Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090427

Authors: Oumaima Hair Abdeslam Boudhar Mohamed Oudgou

Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing rapidly and is gradually transforming traditional management control practices into intelligent management control, characterized by automation, analysis and decision-making. This research aims to explore this transition from traditional management control, focused on retrospective monitoring, to intelligent management control, by highlighting two further paradigms: predictive and ethical management control. The methodology is based on semi-structured interviews with Moroccan management controllers working in various sectors. These interviews provided in-depth insights into their experiences of using AI tools, the perceived benefits and the limitations encountered in their use. The results highlight that artificial intelligence makes several significant contributions to the work of management controllers, improving the efficiency of analyses, the quality of information and the speed of decision-making processes, thereby allowing them to focus on activities with higher added value. However, the study also highlights the need to develop new capabilities in prompt engineering, strategic communication and the management of human–machine relationships, in order to adapt to these transformations. Nevertheless, this evolution is facilitating a gradual repositioning of the management controller towards a more strategic role. Furthermore, it documents the specific characteristics of technology adoption in the African context, which is characterized by the phenomenon of shadow AI.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090426

Authors: Melinda Ratkai Lea Zimmermann

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a pivotal role in advancing sustainability, yet many struggle to translate voluntary sustainability practices into structured, strategic business models. This study examines how this gap can be bridged between voluntary certification frameworks and emerging regulatory requirements, with a specific focus on workforce-related sustainability reporting under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Using a qualitative case study of a Green Globe-certified, family-owned hotel, the research conducts a comparative gap analysis between existing organisational practices and corporate disclosure requirements, applying a Policy–Action–Target–Metric (PAT&M) framework. The findings reveal strong alignment in Policies and Actions (89%) but limited alignment in Targets and Metrics (14%), indicating a gap between sustainability activities and strategic performance management. The results highlight the need to transition from compliance-oriented initiatives to integrated, data-driven management systems. The findings also suggest that voluntary certification schemes, such as Green Globe, can be a useful first step in order to achieve better corporate reporting capabilities related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. As practical implications, a roadmap solution is proposed to support system-level integration, transparency, and measurable outcomes for better business resilience.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090425

Authors: Lina Zhang Sujinda Popaitoon Atthaphon Mumi

Despite the growing use of social media to promote green agricultural products, firms still face challenges in translating green advertising into purchase intentions. Drawing on dynamic capability theory and an ambidexterity perspective, this study examines two parallel consumer acceptance pathways involving user-generated content (UGC)-based social media green advertising and targeted green advertising on social media, with green trust as a mediating mechanism and sustainability-focused value orientation as a boundary condition. Survey data from 739 respondents were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results show that acceptance of both advertising approaches is positively associated with green trust and green purchase intention, with green trust partially mediating both relationships. Sustainability-focused value orientation strengthens the relationship between acceptance of UGC-based social media green advertising and green purchase intention but does not significantly moderate the relationship between acceptance of targeted green advertising on social media and green purchase intention. These findings extend the ambidexterity perspective to consumer-facing green advertising by showing how distinct advertising approaches operate through parallel acceptance pathways and converge on green trust as a shared psychological mechanism. The study also offers practical implications for designing more effective social media strategies to promote sustainable consumption.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090424

Authors: Nurgul Yesmagulova Nurkhat Ibadildin Rymkul Ismailova Ruslan Omirgaliyev

This study examines the perceived competitiveness of information technology companies in Kazakhstan from a governance and innovation-ecosystem perspective. In emerging digital economies, firm competitiveness depends not only on technological capabilities, but also on the state’s ability to coordinate fragmented actors, support human capital development, improve innovation infrastructure, and create functional mechanisms for cooperation between business, government, universities, and research institutions. Using a mixed-methods design, the study combines survey data from 200 respondents across all 20 regions of Kazakhstan with 26 semi-structured expert interviews. All constructs are perception-based: the study assesses how sectoral stakeholders evaluate the determinants of competitiveness and does not measure firm performance. The results show that stakeholders perceive IT-company competitiveness as a systemic outcome shaped by human capital, technological competencies, innovation infrastructure, government support, business–science interaction, and clusterization. Human capital, innovation infrastructure, technological competencies, and clusterization-related mechanisms received the strongest evaluations. Correlation analysis further indicates that competitiveness factors are positively interconnected, supporting an ecosystem-based interpretation rather than a firm-centered explanation. The findings also reveal persistent constraints, including talent shortages, weak investment depth, regulatory instability, technological dependence, and insufficient coordination among ecosystem actors. The study contributes to administrative and strategic management research by showing that stakeholders regard clusterization as a governance mechanism for strengthening state capacity, public–private–academic coordination, and digital-sector development in an institutionally uneven emerging economy.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090423

Authors: Ovidiu Niculae Bordean Hamza Nidaazzi

Family firms are distinctive organisational forms in which ownership, governance, leadership, and strategic decision-making are closely intertwined. Although prior research has examined leadership, succession, governance, and strategy in family firms, the literature remains fragmented regarding how leadership styles are associated with both strategic behaviour and strategic choices. This study addresses this gap by conducting a Systematic Literature Network Analysis of 59 studies on leadership and strategy in family firms. Combining systematic review procedures with bibliographic network analysis, this paper maps the intellectual and thematic structure of the field and synthesises the evidence around five research questions. The findings show that the literature is theoretically rich but not yet fully consolidated, with socioemotional wealth, upper echelon theory, agency theory, stewardship theory, and the resource-based view serving as dominant lenses. Leadership appears to be connected with strategy mainly through affective, political, and cognitive mechanisms, while the procedural core of strategic decision-making, including participation, dissent, consensus formation, and formal planning, remains underdeveloped. This review also shows that leadership is more frequently studied in relation to identity-relevant strategies, such as sustainability, innovation, succession, digital transformation, and professionalisation, while scale-and-scope strategies remain less examined. This study contributes by proposing an integrative framework of five leadership-to-outcome pathways and by outlining a future research agenda for leadership, entrepreneurship, and strategic renewal in family firms.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090422

Authors: Anwar A. Almajed Abdelrahman A. A. Abdelghani Sameh Fayyad Hebatallah A. M. Ahmed

Workplace romance presents a paradoxical challenge for organizations, capable of enhancing employee engagement while simultaneously triggering destructive interpersonal dynamics. This study probes the darker contours of this phenomenon within Saudi Arabia’s rapidly expanding hospitality and travel sectors—a context where Vision 2030’s ambitious tourism agenda renders workplace social processes especially consequential for organizational sustainability. While prior research has predominantly examined either the benefits of workplace romance or its isolated negative outcomes, limited empirical attention has been devoted to understanding how romance-induced social mechanisms jointly translate into counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) and whether psychological resources can buffer these adverse effects. Integrating the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework with Conservation of Resources theory, this study develops and tests a model wherein workplace romance (WR) functions as a relational stimulus that elicits workplace ostracism (WO) and employee envy (EE), which subsequently foster CWBs, with organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) moderating the WR–WO and WR–EE linkages. Survey data from 434 employees across international hotels and travel agencies were analyzed using PLS-SEM, demonstrating robust measurement properties. The results reveal that higher levels of workplace romance are statistically associated with higher levels of workplace ostracism and employee envy, each of which shows a significant indirect association between workplace romance and counterproductive work behaviors. In the hypothesized order, workplace romance is associated with workplace ostracism and employee envy, and these variables jointly exhibit a serial indirect association with counterproductive work behaviors consistent with the proposed model, although this pattern should be interpreted as correlational rather than causal given the cross-sectional design. Furthermore, OBSE significantly attenuates the positive effects of WR on both WO and EE, underscoring its function as a protective psychological reservoir. While the cross-sectional, self-report design and single-country focus constitute notable limitations, they also underscore the imperative for multi-source, longitudinal investigations. Practically, these findings suggest that proactively managing workplace romance, mitigating ostracism and envy, and cultivating OBSE may support organizational efforts that are consistent with SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) within Saudi Arabia’s tourism-led development trajectory, even though these goals were not directly measured in this study.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090421

Authors: Bruce Winston Debra Dean Lisa Foster Julie Headley Jorge Salcedo Sherrie Lynn

Employee engagement remains one of the most widely studied constructs in organizational research. However, the ever-increasing involvement of Generation Z and Generation Y employees in the workplace raises the question of whether current employee engagement measuring tools are appropriate. The literature states that Generation Z employees are different than Generation X and the Baby Boomers. In this study, we developed and provided initial validation for a contemporary multidimensional measure of employee engagement using DeVellis and Thorpe’s nine-step scale development process. A sequential mixed-methods design integrated a comprehensive literature review, completed in 2024, phenomenological interviews with employees representing Generations X, Y, and Z, and psychometric evaluation of the resulting instrument. Contrary to expectations derived from portions of the generational literature, participants described a remarkably similar understanding of what employee engagement is across generations. However, the final factors show that the first factor of the six-factor instrument focuses on Person-Job Values/Passion/Purpose Fit, which is supported in the 2024–2025 literature; with factors two, three, and four aligning with the contemporary literature: Person-Colleague Fit, Person-Supervisor Fit, Person-Community Fit. The fifth factor focused on Person-Job Flexibility Fit, which is supported in the 2024–2025 literature. The sixth factor reflects Person-Organization Fit and aligns with the contemporary literature. Confirmatory factor analyses and validity testing provided initial evidence supporting the reliability and construct validity of the Multidimensional Employee Engagement Instrument (MEEI). The findings suggest that employee engagement is not simply an individual psychological state, but a multidimensional person–environment fit construct reflecting employees’ alignment with higher-order values: work, colleagues, supervisors, community, flexibility, and organizations. This study contributes a theoretically grounded and psychometrically supported instrument for advancing employee engagement research and practice.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090420

Authors: Karen Paola Ramírez-López Ma. Sandra Hernández-López Gilberto Herrera-Ruiz Humberto Aguirre-Becerra Adriana Rojas-Molina Magdalena Mendoza-Sánchez Juvenal Rodríguez-Reséndiz

This article examines the cartographic design of nano-scale productive systems led by women nano-entrepreneurs, understood as family-based productive arrangements embedded in everyday domestic spaces. In rural contexts, many women-led ventures operate at a nano-scale and are organized around household dynamics, where entrepreneurial leadership, family labor, and productive activities intersect. Drawing on a qualitative territorial research approach, the study combines semi-structured interviews, fieldwork, and cartographic design to identify productive actions and the spaces in which they take place. The findings show that these nano-scale productive systems function through the articulation of multiple actions rather than formal organizational structures, and that women exercise entrepreneurial leadership by coordinating family-based activities within and beyond the home. As a result, everyday spaces, particularly the household, are resignified as workshops, points of sale, and centers of management, giving rise to locally embedded family-based enterprises in emerging rural economies. Using cartographic design as an analytical tool, the article contributes to research on family entrepreneurship and leadership by highlighting how women-led nanoenterprises reshape spatial organization, and productive practices within emerging family firms.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090419

Authors: Fatine El Ghali Ghorafi

Sustainable development depends on whether emerging economies can convert foreign direct investment (FDI) into durable, knowledge-based capabilities rather than transient, low-skill employment. This paper asks how FDI catalyzes sustainable human-capital formation and whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) can help build the institutions that underpin a knowledge-economy transition. Using a single-equation instrumental-variables (2SLS) model for human-capital formation, with secondary-school enrolment as the dependent variable over 46 annual observations for Morocco (1975–2020), we find a positive and statistically significant FDI effect (β = 0.0029 per million USD of FDI inflow, p = 0.006), robust in sign and significance across OLS, 2SLS, and Dynamic OLS specifications. The result is consistent with a skill-demand channel through which knowledge-intensive MNEs are associated with higher private and social returns to education and with increased targeted public and private training investment. Sectoral evidence from Morocco’s aerospace and automotive clusters shows enrolment in vocationally oriented program growing 312% between 2005 and 2022, concentrated in curricula co-designed with foreign investors. Communications infrastructure carries a positive and significant coefficient across all four estimators but loses significance once urbanization is added as a control, so we do not treat it as a confirmed independent channel, while public education expenditure carries a negative and significant coefficient that is not stable in sign under Fully Modified OLS, indicating that its independent contribution is not well identified with the present instrument set. We interpret these findings through a sustainability lens, linking the mechanism to Sustainable Development Goals 4 (quality education), 8 (decent work and growth) and 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), and we specify three boundary conditions—skill specificity, investor commitment, and state coordination capacity—and argue that the mechanism should be expected to transfer to other developing economies, including in the MENA region and sub-Saharan Africa, only where these conditions co-occur, rather than as a general claim. The study advances the literature on MNE-led institutional co-creation and offers policy guidance for designing FDI strategies that support inclusive, sustainable knowledge-economy development across the MENA region and sub-Saharan Africa.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090418

Authors: Vlad Ionuț Oniță Anca Mihaela Oniță Laura Bacali

This systematic review synthesizes theoretical, meta-analytic, and empirical evidence from 85 studies to clarify the conceptual boundaries and overlaps among five core job performance dimensions: task performance (TP), contextual performance (CP), adaptive performance (AP), creative and innovative performance (CIP), and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). In doing so, it addresses two gaps in the literature. To our knowledge, no prior study has: (1) systematically examined the distinctions and overlaps among all five dimensions simultaneously, across a broad range of occupations, rather than in isolated pairs, or (2) synthesized their antecedents into a single integrative framework. The synthesized evidence indicates that these dimensions are empirically and conceptually distinct yet correlated, and that multivariate, dimension-specific models can account for both shared and unique variance across dimensions, consistent with more targeted performance management. As the review’s central contribution, we propose a two-stage conceptual model. In the expression stage, the degree to which the work role prescribes a behavior (prescribed, discretionary, proscribed, or unscripted) determines which determinant class (ability, motivation, or opportunity) remains free to vary and hence to predict each dimension, with proximal states (e.g., task knowledge and skill, engagement, psychological capital) carrying these effects into behavior. In the evaluation stage, behavior is converted into dimension scores against standards that are themselves prescription-dependent, explaining why rater and measurement effects pattern differently across dimensions. The model yields testable propositions, most distinctively that formalizing a previously discretionary behavior should shift both which antecedents predict it and how it is scored.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090417

Authors: Sung-Geun Kim Seung-Hun Hong

Regulatory reforms in emerging industries require renegotiating the distribution of burdens between incumbents and new entrants, and the news media constitute the principal arena through which the public encounters and evaluates such conflicts. This study examines how regulation-related conflicts are represented in South Korean news media, applying structural topic modeling (STM) to 21,266 articles collected from BigKinds for 2018–2022, the formative period of Korea’s regulatory sandbox and the peak of its mobility-platform disputes. The analysis derives 30 topics and shows that coverage is dominated by announcements of regulatory innovation agendas and new-industry promotion, while concrete processes of conflict resolution are nearly invisible. Resolution-relevant topics declined over the observation period and appeared mainly in regional newspapers and IT–science sections rather than in mainstream national outlets. We interpret this pattern as an invisible middle of regulatory conflict: the media report the outbreak and formal conclusion of disputes, but not the negotiation through which regulatory bargains are reworked. This informational gap deprives governments of the informed public support needed to legitimize negotiated regulatory change, and we draw implications for how regulatory authorities should communicate reform as conflict mediation rather than industrial promotion.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090416

Authors: Marcela Malindzakova Timea Šimonová

Despite the growing importance of intercultural marketing in global consumer markets, limited research has examined how intercultural marketing factors interact and contribute to corporate competitiveness within internationally recognised consumer brands. Therefore, this case study investigates these relationships using the example of a globally recognised consumer brand. Drawing on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory and intercultural marketing literature, this study investigates the relationships between event marketing, consumer behaviour and sales factors using the case of Red Bull in the global energy drink industry. Data obtained from 50 respondents were analysed using affinity diagrams, relationship diagrams, linear regression and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The results confirmed positive relationships between event marketing and consumer behaviour (r = 0.401) and between consumer behaviour and sales factors (r = 0.400). The study contributes to international marketing literature by proposing an integrated framework linking intercultural marketing activities with corporate competitiveness and identifying the most influential marketing sub-criteria. The study further focuses on the identification and comparison of sub-criteria using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090415

Authors: Raymond Patrick Mutura Shelley Maeva Farrington Elmarie Venter

Innovation through digital technologies, or digital innovation adoption (DIA), is of great importance to the success of family-owned micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in today’s rapidly changing digitally driven business environment. These digital changes, which impact markets and business models, as well as products and services, are becoming increasingly frequent and highlight the technological influences on family businesses. Given the need to understand these influences on DIA in the context of family businesses, this study investigated the relationships between several technological factors and DIA among Kenyan family-owned MSMEs, as well as the relationship between DIA and the financial performance of these businesses. An online survey was administered, and a structured measuring instrument was used for data collection. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses, based on 355 usable questionnaires. The findings highlighted that the technological factors, particularly compatibility and cost, were related to DIA, and that DIA, in turn, was related to the perceived financial performance of Kenyan family-owned MSMEs. The study expanded family business research to non-Western contexts and responded to calls to investigate both digital innovation and the external factors that influence innovation adoption in the context of family businesses. These findings provide valuable insights to researchers, practitioners and policymakers working with smaller family businesses in Kenya that have relatively low levels of digital maturity, particularly regarding technological factors associated with DIA, and the MSMEs’ ability to compete in an increasingly digital global environment.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090414

Authors: Ioannis Kalialakis Christos Grose Antonios Kostas Michail Fygkioris Dimitrios N. Koufopoulos

ESG risk is financially relevant, yet ratings and disclosure scores primarily capture external evaluations or reported outcomes rather than the internal arrangements through which risks are anticipated, challenged, and monitored. This study examines how board composition, leadership structure, gender representation, and committee architecture signal ESG risk governance capacity in Greek listed firms included in the ATHEX ESG Index during 2021–2024. Using hand-collected firm-year data from annual reports, corporate governance statements, sustainability reports, and company disclosures, it develops a descriptive longitudinal baseline. Board size and director-role composition remained stable; independent non-executive directors were the largest category; executives occupied about one-third of board seats; female representation rose from 24.0% to 28.1%; CEO–chair separation predominated but was not universal; and the number of disclosed board committees remained stable. These patterns indicate visible formal monitoring arrangements but do not establish substantive effectiveness. The study contributes by distinguishing executive, dependent non-executive, and independent non-executive roles and integrating leadership and committee architecture into ESG risk governance assessment. It provides longitudinal evidence from Greece and a baseline for future research linking governance architecture to independently measured ESG risk outcomes.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090413

Authors: Lendel K. Narine Paul A. Hill Andreé Walker-Bravo

This study examined employer-perceived competency discrepancies, anticipated competency requirements, hiring barriers, and valued educational experiences in Utah. Survey data were collected between September and October 2025 from 226 individuals with hiring responsibility in Utah-based organizations. The Ranked Discrepancy Model (RDM) quantified discrepancies between respondents’ ratings of competency importance and their satisfaction with demonstrated employee proficiency. Respondents reported the largest discrepancies for time management, critical thinking, conflict resolution, ethical judgment, and verbal communication of ideas. Respondents rated communication, collaboration, analytical thinking, and lifelong learning highest among competencies anticipated to matter most over the next five to ten years. Most employers identified AI and machine learning as the most disruptive emerging technology. Our study provides timely evidence to inform organizational recruitment strategies, education administration, and workforce development policies.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090412

Authors: Ana Inácio Ana Palma-Moreira Armanda Antunes Ivo Dias Manuel Au-Yong-Oliveira

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of leadership (transformational and transactional) on performance and to determine whether this relationship is mediated by job satisfaction and moderated by the sector. The sample for this study consists of 259 participants working in Portuguese organizations. This is a quantitative, cross-sectional, and correlational study. The mediating effect was tested using hierarchical multiple linear regressions. The moderating effect was tested using the PROCESS macro (Model 1). The results of this study indicate that performance levels are significantly influenced by transformational leadership, contingent rewards, and job satisfaction. Transformational leadership and contingent rewards significantly increase job satisfaction levels. Job satisfaction was found to be the mechanism that partially explains both the relationship between transformational leadership and performance and the relationship between contingent rewards and performance. The sector in which the participant works alters the relationship between leadership (transformational and transactional) and performance, with this relationship being stronger for participants working in the social sector. Additionally, it was found that participants with daily contact with their direct supervisor report a higher perception of transformational leadership. It is hoped that these results will contribute to both the advancement of the literature and organizational practice.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090411

Authors: Robertson Khan Tengeh

Structural and sociocultural constraints have long shaped African immigrant entrepreneurship in South Africa. The organised anti-foreigner campaigns of 2025–2026 echoed the earlier expulsions in Ghana (1969) and Nigeria (1983). What made the South African campaigns different was that the host society itself became the organised source of existential threat. This article aimed to develop a theoretical framework accounting for how entrepreneurial agency changes when organised political mobilisation simultaneously threatens physical safety, legal presence, and venture survival. The framework was developed as a conceptual model by drawing on constrained agency theory alongside scholarship on institutions, social movements, scapegoating, and moral panic. Rather than being tested with primary data, it was illustrated through historical and contemporary African cases. CAT-ET suggests that when constraints become existential, agency tends to shift towards either adaptive persistence or strategic exit. Two interacting mechanisms were specified: functional institutional inaccessibility under violence, whereby protective institutions remained operational but selectively inaccessible, and the entrepreneur-as-symbol dynamic, whereby immigrant ventures became politically constructed as emblems of economic grievance. CAT-ET reframed organised expulsion as a recurring political-economic process and offered a basis for comparative research across the Global South.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090410

Authors: Xinyu Wang Elvan Aktas

This article reviews CFO gender as a role-specific executive diversity issue and addresses the fragmented literature in which gender effects are often interpreted without separating appointment selection from the authority and organizational context of the CFO position. Using a hybrid design, we combine bibliometric analysis with a systematic literature review. A Web of Science title-and-abstract search reported through PRISMA 2020 and manual eligibility assessment identifies 68 peer-reviewed journal papers published from 2010 through 2026 across 46 outlets. The bibliometric stage maps publication growth, outlet distribution, recurring vocabulary, a ten-topic Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model, and term co-occurrence. The evidence shows a recent and dispersed field: more than four-fifths of the sample appear from 2019 onward, and the papers span governance, management, finance, accounting, ethics, and sustainability journals. The systematic stage compares evidence on the internal and external determinants and consequences associated with CFO gender across financial policy, earnings management, executive governance, capital markets, compensation and labor-market signals, and adjacent business fields. The findings do not support a universal gender effect. Observed associations depend on CFO authority, CEO power, board composition, incentives, task domain, institutional setting, and research design. Relative to broad reviews of executive characteristics, this article provides a current CFO gender-specific cross-outcome synthesis. The review concludes by identifying selection and endogeneity, direct measurement of CFO influence, review scope limitations, and underdeveloped applications as future directions, and developing implications for boards, executive recruitment, governance practice, professional development, and policy.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090409

Authors: Fida Hassanein Ahmad Samer El Sayed Shiva Ilkhani Zadeh Elvira Bolat

The integration of Artificial Intelligence is transforming luxury hospitality, forcing hotels to balance advanced technology with human-centered management to sustain service excellence. Yet how Human-Centered Leadership shapes Sustained Service Performance through employees’ AI readiness and engagement remains largely unexamined. This study develops and tests an integrated framework addressing that gap. Survey data were collected from 500 employees of four- and five-star luxury hotels in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Lebanon, and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Human-Centered Leadership was positively associated with both Sustained Service Performance and AI readiness. AI readiness predicted employee engagement, which in turn predicted Sustained Service Performance. AI readiness and employee engagement sequentially mediated the link between Human-Centered Leadership and Sustained Service Performance (β = 0.160, p < 0.001). Digital Organizational Support significantly strengthened the Human-Centered Leadership–AI readiness relationship (β = 0.137, p = 0.004). The study advances hospitality leadership research by establishing Human-Centered Leadership as a driver of Sustained Service Performance in AI-enabled settings, and by revealing the sequential psychological mechanism, AI readiness followed by engagement, through which it operates. The findings help luxury hotel managers combine Human-Centered Leadership with digital support to sustain service excellence during AI-driven transformation.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090408

Authors: Siu Min Mts Arief Sri Bramantoro Abdinagoro Rano Kartono Rahim

This study examines how government policy shapes the relationship between specialization strategy and business resilience in Indonesia’s cosmetic raw-materials industry. Drawing on the Resource-Based View and resilience theory, cross-sectional survey data from 189 key informants, each representing one supplier firm, were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Specialization Strategy was positively and significantly associated with Business Resilience (β = 0.271, t = 5.286, p < 0.001), and Government Policy also showed a positive direct association with Business Resilience (β = 0.240, t = 4.421, p < 0.001). The interaction between Government Policy and Specialization Strategy was negative and significant (β = −0.089, t = 4.605, p < 0.001), indicating that stronger perceived policy support attenuated, rather than reversed, the positive relationship between Specialization Strategy and Business Resilience. The findings therefore indicate a dual policy role: Government Policy was positively associated with Business Resilience overall, while higher perceived policy support reduced the marginal contribution of Specialization Strategy to resilience. The study contributes to strategic management and administrative science by integrating firm-specific capabilities with external policy conditions in an import-dependent emerging economy. The findings also suggest that industrial policy may be more effective when support instruments are differentiated, adaptive, and aligned with the strategic and operational characteristics of affected firms.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090407

Authors: Orlando Joaqui-Barandica Sebastián López-Estrada Diego F. Manotas-Duque

Tourism destinations increasingly require data-driven tools to interpret competitiveness, capacity use, housing-related pressure, and post-shock change. This study develops a machine-learning-based destination marketing intelligence framework for a non-probability analytical sample of 29 European destinations observed annually between 2015 and 2024. Destinations were retained when sufficiently comparable information was available across the common study window for the six raw indicators required to construct the performance-pressure framework. Tourism demand, accommodation capacity, labor, investment intensity, and housing-cost pressure are transformed into normalized indicators and analyzed using principal component analysis, k-means clustering, classification trees, random forests, and robustness checks. The first three principal components explain 84.2% of total variance. Although silhouette favors three clusters, the four-cluster solution provides stronger Calinski–Harabasz separation and leave-one-destination-out stability. The retained solution identifies four relative destination-state configurations: lower performance with near-average pressure; high rotation, moderate performance, and lower pressure; high performance with lower pressure; and extreme housing pressure. Under leave-one-destination-out validation, random forests achieve 86.6% accuracy and a Cohen’s kappa of 76.9%. The configurations are pressure-sensitive marketing-intelligence categories rather than comprehensive sustainability classifications or permanent country typologies.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080406

Authors: Oana Bărbulescu Elena-Nicoleta Untaru

Purpose: This study investigates the structural pathways driving the startup potential of Generation Z students in Romania’s post-transition economy. It examines the sequential relationship between Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM), Entrepreneurial Intentions (EIs), and Entrepreneurial Behavior (EB), focusing on the mediating role of intentions in bridging the gap between cognition and action. Design/methodology/approach: Using a quantitative explanatory design, data were collected through a two-stage hybrid framework from a sample of 215 Romanian business students associated with the Hackathon Innovation Labs (HILs), selected via a non-probability purposive sampling method. Hypotheses were tested using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with maximum likelihood estimation, supported by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to ensure statistical rigor. Findings: Results confirm that EM is a robust predictor of EI, which significantly drives EB, explaining 45.2% of its variance. The findings highlight that intentions fully mediate the relationship, suggesting that a growth-oriented mindset turns into firm intentions to overcome institutional and cultural barriers. Originality: This research applies a rigorous SEM framework to a cohort of digital natives in an underrepresented Eastern European emerging market. It integrates mindset as a foundational cognitive precursor and provides empirical evidence of the sequential path to entrepreneurial behavior. Research limitations/implications: The study is limited by its sample size and geographic focus on Romanian business students. Future longitudinal research should explore external contingency factors, such as access to capital and ecosystem support, to validate model generalizability. Practical and social implications: Higher education should shift toward experiential programs like HILs, embedding credit-bearing hackathons and micro-credentials to foster an entrepreneurial mindset. Socially, sustaining this momentum with structured mentorship bridges the intention–action gap, transforming Gen Z’s digital potential into tangible economic value for the post-transition ecosystem.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080405

Authors: Fatma N. Karaman Kabadurmus

This study examines whether firms’ digital adaptation practices were associated with crisis-related innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey COVID-19 module for Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Malta, the paper analyzes three crisis-driven digital adaptation practices: online business activity, delivery or carry-out services, and remote work arrangements. We also examine the breadth of digital adaptation using an additive index capturing the number of practices adopted. The results show that all three digital adaptation practices are positively and statistically significantly associated with crisis-related innovation. The digital adaptation index is also positively associated with innovation, indicating that firms adopting a broader set of digital practices were more likely to report introducing new or improved products or services in response to COVID-19. These relationships remain robust among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We further examine whether government digital support moderates the relationship between digital adaptation and innovation, but due to small sample size, the results are suggestive and not robust across estimation methods. Overall, the findings provide firm-level evidence on the relationship between crisis-driven digital adaptation and firms’ capacity to innovate during a major disruption in selected MENA economies.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080404

Authors: Detbordin Wongyaprom Hsiu-Li Chen Tun-Chih Kou

This study investigates how Thai cultural norms shape employee perceptions of human-in-the-loop (HITL) AI systems in performance appraisal and compensation decisions. Drawing on procedural justice and culturally grounded views of fairness, the study examines the roles of Kreng-Jai and seniority orientation in influencing procedural justice, system acceptance, and trust in AI-enabled HRM. Hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM and multi-group analysis based on a vignette-based experimental survey of 387 white-collar employees and middle managers from large Thai firms in banking, telecommunications, and FMCG. The results indicate that perceived AI autonomy is positively related to perceived procedural justice, and perceived procedural justice is positively associated with system acceptance and trust. However, Kreng-Jai weakens the relationship between AI autonomy and procedural justice, while seniority orientation reduces the positive effects of procedural justice on acceptance and trust. Multi-group analysis further reveals stronger positive relationships in the AI-aligned condition than in the AI-override condition, with Kreng-Jai exerting a stronger negative moderating effect when AI recommendations are overridden. The study identifies Thai cultural norms as boundary conditions that shape perceptions of procedural justice, system acceptance, and trust in AI-enabled HRM.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080403

Authors: Petra Karanikić Milan Rapajić Predrag Dejanović

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are implemented through individual contracts, but their performance is often judged with indicators observed at broader sectoral or national levels. This study develops a measurement alignment framework comprising intervention–measurement alignment, statistical visibility, attribution distance, outcome completeness, and comparison credibility and applies it to Croatian PPPs. The analysis combines the national PPP register with Eurostat data for 2000–2024. It uses a six-sector difference-in-differences benchmark, applies small-cluster inference and a 9999-draw Webb wild-cluster bootstrap, adds hours worked and national-accounts gross fixed capital formation, and evaluates timing, pandemic, contamination, spillover, intensity, and leave-one-out sensitivity. In the six-sector benchmark sample, the current-price GVA coefficient is 0.149 and statistically uncertain, whereas the real GVA coefficient is 0.256 and remains supported by the wild-cluster bootstrap (p = 0.009). In the 16-sector comparison sample, current-price and real GVA estimates remain positive but are estimated with wider uncertainty. Employment, hours worked, real productivity, and real investment show no robust broad effects, while event-study diagnostics reveal poorer pre-treatment comparability in the 16-sector comparison sample. The evidence supports a cautious positive output association, not a general causal growth claim, and demonstrates that PPP accountability requires indicators aligned with project mechanisms, geography, timing, and accounting visibility. The framework explicitly recognizes environmental performance as a required outcome domain, but the available sector-level data do not permit a direct estimate of PPP environmental impacts.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080402

Authors: Shi Yang Polina Ellina Kyriakos Christofi Pantelitsa Sfiniadaki Alexios Kythreotis

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure plays an increasingly important role in evaluating corporate sustainability performance. However, the agricultural chemicals industry faces unique environmental and social challenges, while existing ESG assessment frameworks remain largely generic and fail to capture industry-specific disclosure requirements. To address this gap, this study develops a multi-level ESG disclosure quality evaluation framework for the agricultural chemicals industry based on the GRI 2021 Standards, China’s regulatory requirements, and sector-specific production characteristics. The framework was developed through targeted qualitative content analysis and text coding of ESG disclosures from ten listed agricultural chemical companies selected from the complete eligible population of 17 Chinese A-share agricultural chemicals enterprises that met the study’s predefined inclusion criteria and had Huazheng ESG ratings. This process resulted in a hierarchical structure comprising three dimensions, 14 first-level indicators, 61 second-level indicators, and 350 third-level observation indicators, with particular emphasis on biodiversity conservation, farmer support, and corporate governance. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was then applied to determine the weights of the first-level and second-level indicators through expert evaluation, while a three-point scoring system (0–2) was established for the third-level indicators to construct the industry-specific ESG disclosure quality evaluation model. The framework was subsequently evaluated using an independent sample of the remaining seven listed agricultural chemical companies. A benchmarking comparison with Huazheng ESG ratings showed broad alignment in overall patterns while also revealing important company-level differences and disclosure-quality gaps not readily captured by the general ESG ratings. Furthermore, multi-level ±20% weight perturbation analyses demonstrated the framework’s stability, discriminative ability, industry suitability, and computational robustness. The proposed framework provides a practical and transparent tool for assessing ESG disclosure quality in the agricultural chemicals industry and offers a methodological foundation for developing sector-specific ESG disclosure evaluation frameworks in other high-impact industries.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080401

Authors: Eyup Kahveci Tuğrul Gürgür Zehra Binnur Avunduk

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets face a critical challenge: how to leverage digital transformation to improve efficiency and sustain competitive advantage despite constrained financial and human resources. This study addresses this problem by examining how distinct dimensions of digital transformation affect SME operational efficiency and, in turn, sustained competitive advantage. Grounded in the Resource-Based View (RBV) and Industrial Organization-Based Strategy (IO), the present study conceptualizes digital transformation through three theoretically distinct sub-dimensions, digital strategic orientation (DSO), digital adaptive capability (DAC), and digital technology sophistication (DTS), and model operational efficiency as a mediating pathway to sustained competitive advantage. Data collected via a structured survey administered to 216 Turkish manufacturing and service SMEs operating in Istanbul were analyzed using variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 4. The findings reveal that all three digital transformation sub-dimensions positively and significantly influence operational efficiency, which in turn strongly predicts sustained competitive advantage. A formal mediation analysis confirms that operational efficiency mediates the effects of all three digital transformation dimensions on sustained competitive advantage, with partial mediation for digital strategic orientation and indirect-only mediation for digital adaptive capability and digital technology sophistication. These results advance theoretical understanding by demonstrating that digital transformation operates as a capability-building process consistent with RBV logic, and that strategic digital orientation, rather than technological sophistication, is the dominant driver of efficiency gains. Practically, the findings indicate that SMEs should prioritize embedding digital strategy into corporate planning, developing structured digital upskilling programs for managers and employees, and investing in scalable cloud-based and AI-enabled infrastructure to achieve cost efficiency and competitive positioning.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080400

Authors: Brian Bidolli Hamid Mostofi

This study examines how residents evaluate local government within Japan’s Liveable Well-Being City Indicator (LWCI) framework, with a focus on public service delivery and the application of machine learning (ML). Using a nationwide survey of 66,085 respondents, two dimensions of local government evaluation (Service Accessibility and Government Responsiveness) were examined using correlation analysis and Random Forest classification models. The findings indicate that differences between the two evaluation dimensions are better understood through patterns of relative predictive importance among shared factors than entirely distinct sets of variables. Service Accessibility was more strongly associated with functional and usability-related service factors, whereas Government Responsiveness was associated with a broader range of service-related and community-level conditions. The Random Forest models further identified differences in the relative importance of predictors across the two outcomes, reinforcing the distinction between their broader predictive patterns. These findings demonstrate that integrating ML with well-being assessments complements conventional statistical analysis by providing additional insight into the comparative predictive structure of policy-related factors.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080399

Authors: Annamária Lőrincz Veronika Fenyves

Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into business strategy requires organizational practices that convert sustainability- and stakeholder-related intentions into measurable and managerially usable information. This study examines whether distinct Business Performance Measurement (BPM) maturity profiles can be identified among hospitality SMEs and how these profiles are associated with sustainability- and stakeholder-oriented measurement practices. BPM maturity is defined as a multidimensional organizational capability reflected in the breadth, integration, monitoring, interpretation, and use of performance information, rather than merely in the possession of a formal measurement system. Using cross-sectional survey data from 600 decision-makers in Hungarian and Romanian accommodation and food service SMEs, the study applies Principal Component Analysis and Two-Step Cluster Analysis. Three profiles emerge: Integrated, Transitional, and Low BPM Maturity. Firms in the Integrated profile report broader use of financial, customer-related, employee-related, sector-specific, and sustainability-oriented performance information, whereas firms in the Low profile report more limited measurement practices. Sustainability- and development-related measurement practices provide the strongest relative contribution to profile differentiation in both national models. The findings demonstrate systematic associations between BPM maturity profiles and sustainability- and stakeholder-oriented measurement practices. They are consistent with the theoretical interpretation that BPM maturity may provide organizational conditions supporting the operationalization of responsible management intentions. However, the cross-sectional design does not establish causal direction, and the study does not directly measure formal CSR implementation or sustainability outcomes.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080398

Authors: Xin Xie Long Cheng Jun Ishikawa

Organizations increasingly confront persistent tensions that require leaders to address competing demands simultaneously. Prior research has established paradoxical leader behavior (PLB) as an important behavioral response to such tensions, yet less is known about the cognitive–emotional capabilities associated with PLB. Using cross-sectional self-report survey data from 264 employees in supervisory, managerial, and project-leadership roles, this study examines how integrative complexity (IC), cognitive reappraisal (CR), and expressive suppression (ES) are associated with PLB. We combined hierarchical regression, polynomial regression, and response surface analysis to characterize their independent and joint associations. IC and CR were positively associated with PLB in the simultaneous regression model, whereas ES was not. A formal comparison of the regression coefficients further showed that CR was more strongly associated with PLB than ES, supporting Hypothesis 2-2. Higher-order terms did not add significant explanatory power beyond the linear terms. Thus, the highest predicted PLB at high IC and high CR primarily reflected the additive accumulation of their positive associations, not a nonlinear synergistic or congruence effect. Under imbalance, IC-dominant profiles were associated with higher PLB than CR-dominant profiles. These findings indicate an additive but asymmetric capability pattern in which IC appears to be more central and CR provides a complementary emotion-regulation resource. The study shifts attention from isolated individual attributes to the joint pattern of cognitive and emotional capabilities, while interpreting the evidence as cross-sectional associations rather than causal developmental processes.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080397

Authors: Carlos Alberto Goncalves Mario S. T. Marques Felipe Alexandre S. F. Nunes Daniel Jardin Pardini Taciana de Barros Jeronimo Fernando A. M. C. D’Andrea

This article proposes the Collective Delivery Demand Matrix (CDD Matrix), which repositions the New Agile as a correspondence property between collective delivery demands and teams’ operating regimes, aiming to form teams that are simultaneously agile, high-performing, and endowed with dynamic capabilities. It addresses a gap in the agility literature: the Agile Manifesto principles have been extended to many contexts, yet no theory explains when they should be maintained, adapted, or replaced. Developed as a theoretical-conceptual essay, the work synthesizes studies on naturalistic decision-making, team learning, neurostrategy, sociotechnical systems, and decision support. It proposes a taxonomy of seven demand typologies along five classificatory axes, and a correspondence matrix that articulates demand types, operating regimes, shared heuristics, sociotechnical configurations, and managerial errors. The matrix clarifies that agility generates value when it first favors effectiveness, delivering the right objective in the right regime at the appropriate risk level, and only then efficiency. The New Manifesto reformulates the Agile Manifesto as conditional correspondence rules sensitive to demand typology, and six testable propositions guide future empirical research. The main finding is that a team becomes simultaneously agile, high-performing, and dynamically capable only when its operating regime corresponds to the demand typology it faces, matching effectiveness before efficiency, calibrating risk, and building a renewable repertoire of shared heuristics. For managers, teams, and organizations, this implies diagnosing the delivery demand before selecting a method, composing and leading teams according to the demand’s dominant axes, and protecting the psychological safety that turns reversible error into collective learning. The contribution integrates the Agile Manifesto, decision theory, the sociotechnical tradition, and neurostrategy into a single theory of Agile, High-Performance, and Dynamic Teams (EAD2), oriented toward verifiable objectives, goals, and results.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080396

Authors: Soha Dia Hadi Harb Malak Khreis Meliha Nurdan Taşkıran Nisreen Abi Farraj Thouraya AlSahely

AI-driven personalization has become a defining feature of digital advertising, yet whether it drives purchase intention directly or depends on other underlying mechanisms remains insufficiently understood, particularly in under-studied emerging markets. This study investigates how perceived relevance, usefulness, and privacy concerns shape perceived trust and purchase intention in response to AI-driven personalized advertising across Lebanon and Türkiye, two digitally distinct markets. Drawing on the Stimulus Organism Response model, Technology Acceptance Model, Privacy Calculus Theory, and Trust in Automation Theory, a quantitative cross-national design was employed, using a structured questionnaire administered to 802 social media users (394 Lebanon; 408 Türkiye), with data analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling and permutation-based multigroup analysis following partial measurement invariance. Results confirm perceived personalization has no direct effect on purchase intention, operating solely through relevance, usefulness, and privacy concerns; relevance and usefulness build trust while privacy concerns erode it, and trust, relevance, and usefulness each independently drive purchase intention. This study advances an asymmetric mediation account of AI advertising, positioning trust as the conduit through which privacy risk reaches behavior and, for managers, the lever converting personalization into purchase. Future research could examine these dynamics longitudinally or across other digitally emerging markets.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080395

Authors: Xinyue Long Yan Gao

Climate risk is increasingly reshaping firms’ operating environments, yet limited evidence exists on how climate-related pressures influence corporate green innovation and through which organizational mechanisms such effects occur. Drawing on induced technological change theory and dynamic capability theory, this study investigates how climate risk, reflected in firms’ exposure to extreme high-temperature days, affects green innovation among Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms during 2010–2022. The results indicate that climate-related heat shocks significantly promote firms’ green innovation. Mechanism analyses show that this effect operates through two channels: increased R&D investment and enhanced adaptive capacity. Further analyses reveal that the innovation-promoting effect of climate-related pressures is strengthened by regional green finance development but weakened by firms’ financial slack. In addition, the positive effect is concentrated among non-state-owned enterprises and non-heavily polluting firms. This study contributes to the literature by extending induced technological change theory to the firm level and highlighting how climate-related pressures influence green innovation through both resource reallocation and organizational adaptation. The findings also provide new evidence on the roles of external financial support and internal resource conditions in shaping firms’ innovation responses to environmental change.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080394

Authors: Fernando Rodríguez Fonseca Hugo Fernando Castro Silva Torcoroma Pérez Velasquez

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into human resources management is driving a profound transformation in the evolution of management, and even more so in the management of human talent, which is the primary resource of any organization. This research provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of AI on core human resource management processes, covering the automation of operations that enables the exploration of dimensions such as talent acquisition, training, potential development, mental well-being, strategic workforce planning, job design, diversity, compensation, equity and inclusion, change management, culture and sustainability. The purpose of this study is to systematically synthesize the existing evidence on the impact of artificial intelligence on human management processes, identifying the scientific consensus, emerging contradictions, research gaps, and implications for sustainable organizational development. A systematic review was conducted of various sources published between 2020 and 2025 from databases such as ScienceDirect and Scopus, among others, using predefined Boolean search strategies, explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria and a structured thematic synthesis narrowing down the main studies based on search criteria. It was determined how algorithms are changing the employer-employee relationship within organizations. The findings indicate that the effectiveness of AI depends on the development of a hybrid intelligence that preserves the human factor consideration. It is concluded that AI enables the optimization of cultural change management, analytical precision, and ethical oversight—which are irreplaceable and critical human competencies in today’s digital age. This review contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive synthesis of recent evidence, identifying unresolved research gaps, and proposing a future research agenda that will lead to the development of sustainable, responsible, and people-centered AI in human resource management.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080393

Authors: Yi Zhao Wensong Zhang Yuxiang An Jiayuan Wang Baolian Chen

Currently, intelligent agent applications generally face the bottleneck of “strong single-agent intelligence but weak group collaboration,” making it difficult to form systemic ecological advantages through network effects. Addressing this practical dilemma, this paper adopts the platform ecosystem perspective, defines three dimensions of intelligent agent network ecological advantage—resource complementarity, governance coordination, and dynamic adaptability—and systematically reveals its nonlinear formation mechanism based on the coupling of self-organization, emergence, and governance. Taking 2024 Chinese listed platform enterprises as the sample and employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study identifies three multi-factor equivalent configurational paths that drive high ecological advantage: the resource-open collaborative type achieves synergistic amplification and leap through deep fusion of resource openness; the algorithm-incentive-regulation type drives asymmetric leadership through technological depth and governance response; and the resource-governance-adaptive type constructs resilience barriers in highly uncertain environments through comprehensive and balanced configurations. This paper constructs an active symbiosis theory of intelligent agent ecosystems, advancing ecosystem theory from the traditional “passive complementarity” paradigm to a new “active symbiosis” paradigm, revealing multiple concurrent causality and asymmetric causality, clarifying the dual role of regulatory sensitivity as both a “bridge” and an “amplifier,” and providing a novel theoretical framework and analytical paradigm for platform ecosystem governance in the GenAI and multi-agent era.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080392

Authors: Andrejs Čirjevskis

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and growing global fragmentation are reshaping how multinational enterprises manage cross-border strategic alliances. Prior research has focused on alliance formation and resource access, yet less attention has been paid to how AI transforms the managerial capabilities required for effective alliance orchestration. This study addresses this gap by examining how AI augmentation may alter the microfoundations of dynamic managerial capabilities (DMC) in cross-border alliances. Building on DMC theory, the paper proposes an AI-augmented framework with four interrelated microfoundations: AI-enhanced managerial cognition, algorithmic social capital, hybrid human–AI capital, and AI-enabled political capital. Using an abductive research design and longitudinal case analyses of Carrefour–Google, Walmart–IBM, and Tesco–Carrefour, the study illustrates how AI may support the reshaping of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring processes. It uses a Gioia-informed coding procedure to enhance transparency in the elaboration of theory. The findings suggest that AI may improve data-driven sensing, enable scalable coordination through algorithmic trust, enhance ambidexterity through human–AI collaboration, and support proactive regulatory positioning. However, these benefits are expected to be contingent on institutional conditions, including data governance constraints and power asymmetries. The study contributes by extending DMC theory and highlighting how AI-enabled capabilities could drive alliance performance in complex global environments.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080391

Authors: Rommel Albuja Juan Marcelo Ibujés-Villacís Sang Guun Yoo

The digital transformation of shrimp aquaculture in Ecuador has accelerated the adoption of traceability technologies to improve transparency, regulatory compliance, and supply chain coordination. However, persistent structural limitations—such as technological fragmentation, low interoperability, and inconsistent data quality—continue to constrain their effectiveness. This study develops an approach to managing informational uncertainty in traceability systems, grounded in information theory and operationalized through the Technological Management Model for Shrimp Production (TMMT-SP). Methodologically, the research follows an abductive systemic modeling approach, integrating a systematic literature review, structural analysis of the production system, and ontological modeling to identify and classify interdomain gaps. The findings show that informational uncertainty emerges as a structural property of the system, resulting from misalignments across informational, technological, and governance dimensions. These misalignments limit the coherence, reliability, and integration of traceability processes. In response, the study proposes a structural entropy-based framework (understood as an operational representation of systemic informational dispersion) to diagnose, prioritize, and address these gaps, shifting the focus from isolated technological adoption toward systemic coherence. This approach provides a conceptual and methodological basis for designing technology management strategies to reduce uncertainty in complex production systems.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080390

Authors: Mwaffaq Otoom Mahmoud Al-Kilani

AI is currently shaping how people are being entrepreneurial by allowing the establishment of AI-native ventures. The creation of these new types of businesses builds off an infrastructure of data, computing power, and research that typically accompany advanced economies. In contrast, most developing economies are still experiencing institutional and structural barriers that inhibit the formation of new ventures and their subsequent growth. Despite the existence of research that explores some of the ways in which successful ecosystems from developed economies could be applied to developing ecosystems, there is little guidance on how to systematically adapt these successful practices in resource-constrained environments. This research uses a comparative, document-based study design to assess how to benchmark and configure AI-native entrepreneurship ecosystems across heterogeneous institutional environments. Using Switzerland and Jordan as two contrasting analytical cases, we define twelve dimensions of an ecosystem and then create comparative ecosystem profiles using a standardized coding and scoring framework. We combine dimension-level data on talent development, applied research, infrastructure, financing, governance and market access with baseline socio-economic indicators. Our results demonstrate a high level of structural asymmetry between the two ecosystems. Switzerland has a balanced and highly coordinated configuration, whereas there is a strong university anchor and demand for talent in Jordan, but there are also significant weaknesses in terms of infrastructure, financing, and industry linkages. Building from these results, we present the parameter re-weighting and the context-sensitive design model to encourage the emergence of AI-native entrepreneurship in Jordan through coordinated architecture, collaborative experimentation resources and internationalization at an early stage. This article advances both the fields of entrepreneurial ecosystems and digital entrepreneurship by framing AI-native entrepreneurship as a new form of knowledge-intensive venture creation and providing a context-sensitive approach for adapting entrepreneurial ecosystems. The results provide a document-informed basis for policymakers, academic institutions and other ecosystem actors seeking to develop AI-based innovation in resource-constrained economies.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080389

Authors: Andrejs Čirjevskis

Digital diversification increasingly occurs not through acquisition or formal alliance but through staged, option-like commitments between large technology firms and frontier artificial intelligence (AI) developers. This paper uses the Amazon–OpenAI partnership (November 2025–March 2026) as an illustrative case to examine how such staged commitments can be understood through a real-options lens. The paper organizes the case around five synergy categories adapted from the M&A and ecosystem literature—market power, relational, network, non-market, and ecosystem synergies—and shows that Amazon’s two-tranche investment structure ($15 billion committed, with a further $35 billion conditional on technological and commercial milestones) resembles a compound sequential call option. The paper illustrates this logic with a compound option and binomial lattice valuation, using publicly disclosed deal terms and volatility proxies from comparable AI firms. The paper emphasizes that this valuation is indicative rather than precise: it depends on assumptions about OpenAI’s eventual IPO valuation, the durability of Amazon’s ownership share, and the appropriateness of peer-firm volatility as a proxy, all of which are uncertain at the time of writing. The paper’s contribution is conceptual: it introduces ‘staged ecosystem optionality’ as a mechanism of digital diversification and offers a road map for future research.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080388

Authors: Luis Alberto Geraldo-Campos Oscar David Carreño-Flores Bartolome Macavilca-Tello Justina Uribe-Kajatt

Higher education institutions must sustain employees’ capacity and motivation amid organizational change. This study examined cross-sectional associations among perceived organizational support (POS), employee resilience, and sustainable employability in 202 university employees in Lima, Peru. Participants completed translated self-report measures. Following a measurement audit, POS was represented by a reduced unidimensional 10-item factor, resilience by nine items, and sustainable employability by a second-order factor reflected by productivity, workplace social climate, work control, and self-efficacy. Weighted least squares mean- and variance-adjusted latent-variable modeling showed acceptable fit, scaled chi-square (621) = 1330.81, CFI = 0.968, TLI = 0.965, RMSEA = 0.075, and SRMR = 0.080. POS was associated with resilience (beta = 0.469) and sustainable employability (beta = 0.374), while resilience was associated with sustainable employability (beta = 0.498). The indirect association through resilience was significant (B = 0.353, 95% Monte Carlo CI [0.209, 0.519]; beta = 0.234), and the direct association remained significant too, suggesting partial complementary mediation. Sensitivity analyses that excluded a productivity item with ceiling effects, used robust maximum likelihood, and added demographic controls led to the same conclusion. Since the data are cross-sectional and self-reported, the results are consistent but do not show a temporal or causal mediation process.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080387

Authors: Erisa Luzi Valentina Ndou Vera Ndrecaj Jonida Teta

Digitalisation and sustainability reporting exert parallel pressures on human resource management (HRM); yet, whether their research streams overlap is more often assumed than measured. This study measures that overlap directly. Treating digital HRM and sustainability/ESG-oriented HRM as two prespecified, query-defined streams, it compares them across OpenAlex and Scopus (2012–2025) through separate conceptual blocks, their union and direct AND intersection, title–abstract–keyword retrieval, deterministic quality control, directed cross-citation, DOI matching, and sensitivity analyses. The analytical unions comprise 13,764 OpenAlex and 5128 Scopus records, but their direct intersections contain only 284 and 89 (Jaccard 2.06% and 1.74%), a result reproduced by a stricter 4047-record Scopus corpus (1.93%). Citation crosses the two streams asymmetrically, flowing more often from digital HRM toward sustainability than in reverse. Across 3395 DOI-matched records, the databases rank journals, authors, and countries almost identically (0.95, 0.89, and 0.97), yet their coupling communities align only moderately (adjusted Rand index 0.37; normalised mutual information 0.57). ESG surfaces within the keyword network rather than disappearing from it. The streams are therefore integrating, but partially, asymmetrically, and to a degree that shifts with database, metadata, vocabulary, and network choices. The study contributes a reproducible protocol that measures such integration rather than presuming it.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080386

Authors: Alexander Sánchez-Rodríguez María Fernanda Narváez-Benavides Verónica Alexandra Carrillo-Moya Ana Gabriela Tapia-Morales Gelmar García-Vidal Reyner Pérez-Campdesuñer

This study examines how Female-Associated Leadership Practices (FALPs) are associated with firm performance in Ecuadorian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through organizational governance and strategic orientation. Drawing on Upper Echelons Theory, social role theory, expectation states theory, and gender and leadership research, FALPs are conceptualized as perceived leadership practices frequently linked to participative decision-making, collaboration, ethical consideration, innovation stimulation, and long-term orientation. This conceptualization avoids treating leader gender, gender diversity, women’s representation in management, and leadership style as interchangeable constructs. Using a quantitative cross-sectional design, firm-level data from 300 SMEs were analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that FALPs are not directly associated with firm performance. Instead, they are positively associated with governance quality and strategic orientation, both of which are, in turn, positively associated with firm performance. Strategic orientation represents the strongest indirect pathway, while governance is associated with performance both directly and indirectly through strategic orientation. These findings provide a process-based explanation for inconsistent evidence on gender-related leadership practices and firm outcomes. Practically, the study suggests that participative, ethical, collaborative, innovation-oriented, and long-term leadership practices may support SMEs by strengthening governance quality and strategic capabilities.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080385

Authors: Laureta Domi Majlinda Godolja Kozeta Sevrani

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly transforming banking, yet responsible adoption depends not only on technical deployment but also on organizational readiness, governance capacity, monitoring practices, and the capacity to scale AI responsibly. This study examines AI adoption, governance readiness, maturity, perceived benefits, adoption barriers, and scaling intention in the Albanian banking system. Based on a cross-sectional survey of 85 professionals from 15 institutions, including all 12 banks operating in Albania and 3 additional financial institutions, the study applies the Technology–Organization–Environment framework together with principles of responsible AI governance. The analysis uses reliability and validity diagnostics, common-method diagnostics, robust OLS regressions, institution-clustered inference, bootstrap confidence intervals, PLS-SEM robustness analysis, and sensitivity checks. The findings show that AI adoption is visible but uneven: more than half of respondents reported active or pilot AI use, while integration, monitoring, and benefit measurement remain less developed. Data and Technology Readiness and Environmental/Regulatory Pressure were positively associated with Capability-Governance Readiness, which was positively associated with Perceived Benefits. Perceived Benefits were positively associated with Intention to Invest in or Scale AI, whereas Adoption Barriers showed no statistically significant association with scaling intention. The study provides exploratory evidence from a small banking system, indicating that responsible AI development requires the alignment of technological foundations, organizational capability, governance structures, monitoring routines, responsible-use orientation, and benefit-measurement practices.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080384

Authors: Dana Kušnírová Eva Malichová Emese Tokarčíková

This study examines students’ job search behaviour in the context of an increasingly digital labour market, focusing on preferred employer contact channels and the use of professional networking platforms. Despite the growing importance of digital tools for recruitment and employability, it remains unclear how students actually engage with these channels. The study is based on quantitative data collected through a structured questionnaire administered in person to 209 university students in Slovakia. The analysis employs descriptive statistics, chi-square tests and binary logistic regression to examine differences in preferences and the determinants of platform use. The findings show that job portals remain the dominant employer contact channel, while social media platforms, including LinkedIn, are significantly less utilised. A key result is the identification of a gap between LinkedIn awareness, profile ownership, and its actual use for job search. The results further indicate that job portal preference differs by field of study, while employment status is not significantly associated with the analysed employer contact channels. The study contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of behavioural engagement in digital job search and offers implications for universities, students, and employers.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080383

Authors: Warinrampai Rungruangjit Kulachet Mongkol Kitti Charoenpornpanichkul

Human-like virtual influencers (VIs) have become an increasingly important component of social media marketing. Their human-like appearance can simultaneously attract users and, meanwhile, evoke discomfort associated with the uncanny valley. This study utilized quantitative research via partial least squares structural equation modeling. A total of 845 Instagram users contributed to the dataset. The findings demonstrated that informative content did not significantly influence Instagram users’ engagement intentions, whereas entertaining content exerted a favorable influence. Simultaneously perceived innovativeness was the strongest antecedent, while perceived personalization was also significant. In addition, both cognitive and affective empathy significantly strengthen parasocial relationships, which subsequently increase users’ engagement intentions toward human-like VIs. This study contributes in three ways. First, it identifies the relative importance of content, social relationships, and personal gratifications in explaining engagement intentions with human-like VIs. Second, it extends research by distinguishing the complementary roles of cognitive and affective empathy in fostering parasocial relationships with human-like VIs. Third, the findings suggest that cognitive and affective empathy may help explain why users form meaningful social relationships with highly human-like VIs despite concerns associated with perceived artificiality, thereby offering a more nuanced understanding of engagement intentions in the context of virtual influencer marketing.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080382

Authors: Lynda Lourenço e Faro Paula Cristina Oliveira Ana Isabel Canavarro Manuel Sousa Pereira António Cardoso

This study proposes a conceptual model of smart innovation to examine internationalization processes in traditional, territorially embedded industries, with a focal empirical focus on Sogrape, Portugal’s leading wine company, situated within the Vinho Verde wine sector. While digital transformation is increasingly recognized as a driver of competitiveness, its role in shaping internationalization strategies within regional agri-food systems remains insufficiently theorized. To address this gap, the study adopts a modified Delphi-based qualitative approach involving a panel of experts composed mainly of Sogrape managers and complemented by independent producers from the Vinho Verde wine sector. Through two iterative rounds of structured expert inquiry, the research identifies key mechanisms linking digital transformation, organizational capabilities, territorial identity, and international market expansion. The findings are synthesized into an integrative conceptual model that articulates how smart innovation, understood as the strategic alignment of digital capabilities, organizational processes, and territorial assets, may support internationalization processes in territorially embedded settings. The model emphasizes the role of digital platforms, data-driven decision-making, and narrative-driven place positioning in translating territorial identity into competitive value in global markets. Importantly, the study does not claim to provide representative evidence of the Vinho Verde wine sector as a whole. Rather, it develops a focal-case-based analytical architecture, grounded primarily in Sogrape’s organizational context and qualified by complementary insights from independent producers. The study contributes to the literature by bridging digital transformation, internationalization, and territorial value creation within a unified conceptual framework. From a managerial perspective, it offers analytically grounded insights that may inform strategic reflection in wine firms and other territorially embedded agri-food sectors, subject to contextual adaptation and further empirical validation.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080381

Authors: Khaled Alnaimat Zauwiyah Ahmad Yip Yen Yen

Intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) is believed to enhance transparency and reduce information asymmetry, yet its voluntary nature raises questions about its effectiveness, particularly in emerging markets. This study investigates whether ICD mediates the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance in Jordan, an emerging market that mandated corporate governance reports in 2017. Using panel data from 391 firm-year observations (2021–2023) of firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange, we employ pooled OLS regression with robust standard errors. Only three of eighteen hypotheses are supported. Board size significantly influences relational (RCD) and structural capital disclosures (SCD). Audit committee meetings influence RCD. However, no ICD component affects firm performance, and no mediation effects exist. The results indicate that ICD does not mediate the corporate governance-firm performance relationship. The findings question the effectiveness of voluntary ICD; this type of voluntary disclosure may be insufficient to achieve transparency goals in emerging markets. We argue that mandatory, standardized ICD requirements may be necessary to enhance comparability, reduce information asymmetry, and improve governance effectiveness. Regulators should consider piloting mandatory ICD reporting for large listed firms.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080380

Authors: Erica Frosini Andrea Bobbio Luigina Canova

Despite longstanding conceptual and measurement concerns surrounding transformational leadership, environmental applications of the paradigm have continued to proliferate through target-specific formulations and increasingly complex explanatory models. Yet whether these developments have resolved, or merely reproduced, the broader theoretical and methodological concerns that characterize transformational leadership research remains unclear. Against this backdrop, this systematic review, conducted and reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, critically synthesizes the empirical literature on transformational leadership in employee green behavior research while situating it within this broader theoretical and methodological context. Peer-reviewed English-language articles published since 2000 were retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, and ABI/INFORM and screened against predefined eligibility criteria, resulting in 64 studies. Results revealed limited empirical engagement with the theory’s linchpin of follower transformation. Rather than modeling change in follower self-concept, most studies adopted Bass’s four-pillar framework and examined associations between follower-perceived behaviors of transformational leaders and environmental outcomes within diverse mediational and conditional process models. Across almost all studies, higher perceptions of transformational leadership were positively associated with employee green behavior, irrespective of whether the construct was operationalized using general or environmentally specific formulations. Organizational factors, most notably perceived green organizational climate, emerged as the most frequently examined mediating mechanism and contextual boundary condition linking transformational leadership to employee green behavior. Both general and target-specific formulations were predominantly operationalized using measures based on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), raising concerns regarding the intelligibility of cumulative evidence. We conclude by outlining a research agenda aimed at enhancing theoretical coherence, measurement validity, and methodological rigor.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080379

Authors: Vita Juknevičienė Salomėja Vanagienė

Anticipatory governance is regarded as an important governance approach that promotes strategic foresight and future-oriented policymaking under conditions of uncertainty. Following recent crises, European states continue to face challenges in bridging the gap between evidence and policymaking and in translating scientific knowledge into policy responses. This highlights the need to connect the anticipatory governance approach with evidence-informed policymaking to support more proactive, systematic, and informed policy processes. The aim of this research is to identify the strategic, legal, and institutional elements of governance frameworks that support the integration of anticipatory governance and evidence-informed policymaking in European states. The study compares Estonia, Lithuania, and Spain, three countries that have recently established dedicated science-for-policy structures, including science and innovation adviser roles within governmental institutions. A directed qualitative content analysis of selected strategic documents, legal acts, and institutional policy documents was conducted using deductively derived analytical categories. This was complemented by a quantitative keyword frequency analysis of selected studies of national science-for-policy ecosystems. The findings reveal both shared and country-specific elements that may support strategic foresight, evidence use, knowledge brokerage, stakeholder engagement, and collaboration between governmental and scientific communities. The study contributes a comparative analytical framework for examining how anticipatory governance and evidence-informed policymaking may be institutionally connected across different national policy ecosystems.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080378

Authors: Gustavo Hermosa-Vega Giovanni Herrera-Enríquez Diego Sande-Veiga Juan Gabriel Martínez-Navalón

Export participation in emerging economies depends not only on structural firm characteristics but also on internal organizational capabilities that support international readiness. This study examines whether managerial practices and sustainability are associated with export participation among Ecuadorian firms and whether this relationship coexists with complementary capabilities such as quality certification and process innovation. Using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey Ecuador 2024, the study applies a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional design and estimates weighted logit models with region and sector fixed effects, complemented by robustness checks including alternative specifications, penalized logit, alternative inference for few clusters, and models of export intensity. The results show that managerial practices are the most consistent predictor of export participation in the main specifications. Sustainability presents a weaker but positive association, particularly when measured as the intensity of sustainable practices rather than as a binary condition. Quality certification emerges as the most consistent complementary capability, while process innovation shows a positive but less stable relationship. Additional analyses indicate that these capabilities are more clearly associated with the decision to export than with export intensity. The findings suggest that export readiness in Ecuadorian firms is linked to management, standardization, and gradual sustainability upgrading.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080377

Authors: Benja Stig Fagerland Lincoln Bleveans

In the original publication [...]

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080376

Authors: Shoichiro Hosomi Soichiro Yamamoto

Environmental disclosure and environmental, social, and governance assessments are gaining importance, using Corporate Disclosure Project (CDP) scores to evaluate corporate environmental disclosure. However, scarce evidence links CDP scores with performance and value among Japanese manufacturing firms. This study examines these associations using panel data from 2018 to 2023, combining financial data from Nikkei NEEDS Financial QUEST with CDP scores for climate change, water security, and forests. CDP ratings were converted into ordered numerical values, and regression models were estimated with firm-level controls, firm age, applicable fixed effects, and an annual macroeconomic control variable. Robustness checks included categorical score specifications, propensity score matching, and two-step system generalized method of moments estimation. The results indicate that the overall CDP score is positively associated with Tobin’s Q, whereas the evidence for return on assets and return on equity is weaker. Improvements in the overall score are also linked to increases in Tobin’s Q. By contrast, individual climate change, water security, and forest sub-scores show weak and inconsistent statistical significance. These findings should be interpreted as associations, not definitive causal effects. The study extends environmental accounting research beyond carbon-focused analyses, suggesting that aggregate CDP evaluations are more value-relevant than disaggregated sub-scores.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080375

Authors: Patricia Blatnik Štefan Bojnec

Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) have been an eligibility requirement for Horizon Europe funding since 2022, yet formal adoption does not necessarily alter organizational routines, culture, or resource allocation. This article examines the process of moving from compliance toward institutionalized practice through a longitudinal single-case study of the University of Primorska (UP), a smaller university in a resource-constrained Widening-country context. We compare the first analytical observation period (2021–2025), based on its 2021–2027 GEP, with GEP 2.0 (2026–2030). Evidence combines documentary analysis, selected gender-disaggregated indicators, three focus groups (n = 24), and aggregated staff-survey results for 2024–2025. We develop the Gender Equality Plan Maturity Index (GEP-MI), an unweighted six-dimensional heuristic scored from 0 to 18. The document-based, triangulated score rises from 7 to 15, indicating more explicit governance, data routines, and resourcing, but not durable implementation outcomes. Qualitative evidence illustrates three overlapping categories associated with the paper–practice gap: passive resistance (skepticism and box-ticking), active ideological resistance (naturalization and denial), and structural implementation constraints (including administrative infeasibility and unequal care burdens). A documentary comparison with the Universities of Ljubljana and Maribor contextualizes differences in formal design; it does not establish the prevalence of these categories beyond UP. We define audit-induced decoupling under constrained resources as the risk that audited requirements redirect scarce capacity toward demonstrable compliance rather than substantive change. The case offers a transparent monitoring heuristic and suggests that proportionate capacity support warrants consideration alongside European conditionality.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080374

Authors: Mingjian Xie Zhibin Tao Yuanyuan Yu

Whether China’s carbon trading pilots stimulate firm-level innovation remains contested. This study investigates the conditional effect of carbon pricing on green invention patents, moderated by firms’ digital transformation capability. Using an unbalanced panel of 31,048 firm-year observations from A-share listed companies (2011–2022) and a two-way fixed-effects difference-in-differences estimator, we find no significant unconditional average treatment effect, consistent with attenuated price signals in China’s pilots. However, digital capability substantially amplifies the innovation response: a one-standard-deviation increase in within-year digital capability is associated with a 4.6% rise in expected green invention patents among treated firms. The moderating effect is exclusive to examination-intensive invention patents rather than utility model registrations, consistent with a strong-form Porter mechanism. Sub-dimension analysis identifies strategic leadership and digital achievement as the operative channels. The results are robust to alternative estimators, cohort decomposition, and sample restrictions. Together, the findings reframe digital transformation as a policy-contingent complementary asset and extend the Porter hypothesis to an organizational-capabilities dimension.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080373

Authors: Ali Saleh Alshebami

This study sought to examine how micro and small customer-facing businesses sustain continuity of serving customers under conditions of disruption. Drawing on data collected from 230 owners of micro and small enterprises operating across various sectors, the study focuses on the roles of entrepreneurial bricolage and local supply network strength, as well as on the role of service agility as a connecting mechanism. The results showed that entrepreneurial bricolage is closely associated with both service agility and the ability of businesses to maintain continuity of serving customers under challenging conditions. Likewise, local supply network strength appeared to support service agility, although it did not show a direct relationship with continuity of serving customers. Significantly, service agility emerged as a central mechanism that helped turn available resources and network access into sustained continuity of serving customers. These findings highlight that, in resource-constrained and fragile contexts, maintaining continuity of serving customers depends less on resource availability alone and more on how businesses adapt and respond to changing conditions. The study contributes by offering initial insights into the mechanisms through which owners of micro and small enterprises can navigate disruption, emphasizing the importance of adaptive capabilities in sustaining continuity of serving customers.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080372

Authors: Nina Xie Yujun Liu Yuanyuan Wang Yiduo Wang

AI-enabled simulation platforms are increasingly used for talent development, offering scalable, low-risk practice and algorithmic feedback for interpersonal HR capabilities such as difficult conversations, negotiation, and consultation. Yet HRD evaluation cautions that within-platform improvement may not transfer to authentic interactions once dashboards and metrics disappear. We conceptualize AI-enabled simulation training as metricized scaffolding and integrate scaffolding theory with exploration–exploitation learning dynamics to explain when algorithmic supports fade into self-regulation rather than produce metric adaptation (score chasing). We introduce Algorithmic Feedback Literacy (AFL)—learners’ capability to interpret algorithmic feedback, calibrate its authority, and translate cues into portable self-scaffolds—as a mechanism linking metricized practice to transfer. We test this model in an AI-enabled virtual internship and career development program that combines repeated simulation attempts with an authentic consultation assessment. Using platform traces (592 attempts nested within 90 learners), instructor-rated consultation performance as a transfer outcome, and 102 learner reflections, we examine how distributed practice span and practice dose related to simulation gains and transfer, and how consultation complexity changes, which interactional behaviors predicted success. Distributed practice span predicted transfer beyond within-platform gains, while practice dose operated primarily through measurable simulation improvement. Complexity shifted performance relevance toward governance and boundary-setting behaviors. Qualitative evidence identified two developmental pathways: productive internalization, where learners converted metric cues into routines and mode-switching strategies, and metric adaptation, where learners optimized scores without internalizing broader professional judgment. We discuss design implications for AI-enabled HRD and retention-oriented capability building: cultivate AFL through transparency and calibration supports, design for deliberate fading, and pair metricized refinement with authentic assessments to strengthen transfer.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080371

Authors: Shu-Ching Sun Shu-Yi Liao

This study examines the association between board-level incentive structures and executive compensation, focusing on director compensation as a key element of the corporate governance environment. Using panel data from publicly listed electronic firms in Taiwan from 2012 to 2024, we investigate how director compensation is associated with executive pay within firms over time. Drawing on agency theory, we argue that director compensation reflects the broader incentive climate faced by board members and may be associated with executive pay-setting processes. To examine this relationship, we employ panel data analysis to account for firm-specific characteristics and unobserved heterogeneity. The results reveal a robust positive relationship between director compensation and executive compensation, suggesting that higher board-level incentives are associated with higher executive pay. Furthermore, earnings-based performance measures play a more important role than equity-based measures in compensation design, highlighting the importance of accounting-based indicators in this context. This study contributes to the governance literature by demonstrating that director compensation is strongly associated with executive pay outcomes rather than merely a governance cost. The findings offer practical implications for compensation committee practices, incentive alignment, and organizational governance in emerging market contexts.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080370

Authors: Surianto Surianto Usep Suhud Somnuk Aujirapongpan

Health-related product positioning has become an important strategy for influencing consumer evaluations and consumption behaviour. Previous studies have shown that favourable health-related perceptions positively affect consumer responses, yet the cognitive mechanism linking these perceptions to consumption decisions remains insufficiently understood. This study examines the mediating role of perceived product quality in the relationship between perceived health image and consumption decision toward Bear Brand sterilized milk in Indonesia. A survey of 200 consumers was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that perceived health image influences consumption decisions both directly and indirectly through perceived product quality. More importantly, consumers ultimately rely on quality evaluations rather than favourable health-related impressions alone when making consumption decisions. This study contributes to consumer behaviour literature by demonstrating how the Health Halo Effect, Cue Utilization Theory, and Signalling Theory jointly explain the sequential cognitive process underlying health-related consumption decisions. In practice, the findings suggest that firms should complement health-oriented brand positioning with consistently superior product quality to strengthen consumer confidence and improve the effectiveness of health-related marketing communications.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080369

Authors: Melika Dadkhah Lara Bellotti Marco Giovanni Mariani Sara Zaniboni

Age-related microaggressions are short, everyday comments, actions, or environmental cues that, whether intentional or not, send messages of hostility or exclusion. These remarks or behaviors often target people who do not fit dominant social norms. Although each incident may seem minor on its own, together they can cause serious harm to individuals and organizations. Using cross-sectional data from 1702 Italian in-office employees working for the public administration in the Emilia–Romagna region of Italy (Mage = 50.6, SD = 9.35), we explored the prevalence of age-related microaggressions across different public organizations’ employees in Italy and examined how perceptions differ among demographic groups. Findings reveal that younger employees (ages 23–39) reported significantly higher levels of perceived age-related microaggressions. The perception of age-inclusive HR practices was negatively correlated with microaggressions and positively correlated with job satisfaction, psychological safety, and intrinsic motivation. Additionally, the strength of this association was not uniform; it was strongest for the youngest and oldest employees. These results underscore the importance of attending to demographic differences in the strategic management of human resources. As demographic change transforms workforces globally, age-inclusive HR practices emerge as strategic tools that organizations can use to mitigate subtle discrimination and support employees of all ages.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080368

Authors: Slim Belaid Marwa Ben Moallem

Digital transformation is reshaping business-to-business (B2B) sales processes through the growing use of customer relationship management systems, analytics dashboards, automation tools, digital communication channels, and predictive technologies. However, the performance effects of these tools remain insufficiently understood, particularly in complex B2B sales contexts where commercial work is relational, knowledge-intensive, and strongly dependent on organizational routines. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model, this study explores how B2B sales actors perceive, adopt, resist, and integrate digital tools into their daily commercial practices. Based on 18 semi-structured interviews with sales directors, sales managers, business development managers, and senior sales representatives, the study identifies a conditional process linking digital tool adoption to perceived sales performance. The findings show that adoption is mainly driven by perceived usefulness, while perceived ease of use depends less on interface simplicity than on compatibility with sales routines. Resistance emerges when tools create administrative duplication, threaten commercial autonomy, or remain poorly integrated into existing workflows. The study further shows that digital tools improve perceived sales performance indirectly, mainly through CRM integration, shared customer memory, data-driven prioritization, and follow-up discipline. Managerial mechanisms, including training, leadership use, digital champions, and phased rollout, play a decisive role in converting technical deployment into effective and sustained use. The study contributes to sales digital transformation research by proposing a mediated and performance-oriented extension of TAM in B2B sales contexts.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080367

Authors: Ahmad M. Zamil Abdelrahman A. A. Abdelghani Hebatallah A. M. Ahmed Sameh Fayyad

This empirical study positions hotel-based sport wellness programs as structured physical activity offerings embedded in co-created guest experiences in luxury hotels in Saudi Arabia. It examines how the quality of wellness sports programs relates to guests’ satisfaction with the program, loyalty intentions toward the hotel, and self-reported physical activity orientation and intention. The construct is operationalized as guests’ perceived increase in activity during the stay and their stated intention to maintain or increase activity afterward. The study also tests the mediating roles of perceived health benefits and enjoyment, as well as the moderating role of staff health communication. Drawing on service quality and expectancy disconfirmation perspectives, together with health belief and motor learning insights, a cross-sectional survey was conducted with 412 guests who had participated in structured sport-based wellness sessions during their stay in Saudi Arabian luxury hotels. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS SEM). Wellness sport program quality was positively associated with perceived health benefits, enjoyment, and program satisfaction, and both perceived health benefits and enjoyment partially mediated the quality satisfaction relationship, indicating parallel cognitive and affective pathways in the guest experience. Program satisfaction, in turn, was positively associated with guests’ loyalty intentions and their self-reported orientation toward maintaining healthier physical activity routines after their stay, while staff health communication significantly strengthened the association between program quality and perceived health benefits. These results contribute to wellness tourism and hospitality research by integrating sport pedagogy and health communication into an experience-centric framework and by clarifying how hotel-based sport wellness offerings can support satisfaction, loyalty, and self-reported physical activity orientation in an emerging tourism destination. Practical implications are offered for hotel managers seeking to design human-centered, health-oriented wellness services aligned with Vision 2030 and global physical activity promotion agendas, recognizing that the findings represent perception-based associations that are a promising foundation for future longitudinal and behavioral research.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080366

Authors: Vuk Mirčetić Aleksandar Ignjatović Pertini Stefan Milojević Aleksandra Vujko Ilija Životić

Artificial intelligence is increasingly transforming organizational decision-making, yet the mechanisms through which AI Leadership contributes to innovation outcomes remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory, this study examines the relationships among AI Leadership, Digital Capability Development, Human Capital Transformation, and Innovation Efficiency. Data were collected through a cross-sectional online survey administered via the Prolific academic research platform with an international sample of 3416 employees. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling were then employed using a split-sample validation approach. The results indicate that AI Leadership positively influences Digital Capability Development, while Digital Capability Development positively affects both Human Capital Transformation and Innovation Efficiency. Contrary to expectations, AI Leadership demonstrates a significant negative direct effect on Human Capital Transformation. Mediation analysis reveals that Human Capital Transformation partially mediates the relationship between Digital Capability Development and Innovation Efficiency, whereas Digital Capability Development and Human Capital Transformation jointly provide a significant sequential mediation pathway linking AI Leadership and Innovation Efficiency. The findings suggest that innovation efficiency does not emerge directly from AI Leadership but through a multistage transformation process involving capability development and workforce adaptation. The study contributes to digital transformation and innovation research by demonstrating that innovation efficiency emerges through a sequential organizational transformation process rather than directly from AI Leadership.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080365

Authors: Phu Nguyen Duy Charles Ruangthamsing Peerasit Kamnuansilpa Grichawat Lowatcharin Prasongchai Setthasuravich

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is widely considered to hold transformative potential for public administration, but its adoption in local governments remains uneven, weakly institutionalized, and shaped by informal employee experimentation. This study advances the literature by examining GenAI adoption during a rare moment of institutional restructuring in Vietnam, where the 2025 administrative reform abolished the district tier and shifted responsibilities to ward- and commune-level government. To address the unique dynamic of GenAI adoption, this research extended the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by integrating trust in technology, perceived risk, technological awareness, and perceived organizational support. Survey data were collected from 302 civil servants across eight post-merger ward- and commune-level administrative units in a transitioning Vietnamese province. The study employs a dual-methodological approach, integrating Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to evaluate both net effects of individual variables and the underlying causal complexity. The PLS-SEM results show that performance expectancy, social influence, technological awareness, and perceived risk are positively associated with GenAI adoption intention, while effort expectancy and trust in technology operate indirectly through performance expectancy rather than exerting a direct effect. This suggests that, in the context of local government reform, trust matters primarily when it strengthens employees’ belief that GenAI can improve work performance. Perceived organizational support attenuates the positive relationship between perceived risk and adoption intention, suggesting a buffering role in reducing risk-driven experimentation under institutional uncertainty toward more structured use. The fsQCA findings reveal causal asymmetry and equifinality: adoption intention emerges through multiple pathways anchored in perceived usefulness, social influence, and facilitating conditions, whereas non-adoption is associated with low awareness and weak organizational support. The study contributes to public administration, digital governance and technology acceptance research by showing how GenAI adoption is shaped not only by individual perceptions, but also by institutional change.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080364

Authors: Dag Øivind Madsen Kåre Slåtten

Business process reengineering (BPR) is usually remembered as one of the most visible management fashions of the 1990s. It rose rapidly, promised radical redesign and major performance gains, and later lost legitimacy as many implementations failed to match the rhetoric and became associated with disruption, downsizing, and managerial overreach. Yet the organizational problem to which BPR responded never disappeared: how should organizations redesign processes when new technologies alter what is possible? This paper revisits BPR in light of recent developments in generative and agentic artificial intelligence. This perspective article develops a conceptual interpretation rather than a systematic review or empirical test. Its purpose is to clarify an emerging pattern in management discourse and process-management research: the possible reactivation of BPR-style redesign logic under new technological and discursive conditions. Using management fashion theory as the main lens, it suggests that AI may be creating conditions under which elements of BPR’s underlying redesign logic become newly relevant. The argument is not that the BPR label has simply returned. Rather, aspects of its core ambition appear to be rearticulated through adjacent and more legitimate vocabularies such as business process management, AI-augmented business process management systems, Large Process Models, and agentic BPM. To capture this pattern, the paper introduces the concept of translated resurgence, referring to the renewed relevance of an older management idea through relabeling, reinterpretation, and mutation. The paper further argues that AI may alter the technical feasibility of radical process redesign while leaving many classic BPR risks intact. The result is best understood not as a simple revival, but as an emerging and still unsettled phase in the longer afterlife of a once-prominent management idea.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080363

Authors: Ying Zhao Zhengyang Qin Oliver McCallum Zhaoyu Wang Wenbing Wu

Drawing on Social Identity Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study investigates whether paradoxical leadership is positively associated with team vitality—a core indicator of collective well-being—through an affective pathway of collective team identification and team authenticity. Using a three-wave design with temporal separation between predictor and outcomes, data were collected from 106 work teams comprising 424 employees in high-technology sectors. Results from serial mediation analysis suggest that paradoxical leadership is positively associated with collective team identification, which in turn relates positively to team authenticity and subsequently team vitality. The serial indirect effect was supported (bootstrap 95% CI excluded zero), whereas the direct effect was non-significant in the presence of the mediators. By exploring this affective mechanism, the study offers a preliminary account of how paradoxical leadership may be positively associated with shared positive affective experiences at the team level, offering practical insights for sustaining collective energy and thriving in complex, knowledge-intensive organizational environments.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080362

Authors: Ioana-Simona Ivasciuc

This study examines how tourism platform ecosystems have evolved into mechanisms supporting sustainable, resilient, and digitally transformed tourism systems amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), immersive technologies, and data-driven platform governance. While previous research has extensively explored smart tourism technologies and digital transformation, limited attention has been devoted to understanding how tourism platforms have evolved from digital infrastructures into ecosystem-level coordination mechanisms shaping sustainability, resilience, adaptive governance, and digitally mediated stakeholder interactions in tourism marketing. To address this gap, the study develops a longitudinal evolutionary analysis of tourism platform ecosystems by combining a bibliometric analysis of 447 Web of Science-indexed publications (2015–2026) with an exploratory discourse analysis of Booking.com corporate communications. The findings reveal a progressive transformation of tourism platforms from digital infrastructure ecosystems (2015–2019) to adaptive coordination systems (2020–2022) and, ultimately, to AI-driven intelligent ecosystem orchestrators (2023–2026). Across these stages, tourism research increasingly integrates AI-enabled personalization, conversational interaction, immersive technologies, ecosystem governance, sustainability coordination, destination resilience, predictive analytics, and customer engagement. The study proposes a longitudinal evolutionary framework explaining how tourism platforms transition toward intelligent ecosystem orchestration supporting sustainability-oriented governance, adaptive destination management, personalized visitor experiences, and long-term competitiveness. The framework advances an ecosystem intelligence perspective that extends existing digitalization and technology-adoption narratives within tourism research.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080361

Authors: Ibrahim A. Elshaer Chokri Kooli Alaa M. S. Azazz Sameh Fayyad Yahia Zakaria Aly Hani Alshaiti

The research investigates the psychopathological mechanisms through which perceived leader favoritism (PLF) can affect counterproductive work behavior (CWB) through the mediating effects of employee jealousy toward their coworkers and the specialized form of envy known as malicious envy. Integrating Social Comparison Theory with Affective Events Theory, the study proposes that perceived favoritism triggers unfavorable social comparisons, which in turn evoke negative emotional states that manifest in dysfunctional workplace behaviors. The research used a quantitative study design to gather information from 436 employees working in hotels. The researchers used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the research data while they also conducted reliability and validity assessments. The study shows that perceived leader favoritism leads to higher organizational counterproductive work behavior (CWB-O) and higher interpersonal counterproductive work behavior (CWB-I) among employees. The study found that PLF leads to higher employee jealousy levels which result in higher malicious envy levels that drive CWB behavior. The research found that jealousy and malicious envy function as central psychological pathways which connect favoritism to workplace deviance. This study offers a new contribution to the existing body of knowledge about leadership by extending its scope to investigate how subtle favoritism practices lead to harmful results while explaining the emotional mechanisms which cause counterproductive behavior. The research develops an integrated framework which helps people comprehend how perceived leader favoritism affects emotional responses and behavioral patterns within modern workplaces.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080360

Authors: Ovidiu-Iulian Bunea Răzvan-Andrei Corboș Bianca Mihai

This study examines AI-enabled talent acquisition from the perspective of prospective applicants and investigates how individual-level perceptions of AI-assisted selection are associated with anticipated procedural justice, organizational attractiveness, and perceived talent-market competitive positioning. Using a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach, the proposed model explores the relationships among six key constructs: perceived AI expertise (AIEXP), trust in AI technology (TRUSTP), procedural justice (PJ), anxiety (ANX), organizational attractiveness (OA), and perceived talent-market competitive positioning (PTCP). Based on data collected from 202 respondents, predominantly aged 18–24, the results indicate significant positive associations of perceived AI expertise and trust in AI with anticipated procedural justice. Procedural justice exhibits the largest structural association with organizational attractiveness, which, in turn, is strongly associated with perceived talent-market competitive positioning. The association between anxiety and organizational attractiveness is negative but not statistically significant in the present sample. Beyond individual direct relationships, bootstrapped specific indirect effects support a sequential mechanism in which perceived AI expertise and trust in AI are associated with organizational attractiveness through anticipated procedural justice and, subsequently, with perceived talent-market competitive positioning through procedural justice and organizational attractiveness. The study contributes an integrative sequential perceptual evaluation framework that connects technology-related appraisals, anticipated process legitimacy, employer attractiveness, and perceived talent-market competitive positioning under the ex-ante condition of prospective applicant evaluations.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080359

Authors: Tingting Hong Xianming Wu

The digital transformation of “Specialized, Refined, Distinctive, and Innovative” (SRDI) firms is a vital indicator of high-quality development within the digital economy and has attracted considerable attention. This study empirically examines the effect of digital transformation on enterprise value, employing big data text recognition techniques on panel data from Chinese A-share-listed SRDI firms from 2009 to 2023 to measure the intensity of corporate digital transformation. The empirical results reveal a significantly positive correlation between digital transformation and firm value for SRDI firms, a conclusion that remains robust after endogeneity and sensitivity analyses. Mechanism tests further indicate that digital transformation is significantly and positively associated with four dimensions of technological innovation, all of which are closely linked to firm value: innovation input, innovation density, innovation capability, and innovation performance. Additionally, we recognize supply chain concentration, the extent of informatization, and government subsidies as critical moderators that enhance the association between digital transformation and firm value. This study offers detailed empirical evidence about the transformation and innovation behaviors of SRDI firms, clarifying the underlying mechanisms and contingent elements that influence value creation in the digital age.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080358

Authors: Mao Chai Yao Tong Ziqi Wang

Government–enterprise collaboration does not automatically produce responsibility sharing in digital environmental governance. Integrating Social Role Theory with evolutionary game theory, this study constructs a role-based evolutionary game model to examine how governments and enterprises adjust responsibility strategies under bounded rationality. The model incorporates legitimacy benefits, role-deviation losses, digital governance capacity, compliance costs, penalties, and governance costs. Results show two possible stable outcomes—mutual responsibility fulfillment and mutual shirking—with threshold-sensitive dynamics. Stronger digital capacity, detection probability, penalties, and legitimacy incentives, combined with lower costs, expand the attraction basin of mutual responsibility fulfillment; weak monitoring, high costs, insufficient penalties, and ambiguous boundaries increase shirking risk. A focused VRBG mechanism—value cultivation, responsibility identification, benefit sharing, and guarantee mechanisms—is proposed to adjust the incentive conditions that make responsibility fulfillment self-reinforcing.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080357

Authors: Lenuța Silvia Nicoruț Timea Claudia Ghitea Rareș Cristian Daina Mădălina Diana Fehér László Fehér Lucia Georgeta Daina

Romanian county Public Health Directorates (PHDs) were central to local COVID-19 crisis management, yet subnational differences in institutional response capacity remain insufficiently quantified. This study aimed to examine institutional characteristics associated with COVID-19 response capacity among Romanian PHDs. An observational comparative design included 20 PHDs—10 from counties with university medical centers (UC) and 10 from non-university counties (NUC)—using 2020–2022 averages derived from public activity reports and official statistical databases. Seven indicators were analyzed: county population, area, number of employees, institutional budget, personnel density, prior health crisis experience, and diversity of COVID-19 response measures. Group differences were assessed using the Mann–Whitney U test, and associations using Spearman’s rank correlation. UC PHDs had larger workforces (133 vs. 67 employees, p = 0.001), higher budgets (24.3 vs. 7.6 million RON, p = 0.001), greater prior crisis experience (2.4 vs. 0.8 crises, p = 0.001), and broader response portfolios (5.6 vs. 3.0 measure categories, p < 0.001). Personnel density did not differ significantly (17.80 vs. 18.59 employees/100,000 inhabitants, p = 0.614). Response diversity correlated strongly with workforce size (ρ = 0.87), budget (ρ = 0.88), and prior crisis experience (ρ = 0.81; all p < 0.001). These findings suggest that absolute institutional resources and accumulated experience may be more relevant to crisis response capacity than population-adjusted staffing alone.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080356

Authors: Patrícia Martins Generosa Nascimento Adalberto Campos Fernandes Ana Palma-Moreira Pedro Vieira

Public sector organizations face persistent challenges in workforce retention, particularly in institutionally complex and resource-constrained environments. Although leadership is widely recognized as a key factor, research remains fragmented across the public administration and human resource management literature. This article develops a governance-sensitive framework to explain how leadership influences workforce retention in public service organizations. Drawing on a PRISMA 2020-guided systematic review of 30 studies, it integrates insights to examine the relationships between people-centered leadership, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. The synthesis suggests that leadership effects are primarily indirect, operating through affective organizational commitment. Administrative burden (red tape) and working conditions emerge as key contextual factors shaping these relationships. The study contributes by offering an integrated framework and identifying implications for managing workforce retention in public healthcare organizations and comparable institutionally dense public service settings. The article proposes an integrated conceptual framework for future empirical research.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080355

Authors: Jasmina Starc

Green office practices represent an important workplace-level expression of organizational sustainability, yet empirical evidence on their implementation remains dispersed across environmental management, green human resource management (Green HRM), leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour. This systematic literature review with qualitative thematic synthesis aims to synthesize empirical evidence on green office practices from a sustainable organizational management perspective and to explain how environmental governance, people-management systems, leadership and employee behaviour jointly shape their implementation. Following the PRISMA 2020 framework, the review included peer-reviewed original empirical studies published in English between 2014 and 2026. Twenty-two studies met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed through structured data extraction, quality appraisal and thematic coding. The findings indicate that green office practices cannot be understood only as technical or operational measures. They are workplace practices shaped by environmental governance, Green HRM, leadership support, workplace conditions and employee participation. Seven interrelated thematic categories were identified: sustainable workplace routines, environmental management and governance, Green HRM, leadership and organizational culture, employee pro-environmental behaviour, organizational sustainability outcomes, and implementation barriers and contextual conditions. The novelty of the integrated framework lies in positioning green office practices not as a separate operational domain, but as a workplace-level interface through which environmental management, Green HRM, leadership, organizational culture and employee pro-environmental behaviour are connected. The review clarifies how organizations institutionalize environmental responsibility through administrative work and everyday workplace routines.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080354

Authors: Michele Cristina da Silva Villas Boas Ítalo José Bastos Guimarães Omar Ouro-Salim Jean Marc Nacife Tânia Márcia de Freitas Jesiel Souza Silva

Innovation ecosystems are recognized as drivers of regional development and technological transformation, yet empirical studies remain concentrated in metropolitan areas, limiting the understanding of emerging agroindustrial territories. This study examines the innovation ecosystem of Rio Verde (Brazil), highlighting how structural configurations and functional asymmetries influence collaboration and distributed innovation outcomes. Grounded in the Regional Innovation System perspective and the Six-Helix model, an exploratory survey was conducted with 41 actors through a digital mapping platform. Results reveal institutional diversity and strong willingness to collaborate, but innovation capabilities and outputs remain concentrated in a few central organizations, while funding and coordination mechanisms are weak. The study refines the concept of the collaboration paradox—high engagement without broad diffusion of results—and demonstrates the methodological value of combining digital ecosystem mapping with the Six-Helix framework. Practically, it suggests that regional policies should move beyond stimulating collaboration to prioritize funding, institutional coordination, and the diffusion of innovation capabilities across emerging agroindustrial ecosystems.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16080353

Authors: Ogheneofejiro Jesujoba Edewor Olaleke Oluseye Ogunnaike Mercy E. Ogbari

This study examines the relationship between employee empowerment and sustainable competitiveness in the food and beverage manufacturing industry through the lenses of the Resource-Based View (RBV) and Dynamic Capability perspectives. Although employee empowerment has been widely associated with organisational success, comparatively limited attention has been devoted to its relationship with operational dimensions of competitiveness in manufacturing firms within emerging economies. Using cross-sectional survey data collected from 277 employees of the five largest food and beverage manufacturing companies in Southwest Nigeria, the study investigates employee empowerment as a multidimensional construct comprising structural and psychological components. Sustainable competitiveness is operationalised through cost leadership, product quality, on-time delivery, and flexibility. Data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that employee empowerment is positively associated with all four dimensions of competitiveness. The strongest associations were with flexibility, followed by product quality and on-time delivery. The association with cost leadership was relatively weaker. These findings indicate that employee empowerment might be particularly relevant to adaptability-oriented capabilities in manufacturing environments. The study contributes to the literature by integrating Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capability perspectives and provides insights into the importance of workforce-related capabilities in aiding operational competitiveness in manufacturing firms operating under resource-constrained conditions.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070352

Authors: Jiangshan Zhu Jinguo Xin Ning Zhang

Artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into physical products, industrial scenarios, and innovation ecosystems, yet management research has focused mainly on AI adoption rather than the depth of organizational integration. This study examines how AI embedding affects enterprise competitiveness in China’s embodied intelligence industry and whether competitive structure reconfiguration mediates this relationship. Using survey data from 266 firms and partial least squares structural equation modeling, the analysis shows that AI embedding positively affects both enterprise competitiveness and competitive structure reconfiguration. Competitive structure reconfiguration also improves enterprise competitiveness and partially mediates the focal relationship, with a variance accounted for value of 43.7%. By contrast, the moderating effects of data–computing foundation and scenario openness are not supported. These findings indicate that the competitive value of AI depends not only on adoption but also on its integration into R&D, decision-making, organizational coordination, and scenario development, as well as on the structural changes that follow. The study contributes by distinguishing AI embedding from AI adoption and by identifying competitive structure reconfiguration as a process mechanism linking embedded AI to technological, ecosystem, and rule-based competitiveness.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070351

Authors: Ibrahim A. Elshaer Chokri Kooli Alaa M. S. Azazz Sameh Fayyad Kareem A. Rashwan Hani Alshaiti

As sustainability becomes a strategic priority within the hospitality industry, understanding how environmentally responsible practices influence customer behaviours beyond loyalty has become increasingly important. This study investigates the mechanisms through which green hotel practices foster customer brand evangelism in the context of Green Star-certified hotels in Egypt. Drawing on Social Identity Theory and Relationship Marketing Theory, the study examines the direct effects of green hotel practices on brand pride, brand fidelity, and customer brand evangelism, while also exploring the mediating roles of brand pride and brand fidelity and the moderating role of green perceived quality. Data were collected from 428 guests of Green Star-certified hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that green hotel practices significantly enhance brand pride, brand fidelity, and customer brand evangelism. Furthermore, brand pride and brand fidelity individually and sequentially mediate the relationship between green hotel practices and brand evangelism. The results also demonstrate that green perceived quality strengthens the effects of green hotel practices on both brand pride and brand fidelity. By extending existing research beyond traditional loyalty outcomes, this study contributes to the growing literature on sustainable hospitality, customer advocacy, and brand relationship management. The findings suggest that environmentally responsible hotel practices can encourage customers to engage in active, brand-supportive behaviours, including positive word of mouth, online advocacy, and electronic word of mouth (eWOM). Practical implications are provided for hotel managers seeking to transform sustainability initiatives into stronger customer advocacy, enhanced digital brand engagement, and long-term brand support.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070350

Authors: Hussain Alhejji

This study examines how power distance (PD) at the national and individual levels may shape diversity training program (DTP) design and employees’ psychological responses. Specifically, it explores how national PD values may shape organizational DTP design characteristics and how individual PD orientations influence employees’ psychological responses. The study synthesizes conceptual, theoretical, and empirical research published between 2000 and 2026 to identify recurring themes across DTP design, cultural values, and employee psychological responses, which informed the development of a multilevel conceptual framework. The proposed framework distinguishes between organizational DTP design characteristics, employee psychological responses, and perceived DTP effectiveness across national and individual levels of analysis. A number of propositions are then developed to guide future research and inform culturally responsive DTP design practices. The findings suggest that DTPs may operate differently across cultural and organizational contexts, with PD representing an important yet underexplored contextual dimension shaping these differences. Perceived DTP effectiveness is further proposed to depend on the alignment between organizational DTP design characteristics and employees’ individual PD orientations. The study contributes to DTP research by highlighting the importance of aligning organizational DTP design characteristics with employees’ individual PD orientations when designing culturally responsive DTPs.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070349

Authors: Manuel Jesús Sánchez-González Rafael Robina-Ramírez Ana Leal-Solís

This study examines how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can contribute to the development of a responsible governance orientation in hotel companies located in inland tourism destinations through internal organizational capabilities. Unlike approaches focused primarily on the external dimension of CSR, this research directs attention to the internal mechanisms that enable responsible commitments to be transformed into ethical, verifiable, and sustained management practices. Drawing on stakeholder theory and the resource-based view, the proposed model analyzes the effects of ethical organizational design, internal CSR implementation, and accountability and evaluation mechanisms on responsible hotel governance orientation. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 112 hotel managers in Extremadura, Spain, and uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), complemented by a multigroup analysis based on hotel category. The results show that ethical organizational design is the model’s primary antecedent, positively influencing internal CSR implementation, accountability and evaluation mechanisms, and responsible hotel governance orientation. Internal CSR implementation and accountability and evaluation mechanisms also act as explanatory pathways linking ethical structures to responsible governance. The multigroup analysis reveals distinct patterns across hotel categories, particularly in the relationships associated with ethical organizational design. At the practical level, this study offers guidance for strengthening responsible management in hotel companies through ethical structures, internal training, and continuous monitoring and improvement systems.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070348

Authors: Bernard Lee Namjae Cho Oliver O. H. M. Yau Giseob Yu

This study tests an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), examining how culture, religion, and spirituality shape entrepreneurial cognition among final-year university students in South Korea and China—two Confucian-heritage societies with sharply divergent religious compositions (30.4% vs. 9.2% religiously affiliated). Using a mixed-methods design, we analyzed survey data from 411 students and alumni via PLS-SEM, triangulated with four focus groups. The core TPB chain held in both countries: attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control predicted entrepreneurial intention, which predicted behavior. Spirituality, however, operated differently across contexts. In the religiously diverse Korean sample, it directly affected intention and behavior and amplified the intention–behavior link; in the predominantly non-religious Chinese sample, its effects were null—focus groups there emphasized practical capability and social support instead. We propose a context-contingent model distinguishing spirituality as a direct driver (in religiously diverse settings) from spirituality as an amplifier (moderating TPB relationships). Because the sample comprises pre-entrepreneurial students, findings speak to early-stage cognition rather than practicing founders. Integrative entrepreneurship models should incorporate cultural and religious boundary conditions; future work should adopt longitudinal designs and include practicing entrepreneurs across more varied populations.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070347

Authors: Jean Marc Nacife Tânia Márcia de Freitas Jesiel Souza Silva Ítalo José Bastos Guimarães Omar Ouro-Salim Simone Vieira de Almeida Johnny Iglesias Mendes Araujo

Family farming cooperatives and associations play a key role in rural development but often face managerial constraints that limit their organizational performance and access to institutional markets. This study assessed short-term changes in organizational maturity among organizations participating in Brazil’s Mais Gestão Program. A quasi-experimental pre–post design without a control group was adopted using paired observations from 42 organizations assessed at baseline (April 2025) and follow-up (November 2025). Organizational maturity was measured using the official Mais Gestão diagnostic instrument, which comprises six managerial dimensions. Descriptive statistics, paired-samples t-tests, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), ANOVA, and K-means Cluster Analysis were performed. Overall organizational maturity improved between assessments, particularly in governance, people management, financial management, commercial management, and production processes. PCA showed that the first principal component explained 65.48% of the total variance, supporting the view of organizational maturity as a multidimensional construct. These findings suggest that institutional support initiatives may strengthen managerial capacities and improve organizational readiness to access public policy opportunities.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070346

Authors: Richik Maity Muhammad Yahya Hammad Rita Devi Syed Radzi Rahamaddulla Khai Loon Lee Altaf Hossain Molla Thomas M. T. Lei

This systematic review examines the impact of flexible work arrangements and hybrid work on small- and medium-sized enterprises, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 framework. A total of 35 peer-reviewed studies published between 2016 and 2025 were analyzed from Scopus and Web of Science databases to identify global patterns, enabling factors, and organizational outcomes of workplace flexibility in small- and medium-sized enterprises. The findings reveal that flexible work arrangements and hybrid work have evolved from temporary responses during the COVID-19 pandemic into long-term organizational strategies in many contexts. Three key themes emerged from the analysis: workplace flexibility and employee outcomes, digital transformation as an enabling capability, and leadership as a driver of organizational resilience. Overall, the reviewed studies indicate that flexible work arrangements are generally associated with improvements in productivity, employee well-being, innovation, and organizational adaptability. However, these outcomes vary significantly across regions and are strongly influenced by digital readiness, leadership practices, and institutional support. Small- and medium-sized enterprises in developed economies demonstrate higher levels of digital maturity and more structured hybrid work adoption, while those in developing economies face constraints related to infrastructure, skills, and resources. The study concludes that flexible and hybrid work should be understood as integrated organizational strategies requiring strong digital capability, adaptive leadership, and supportive policy environments to ensure sustainable performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070345

Authors: Nektarios Makrydakis Dimitris Spiliotopoulos Afroditi Lymperi

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) has emerged as a central strategic priority in e-commerce management, yet its positioning within the broader interactive marketing paradigm remains theoretically underdeveloped. Interactive marketing, defined as a multi-directional value creation process through active customer connection, engagement, participation, and interaction, provides a critical lens through which the effectiveness and efficiency of digital marketing tactics can be understood, as each tactic mediates a distinct form of consumer brand interactivity. The academic literature, however, remains fragmented; no unified comparative framework exists that simultaneously assesses both effectiveness and efficiency of digital marketing tactics within an interactive marketing context. Drawing on the classical effectiveness and efficiency framework and interactive marketing theory, this study addresses this gap through a cross-sectional quantitative survey of 302 digital marketing professionals, evaluating a broad range of tactics across both dimensions using a validated psychometric instrument. The findings reveal that Email Marketing consistently dominates across effectiveness and efficiency assessments, reflecting its permission-based structure and its capacity to sustain ongoing consumer–brand dialogue. Search Engine Marketing exhibits the most pronounced divergence between effectiveness and efficiency, consistent with auction-driven cost dynamics that constrain interactive value creation. Attribution modelling difficulty emerges as the primary structural barrier to CRO implementation, revealing a systemic challenge to evidence-based resource allocation in multi-channel interactive environments. An exploratory factor analysis identifies a three-factor taxonomy of tactic effectiveness, distinguishing Paid Conversion tactics, data-driven optimisation tools, and organic or relationship-based channels, each representing a qualitatively distinct mode of consumer–brand interaction. This study advances interactive marketing theory by providing the first empirically validated effectiveness–efficiency framework for e-commerce CRO, and offers actionable guidance for cross-channel budget allocation decisions in interactive digital environments.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070344

Authors: Zisis Papastamatis Isaak Vryzidis Charikleia Karakosta Nikos Pnevmatikos

Public works projects are inherently complex, involving multiple stakeholders with distinct institutional roles and decision-making priorities. This study applies the multicriteria method Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate and prioritize Critical Success Factors (CSFs) influencing the successful delivery of public construction projects, comparing the perspectives of Project Managers, Public Authorities, and Economists engaged in public works. The analysis is grounded in empirical evidence and institutional practice, reducing subjective bias. Results reveal systematic differences between operational and institutional actors: Project Managers prioritize project maturity, effective planning, technical supervision, and control mechanisms, while Public Authorities emphasize financial soundness, exposure to external risks (Force Majeure), and stakeholder communication. Economists, in turn, assign the highest importance to financial stability, risk exposure, and budgetary resilience, highlighting the central role of financial sustainability in public-project implementation. These findings highlight the role of administrative responsibilities and governance structures in shaping decision-making priorities within the public sector. By demonstrating how AHP can support transparent comparison of stakeholder perspectives, the study contributes to public administration and project governance literature, offering a decision-support framework that enhances institutional capacity and facilitates more aligned and effective public-sector decision-making.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070343

Authors: Carlos J. L. Balsas

The article examines “Towards a Sustainable Future, Cambridge Growth Policy” from strategic planning and urban sustainability perspectives. Towards a Sustainable Future advances planning assumptions and policies aimed at guiding the physical planning of Cambridge. The plan was intended to be utilized by the City’s Planning Board and the Community Development Department to guide development projects, to help review land use decisions, and to determine work programs. The planning document enabled mostly three of four main social functions associated with Urban and Regional Planning in a democratic free market society that comprise (i) the promotion of the collective interests of the community, (ii) considering the external effects of individual and group action, and (iii) the protection of the interests of society’s most needy members. This article does not aim to be an exhaustive analysis of Towards a Sustainable Future. Nonetheless, it provides a general overview of the entire planning document and of the planning process that was behind it, while simultaneously presenting some of the most important connections and inferences that can be established between the plan and a set of selected planning and administrative sciences scholarly papers and books. Cambridge’s current roadmap, “Envision Cambridge,” is also expected to advance not only the three dimensions mentioned above, but also the improvement of the information base needed for public and private decision making in the context of growing concerns associated with the Anthropocene epoch.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070342

Authors: Fida Hassanein

The hospitality industry faces increasing challenges in retaining employees, enhancing employee engagement, and ensuring long-term organizational sustainability. There is ample quantitative research regarding employee engagement and talent management; however, there is a lack of qualitative evidence demonstrating how employee engagement can be sustained in the Middle East’s hospitality industry through the fulfillment of the psychological contract. This study examines how talent management and the fulfillment of the psychological contract contribute to the employee engagement of hotel organizations within the Middle East. The study was designed with an inductive qualitative methodology based on the Psychological Contract Theory and utilized semi-structured interviews with 37 hotel managers, human resource directors, chief executive officers (CEOs), and general managers of four- and five-star hotels from nine Middle Eastern countries. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis with the support of NVivo software. Participants identified psychological contract fulfillment as a primary relational mechanism supporting employee engagement, organizational commitment, and workforce retention. They identified that organizational support, transparent communication, responsive leadership, development opportunities, and employee-focused HRM practices strengthened trust and organizational commitment. The findings reconceptualize talent management as a relational and psychologically embedded organizational mechanism supporting employee engagement and workforce sustainability.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070341

Authors: Stefan Milojević Miroslav Knežević Aleksandra Vujko

The increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into organizational processes has accelerated the adoption of algorithmic management, reshaping work structures across labor-intensive service organizations. However, empirical evidence remains limited regarding the simultaneous control-oriented and developmental dimensions of AI-enabled management systems. This study examines how algorithmic control and AI-supported skill development influence perceived autonomy and career security among employees in hospitality organizations. Data were collected from 441 employees working in hotel organizations in Bavaria, Germany. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modeling (SEM), bootstrapped mediation analysis, and hierarchical regression. The results suggest that control-oriented and developmental dimensions of AI are associated with different aspects of employees’ work experiences. Algorithmic control was negatively associated with perceived autonomy, whereas AI-supported skill development was positively associated with both perceived autonomy and career security. Perceived autonomy did not mediate the relationships between AI-related workplace conditions and career security, and digital literacy did not moderate the relationship between algorithmic control and perceived autonomy. The study contributes to research on algorithmic management and AI-enabled workplaces by highlighting the importance of analytically distinguishing between the control-oriented and developmental dimensions of AI when examining the organizational implications of AI-enabled management.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070340

Authors: Nada Mallah Boustani Elisabetta Magnaghi

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer only a technological innovation or an advanced computational tool; it has become a central driver of transformation in business, finance, entrepreneurship, human resources, organizational governance, and digital communication [...]

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070339

Authors: Matúš Cagala Lukáš Juráček

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly understood as a strategic factor associated with corporate reputation, stakeholder relationships, and consumer attitudes toward socially responsible brands. The aim of this study is to analyze CSR from two complementary perspectives: from the corporate perspective, to examine the extent to which medium-sized and large industrial enterprises operating in Slovakia declare the integration of CSR into their strategy or business practice, and from the consumer perspective, to determine how declared preferences for socially responsible brands differ across generational cohorts of customers. The research is based on two separate questionnaire surveys conducted between December 2024 and May 2025: one focused on consumers and the other on representatives of industrial enterprises. The consumer sample consisted of 331 respondents from the Baby Boomer, X, Y, and Z generations, while the corporate sample included 103 medium-sized and large industrial enterprises. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the chi-square test of independence, and Cramer’s V. The results show that 82.47% of the surveyed enterprises declared some level of engagement in CSR, either as a strategic element or as an emerging component of business practice. The most frequently reported CSR priorities were environmental protection, employee support, and ethical business conduct. The consumer part of the research demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between generational affiliation and declared preference for socially responsible brands (χ2 = 49.62; df = 12; p = 0.0000016), with Cramer’s V = 0.226 indicating a weak-to-moderate association. Since the study is based on declared attitudes and respondents’ self-assessment, its findings cannot be interpreted as evidence of actual consumer purchasing behavior or as an objective verification of the quality of enterprises’ CSR activities. The contribution of the study lies in the parallel examination of the corporate and consumer perspectives on CSR in the context of a smaller Central European economy and in highlighting the importance of generational segmentation for the development of CSR strategy and communication.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070338

Authors: Catarina Rodrigues António Neto-Mendes Andreia Gouveia

Decentralization reforms are reshaping contemporary public management and are often presented as innovations capable of improving efficiency, accountability, and responsiveness to the citizens’ demands. Yet their implications for governance arrangements remain highly contested. This paper critically analyzes the process of educational decentralization in Portugal to explore whether it represents a genuine administrative innovation or a broader reconfiguration of state governance. The study draws on a critical interpretative policy approach informed by post-structuralist policy analysis and the sociology of public policy instruments. Based on a qualitative analysis of legislation, policy documents, planning instruments, institutional reports, and governance arrangements, it applies a threefold analytical framework—Promise, Reality, and Transformation—linking policy discourse, instruments, and governance transformation. The findings suggest that while decentralization is discursively justified by narratives of modernization and local empowerment, it is operationalized through dense regulatory architectures, policy instruments, accountability mechanisms, and digital governance infrastructures. This leads to a paradoxical decentralized centralism, in which expanded local responsibilities coexist with strengthened capacities for central coordination, evaluation, and multilevel regulation. The study contributes to debates on public management and governance transformation by showing how decentralization may reconfigure rather than diminish state power in the context of contemporary multilevel governance.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070337

Authors: Miguel Muñoz Juan Felipe Espinosa-Cristia Raúl Carrasco

Globally, states are incorporating various digital tools with the purpose of accelerating customs management of export and import goods. An example of this is the implementation of electronic single windows that seek to streamline the transmission of information on export and import operations by generating a single data entry point that can be accessed by different interconnected state and private entities. For customs clearance, some States require the collaboration of intermediaries known as customs agents: private actors who collaborate in the public function of customs control. Customs agents are licensed by the State to act as such, and are hired by exporters and importers to manage their operations with the customs authority. A digital reform of this type is a governance mechanism that involves coordination between institutions, interaction between the State and private actors, and the redefinition of the role of different actors. However, this can create tensions with actors who collaborate with the State. The objective of this study is to determine the perceptions of customs agents—as incumbent actors and collaborators of the State—regarding the implementation of new technologies by the State, through an analysis of the case of Chilean customs agents in the context of the implementation of a single window system for foreign trade by the Chilean customs authority. To this end, a qualitative study was conducted based on 15 semi-structured interviews with customs agents, including both current and former government officials. The data obtained were coded using MAXQDA software. The results show that the State has had to integrate customs agents into the implementation process, primarily due to their expert knowledge. On the other hand, some customs agents have viewed the implementation of the single window system with apprehension, while others have attempted to embrace the technological change since its inception, collaborating with the government. In order to protect their profession, the agents have sought opportunities for dialogue with the authorities and state agencies. Furthermore, customs agents and public officials agree that one of the system’s main weaknesses is the lack of participation from other government agencies in the operation of the single window system, thus failing to meet the State’s own established plans: the interconnection of different state agencies at a single point. This, in turn, reveals weaknesses in collaborative governance. In short, the implementation of a single window has been a major challenge for actors collaborating in the public customs function, producing tensions in its governance.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070336

Authors: Catherine Daus Gloria Sweida Adira Romanoff Dylan Zimmerman

We present two studies within the talent management umbrella. In the first, we explored procedural justice as an outcome of talent management strategies, with the mediating role of perceived fairness and the moderating role of gender. A survey of 100 full-time US workers yielded positive, significant relationships between the inclusivity of talent management practices, procedural justice, and perceived fairness. Further, perceived fairness emerged as a partial mediator in the relationship between the inclusivity of talent management practices and procedural justice. In the second study, we examined a specific type of talent management, succession planning. We explored the development of a measure that assesses employees’ perceptions regarding their company’s succession planning process, and provided initial predictive validity by examining the relationship between the type of succession plan and perceived organizational support (POS). We assessed 96 employees’ succession planning perceptions with an adapted model of succession planning, examining integrated and informal categories. The measure’s initial psychometric and conceptual fidelity, as well as predictive validity, were promising. Further, we found that perceptions of an organization’s succession planning process, specifically the level of integration, are positively related to perceptions of organizational support. Both of these studies represent a substantial addition to the literature regarding talent management broadly and succession planning, specifically.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070335

Authors: Daniel Altieri Zohra Damani Cynthia Nebel

This article addresses the growing concern that generative artificial intelligence (AI) may replace human expertise in organizations. Instead of asking whether AI should be used, it examines why human judgment rooted in experience cannot be fully replaced by current AI systems and how organizations can work with AI more effectively. Drawing on research from cognitive science, neuroscience, and organizational studies, the paper explains how people use prior experience to interpret context, notice subtle cues, and make sense of ambiguous situations—capabilities that differ fundamentally from how large language models process data. Evidence from recent studies of AI use in hiring, performance management, healthcare, and knowledge work shows recurring problems, including mistakes in unusual cases, missed context, over-reliance on AI recommendations, and reduced visibility of real skill differences among employees. In response, we propose a five-part Human–AI Collaboration Framework designed to help organizations use AI for efficiency while keeping human judgment active and accountable in key Human Resource Management decisions. The analysis shows that AI performs best in routine, data-rich situations but falls short when decisions require lived experience and contextual understanding. By framing organizations as systems built on accumulated experience, this article offers practical guidance for responsible AI integration and outlines directions for future research on human–AI collaboration.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070334

Authors: Víctor Hugo Fernández-Bedoya Amador Grover Mejía-Osorio Emilio Javier Rojas-Villanueva

Artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation are increasingly reshaping decision-making and governance processes in public universities, creating opportunities for administrative modernization and evidence-based institutional management. This systematic review aimed to analyze the scientific evidence regarding decision-making and governance in public universities in the era of artificial intelligence, identify the countries contributing to this field of research, and synthesize the principal lessons and conclusions reported in the literature. The study followed the PRISMA 2020 guidelines and conducted a systematic search in the Scopus database on 15 May 2025 using descriptors associated with university governance, academic management, Artificial Intelligence, and digital transformation. Original empirical studies published in English or Spanish were considered eligible. From 109 identified records, 10 studies met the inclusion criteria and were incorporated into the qualitative synthesis. The findings revealed that AI supports administrative efficiency, predictive analytics, academic planning, resource optimization, and data-driven governance. However, successful implementation depends on institutional readiness, leadership commitment, digital literacy, and ethical governance frameworks capable of addressing algorithmic bias, data privacy, and transparency concerns. The review highlights AI as both a strategic opportunity and a governance challenge for public universities, requiring responsible, human-centered, and context-sensitive implementation strategies.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070333

Authors: Amir Mohammad Amin Nezhad Parisa Jourabchi Amirkhizi Siamak Pedrammehr Zahra Haghighi Aghdam Mahdi Soleimanzadeh

Design management in Industry 5.0 faces a persistent gap due to fragmented conceptualizations that treat AI, human creativity, and machine capabilities as largely separate elements, limiting their effective integration within complex socio-technical systems. Addressing this gap, the present study develops and empirically validates a Design Management Model grounded in human-centered, ethical, and sustainability-oriented principles, framing design management as an adaptive and relational system rather than a linear or technology-driven process. Departing from the automation-oriented logic of Industry 4.0, the study adopts an augmented cognition perspective in which AI functions as a collaborative partner supporting, rather than replacing, human judgment. A sequential mixed-methods approach was employed, integrating systematic literature review, qualitative content analysis, expert evaluation, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based on data from 316 participants, followed by empirical examination in two service-oriented case contexts, namely tourism/hospitality and healthcare services. The findings identify and validate six interrelated domains and demonstrate that Human–AI–Machine Synergy plays a central role in shaping design outcomes. More specifically, the results show that effective design management in Industry 5.0 depends on the coordinated interaction between cognitive processes, technological infrastructures, and organizational strategies, rather than on isolated technological advancement. Empirical applications further illustrate how the model supports ethically guided AI integration, enhances adaptive decision-making, and improves experience-oriented innovation across different contexts. By providing a validated structural framework that connects previously disjointed elements, this study contributes a clearer operational understanding of how human–AI collaboration can be embedded within design management practices in Industry 5.0.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070332

Authors: Chou-Ching Liou Hsin-Mei Lin

The dynamic capabilities perspective explains how firms sustain a competitive advantage in contemporary rapidly changing environments, yet it still lacks empirical accounts of how the three high-level capabilities of sensing, seizing, and transforming become observable processes through managerial practices. The study examines Thunder Tiger, a firm that developed into a leading global brand in the technologically dynamic and highly competitive radio-control model industry, and uses 30 strategic initiatives identified from its 36-year development trajectory as the units of analysis. Adopting the extended case method, we conduct simultaneous coding across two dimensions: the core content of high-level capabilities and observable managerial practices. We develop an analytical framework for dynamic capability processes comprising three layers: the three high-level capabilities, four functional domains, and twelve process items. Through this framework, we show how high-level capabilities can be linked to observable managerial practices in Thunder Tiger’s strategic initiatives.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070331

Authors: Jaruwan Supachaiwat Atthaphon Mumi Achariya Issarapaibool Anupong Sukprasert

Entrepreneurial exit intention represents an important yet underexplored stage of the entrepreneurial process. Prior research has identified several antecedents of entrepreneurial exit intention, but it has largely overlooked entrepreneurial addiction and its underlying psychological mechanisms. Drawing on self-regulation theory, this study examines the relationships among entrepreneurial addiction, entrepreneurial burnout, career adaptability, locus of control, well-being, and entrepreneurial exit intention. Data were collected from 250 entrepreneurs in Thailand’s digital services, software, and food and beverage industries and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that entrepreneurial addiction is positively associated with entrepreneurial exit intention both directly and indirectly through entrepreneurial burnout. Internal locus of control weakens the relationship between entrepreneurial addiction and burnout, whereas career adaptability and well-being unexpectedly strengthen the hypothesized relationships. The study contributes to the entrepreneurial exit literature by identifying entrepreneurial addiction and burnout as important self-regulatory antecedents of entrepreneurial exit intention. The findings also provide evidence compatible with self-regulation theory and suggest that psychological resources may not consistently function as protective resources under conditions of excessive entrepreneurial engagement.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070330

Authors: Cledilson Viana Sérgio Cruz Ana Dinis

This study investigates how family firms adjusted their tax strategies following Brazil’s 2023 alignment with the OECD transfer pricing guidelines, using nonfamily firms as a benchmark. The analysis adopts a blended socioemotional wealth (SEW) and implicit theory perspective, which explains family firms’ behavioral responses to institutional change by linking SEW intensity to owners’ cognitive orientations. The sample comprises 1239 firm-year observations from 177 nonfinancial companies listed on Brazil’s stock exchange between 2018 and 2024. Before the transfer pricing reform, family firms displayed a more aggressive approach to corporate income tax (CIT) minimization than their nonfamily counterparts. After the reform, only nonfamily firms, typically more internationalized, intensified their CIT minimization, indicating greater responsiveness to the new OECD-aligned rules. Family firms, by contrast, exhibited no significant change. Exploiting the new rules requires cross-border operations, which family firms tend to limit to preserve family control. With little such exposure, they were not positioned to benefit from the reform and their tax behavior remained unchanged. This inertia is consistent with an entity-oriented mindset, indirectly inferable from the firms’ muted tax response to the reform. The study contributes to family business and international taxation research by revealing that ownership structure conditions firms’ responses to regulatory change, extending the SEW–implicit theory framework to explain heterogeneous tax behavior, and offering policy insights that standardized enforcement may yield uneven outcomes across ownership types.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070329

Authors: Amira Daouk

The behavior of employees in the hospitality industry has gained strategic significance as it has become a competitive service industry where the level of customer satisfaction is highly dependent on the discretionary contributions made by employees. This study examined whether Employee Engagement mediates the relationship between Transactional Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior and whether the Perceived Organizational Support moderates the relationship of Transactional Leadership and Employee Engagement among the employees working in a fine dining restaurant in Beirut, Lebanon. The study based its moderation mediation analysis on two theoretical frameworks—Social Exchange Theory and Organizational Support Theory. The study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional design and distributed 500 electronic questionnaires via Google Forms to staff working in upscale hospitality and fine dining restaurants after securing managerial approval. A total of 441 questionnaires were received. Following data screening procedures, 428 valid questionnaires were retained for analysis. The analysis was performed using the following applications: AMOS 24, SPSS 27, and the PROCESS Macro 4.2 through 5000 bootstrap resamples. Results showed that Transactional Leadership was positively associated with OCB. Employee Engagement significantly mediated the relationship between Transactional Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. POS was found to strengthen the relationship between Transactional Leadership and Employee Engagement, and the conditional indirect effect of Transactional Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior through Employee Engagement was stronger when POS was high. Originality/value: This study addresses an important gap in the conditional process leadership literature by combining the concepts of Transactional Leadership, Employee Engagement, POS, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior into one empirical model tested in a hospitality setting plagued by a crisis. The results provide viable solutions for hospitality managers interested in developing improved Employee Engagement, discretionary behavior, and service quality in an operationally constrained environment.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16070328

Authors: Ahmed Mohamed Hasanein Bassam Samir Al-Romeedy Mohamed A. Aldossary Aya Ahmed Abdel Majeed

This study investigates how sustainable leadership enhances green performance in the tourism and hospitality sector, specifically among managers and supervisors working in five-star hotels and travel agencies, by examining the mediating roles of green innovation and green self-efficacy through the lenses of the Resource-Based View (RBV) and Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT). A quantitative research approach was adopted, utilizing survey data collected from 788 managers and supervisors employed in Egyptian five-star hotels and travel agencies operating within a highly competitive tourism destination context. The findings indicate that sustainable leadership has a significant positive effect on green performance and positively influences both green innovation and green self-efficacy. Moreover, green innovation and green self-efficacy significantly contribute to green performance and partially mediate the relationship between sustainable leadership and environmental outcomes. This study contributes to the literature on sustainability, tourism, and organizational behavior by providing an integrated framework that links sustainable leadership with organizational innovation capabilities and employees’ environmental competencies. In addition, the findings extend the explanatory power of RBV and DCT in explaining how sustainable leadership practices translate into enhanced environmental performance in tourism and hospitality organizations. From a practical perspective, the study highlights the importance of adopting leadership practices that foster green innovation, strengthen employees’ environmental confidence, and promote proactive environmental behavior within organizations.