focusing on managers' talk about meaningful work and its promotion in their organizations.

The data for the study consists of 25 stories of future working life collected from Finnish managers in spring 2022, using the empathy-based method.

From managers' stories of future working life, we identified two overarching perception categories of meaningful work: (1) Perceptions of contexts underlining the experience of meaningfulness: evolving technologies, developing expertise and demands and change in working life values and (2) Perceptions of management practices determining meaningful work: leader-centered, distant and technical management practice versus participatory and interactive management practice.

The research produces a new and detailed understanding of the ways in which managers talk about decreasing and increasing meaningfulness at work and management practices related to it. As the research is qualitative in nature and based on a small dataset, its results cannot be generalized. Instead, it strengthens and sharpens the previous understanding of meaningful work and the future of work.

This article analyzes the relationships between different conceptions of time, socioeconomic development and cultural values.

We focus on three major aspects of time, namely, 1) duration, 2) orientation and 3) tempo. Furthermore, we draw on modernization theory to distinguish between agrarian/traditional and industrial/modern societies and their respective cultural values.

Analyses indicate that agrarian/traditional societies with cultural values such as collectivism, survival, religiosity and hierarchical structures are marked by subjective/cyclical/inaccurate, past-oriented and slow-paced conceptions of time. In contrast, industrial/modern societies with cultural values such as individualism, self-expression, secularism and egalitarianism are marked by objective/linear/accurate, future-oriented and accelerated conceptions of time.

This paper introduces an original conceptualization of the three dimensions of time – duration, orientation and tempo – previously overlooked in the literature. Additionally, it provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the relationships between time, culture and socioeconomic development.

The present study aims to examine the relationship between real earnings management and earnings persistence and also to test how the group affiliation of the firms influences this relationship.

The study draws the sample of listed non-financial firms in the Indian market from the year 2011 to 2018 and applies panel least squares regression with industry and year fixed effects. Future performance of a firm is measured by one year leading value of return on assets. The interaction term of real earnings management and return on assets is used to measure the impact of real earnings management on earnings persistence. The firm-specific controlling variables are also included in the empirical model. The robustness of the results is tested by sub-dividing the sample into group affiliated and non-group affiliated firms.

The findings of the study reveal that opportunistic earnings management has a significant impact on earnings persistence when real earnings management is measured through abnormal increase in operating cash flows and abnormal reduction in discretionary expenditure. On the other hand, signalling earnings management has a significant impact on earnings persistence when real earnings management is measured through abnormal increase in the level of production. The results also reveal that REM has more negative implications on group affiliated firms compared to non-group affiliated firms supporting the theory of entrenchment effect.

This is the first study in the Indian context which tests the implications of real earnings management on earnings persistence by using three alternative measures of real earnings management. The study contributes to the existing literature on the implications of real earnings management in emerging markets like India.

Leveraging upper echelon theory and knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper aims to explore how chief executive officers’ (CEO) sustainability orientation influences explorative and exploitative knowledge management practices, which in turn influence incremental and radical sustainable innovation under boundary conditions of CEOs’ temporal focus and regional affiliation in the home country.

This study used a nonprobability convenience sampling strategy. Using survey-based research, the authors tested the study hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling on a sample of 298 CEOs from Indian small and medium enterprises. This study also tested the reliability and validity of the study variables by using internal consistency tests and convergent and discriminant validity procedures.

The study finds that CEO sustainability orientation affects incremental and radical sustainable innovation via the mediating effect of explorative and exploitative knowledge management practices. Furthermore, CEOs’ past temporal focus increases the influence of orientation on exploitative knowledge management. In contrast, future temporal focus increases the influence of CEO sustainability orientation on exploratory knowledge management practices. Finally, CEOs from the southwest, west and northwest regions of India increase the influence of exploratory knowledge management on radical sustainable innovation.

This study has significant implications for understanding upper-echelon factors that drive knowledge management practices. CEO temporal focus (time orientation) and demographic aspects (regional affiliation) influence CEOs’ investment in different knowledge management and, hence, sustainable innovation management practices. However, this study does not explore cross-cultural differences and the role of the entire top management team in influencing sustainability values on sustainability innovation via knowledge management practices.

This study comprehends upper-echelon factors that drive investment in knowledge management and sustainable innovation practices. Findings imply that CEOs with past and future temporal focus can influence sustainable innovation, but their investment in knowledge management strategies differs. Past temporal-focused CEOs invest more in exploitative and future temporal focus more in explorative knowledge management for influencing sustainable innovation.

The study provides novel insights into the influence of upper-echelon traits on knowledge management and sustainable innovation practices. Extant literature has largely explored firm-level factors such as organizational culture influencing a firm's knowledge management practices. However, by integrating the upper echelon with the knowledge-based view of the firm, we explain how the traits of the CEO, especially the temporal perspective, influence knowledge management and sustainable innovation practices of firms.

Patriotism is often described as the “love of country” that individuals display in the acclamation of their national community. Despite the prominence of this sentiment in various societies around the world, organizational research on patriotism is largely absent. This omission is surprising because entrepreneurs, human resource (HR) divisions, and firms frequently embrace both patriotism and patriotic organizational practices. These procedures include (among other interventions) national symbol embracing, HR practices targeted toward military members and first responders, the adulation of patriots and celebration of patriotic events, and patriotic-oriented corporate social responsibility (CSR). Here, the authors argue that research on HR management and organization studies will likely be further enhanced with a deeper understanding of the national obligation that can spur employee productivity and loyalty. In an attempt to jumpstart the collective understanding of this phenomenon, the authors explore the antecedents of patriotic organizational practices, namely, the effects of founder orientation, employee dispersion, and firm strategy. It is suggested that HR practices such as these lead to a patriotic organizational image, which in turn impacts investor, customer, and employee responses. Notably, the effect of a patriotic organizational image on firm-related outcomes is largely contingent on how it fits with the patriotic views of other stakeholders, such as investors, customers, and employees. After outlining this model, the authors then present a thought experiment of how this model may appear in action. The authors then discuss ways the field can move forward in studying patriotism in HR management and organizational contexts by outlining several future directions that span multiple levels (i.e., micro and macro). Taken together, in this chapter, the authors introduce a conversation of something quite prevalent and largely unheeded – the patriotic organization.

This chapter discusses how the real options theory can be useful for understanding the adoption of human resources management (HRM) practices. The authors review how the real options theory has provided insights into the processes through which firms manage uncertainties involved in the adoption of HRM practices. The authors offer propositions for future HRM research from the real options perspective. The authors contend that analyzing HRM practice adoptions through the lens of real options theory can enhance our understanding of the mechanisms through which firms choose which HRM practices to adopt and how they adjust the timing, scale, and methods of investment in these practices. Specifically, the authors suggest that differences in information relevant to valuation of HRM options are the source of distinct choices of HRM options across firms. Finally, the authors propose advancing knowledge on HRM practice adoptions by using a portfolio of options approach, as well as considering factors like competitors, path dependence, and switching options.

The role of chief executive officer (CEO) personal characteristics in shaping corporate policies has attracted increasing academic attention in the past two decades. In this review, the authors synthesize extant research on CEO attributes by reviewing 232 articles published in 29 journals from the accounting, finance and management literature. This review provides an overview of existing findings, highlights current trends and interdisciplinary differences in research approaches and identifies potential avenues for future research.

To review the literature on CEO attributes, the authors manually collected peer-reviewed articles in accounting, finance and management journals from 2000 to 2021. The authors conducted in-depth analysis of each paper and manually recorded the theories, data sources, country of study, study period, measures of CEO attributes and dependent variables. This procedure helped the authors group the selected articles into themes and sub-themes. The authors compared the findings in various disciplines and provided direction for future research.

The authors highlight the role of CEO personal attributes in influencing corporate decision-making and firm outcomes. The authors categorize studies of CEO traits into three main research themes: (1) demographic attributes and experience (including age, gender, culture, experience, education); (2) CEO interactions with others (social and political networks) and (3) underlying attributes (including personality, values and ideology). The evidence shows that CEO characteristics significantly affect a wide range of specific corporate policies that serve as mechanisms through which individual CEOs determine firm success and performance.

CEO selection is one of the most crucial decisions made by corporations. The study findings provide valuable insights to corporate executives, boards, investors and practitioners into how CEOs’ personal characteristics can impact future firm decisions and outcomes that can, in turn, inform the high-stake process of CEO recruitment and selection. The study findings have significant practical implications for corporations, such as contributing to executive training programs, to assist executives and directors attain a greater level of self-awareness.

Building on the theoretical foundation of upper echelons theory, the authors offer an integrated theoretical framework to consolidate existing empirical research on the impacts of CEO personal attributes on firm outcomes across accounting and finance (A&F) and management literature. The study findings provide a roadmap for scholars to bridge the interdisciplinary divide between A&F and management research. The authors advocate a more holistic and multifaceted approach to examining CEOs, each of whom embodies a myriad of personal characteristics that comprise their unique identity. The study findings encourage future researchers to expand the investigation of the boundary conditions that magnify or moderate the impacts of CEO idiosyncrasies.

This chapter explores the strategic responsiveness of commodity multinationals operating in developing countries to the uncertainties raised by the emergent European Union (EU) sustainability regulation. The study applies deductive theory triangulation to derive five response propositions, subsequently contrasted with inductive insights from an exploratory single-case study. The research involves in-depth interviews with a mix of senior and middle management and numerous external stakeholders. Empirical findings are discussed through storytelling and retrospective sensemaking and cross-checked against corporate documents, archive material, and online articles for added validation. This chapter concludes that an authentic commitment to corporate social responsibility and creating shared value can enhance the multinational enterprise (MNE)’s resilience and responsiveness to regulatory uncertainty, especially when combined with early signal scanning and real options reasoning. Through varied, first-hand insights, the case study demonstrates the role of reputation, core values, and ethical leadership in support of effective stakeholder engagement capabilities and the MNE’s ability to develop viable collaborative solutions to uncertainties implied by evolving sustainability regulation and stakeholder expectations. Taking an evolutionary view, this chapter introduces a process perspective on sustainability transition, relevant to firms seeking a shift in focus from mere compliance toward strategic responsiveness founded on adaptability and renewal.

This study aims to answer the question of what characterizes organizations with future-potential, and with the help of a model introduced in this study, the authors propose what interventions can be identified and which improvements need to be made in traditional organizations so that they meet the requirements of future-potentiality.

A systematic literature review was conducted to identify management interventions. Citation and co-word analyses were also performed. Content analysis of 311 journal articles from the past five years was performed taking into account relevant keywords, and disciplinary narrowing was also applied. These articles were used to identify knowledge that could be used to suggest micro-, meso- and macro-level changes.

To develop the future potential of organizations, three organizational levels must be separated. The first is the micro level of relations between leaders and employees, where equity is a key value for future potentiality. It should be emphasized that not all employees’ organizational commitment is equally important for organizations with future potential, and leaders should strengthen their commitment according to individual needs and opportunities. The second is the meso level, where the decisive value is organizational moderation, and this suggests that a careful and restrained development is needed both in satisfying consumer needs and in innovation. The third is the macro level, where the defining value is responsibility and sustainability, which are necessary for achieving a state where the active development of national culture becomes possible.

Contrary to the authors’ expectations, it has been found that there are only a few studies dealing with change management for the purpose of achieving a future potential mode of organizational operation; thus, the results can be considered new and will contribute to the development of a cross-section of change management and future studies.