Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100470

Authors: Armand Faganel Polona Dakič

Online brand communities enable knowledge exchange, peer support, content creation, and value co-creation, yet technically simple participation can feel costly while objectively demanding activity can feel smooth. This conceptual article develops the Effortless Brand Community Engagement Framework (EBCEF) to explain that anomaly. A structured integrative review directly consulted 58 cited sources, using a published review of 88 records and 41 included studies as inherited synthesis rather than as a newly screened corpus. Abductive theory development distinguishes perceived participation effort as a seven-dimensional resource appraisal from interaction fluency as the subsequent technological, interpretive, and social smoothness of participation. The five-stage framework links design and governance to psychological and relational mechanisms, effort, fluency, consumer engagement, observable participation behavior, continued participation, and downstream outcomes. Twelve proposition sets specify core paths and selected moderators, while the effortlessness paradox predicts when high-intensity or low-control features generate overload, privacy concern, reactance, or fatigue. The EBCEF advances theory by separating engagement from its behavioral and longitudinal consequences and offers managers a diagnostic basis for removing unnecessary burdens while preserving autonomy, meaningful challenge, trust, and consumer control. The constructs and dimensions remain theoretical expectations requiring empirical validation.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100469

Authors: Kriengkrai Kumprang Mark Speece Suparak Suriyankietkaew

Several recent publications have called for research which examines the impact of mindfulness beyond the usual secular (mostly clinical psychology) applications in Western contexts. There have also been calls for more work tying mindfulness to work engagement, including in non-Western contexts, particularly in emerging economies such as Thailand, a Southeast-Asia wellness hub. This empirical research addresses the gap and further examines the effects of workplace mindfulness and psychological capital on employee engagement based on the occupational conditions for physicians, nurses and other medical workers. The quantitative case study aims to understand how mindfulness works in this relatively high stress industry, in a culture where mindfulness is familiar to most people, and an organization which is known to encourage mindfulness among employees. The result from a structural equation modeling shows significant associations between mindfulness and psychological capital to employee engagement. Mindfulness has a strong direct impact on both psychological capital and employee engagement, while psychological capital directly impacts engagement and acts as a partial mediator that increases the impact of mindfulness. The analytical results show that mindfulness contributes substantially to healthcare employees’ work engagement. Workplace mindfulness also helps build psychological capital, which then reinforces the mindfulness impact on engagement in the occupational context. Notably, the analytical findings suggest that healthcare organizations and leaders should prioritize the incorporation of mindfulness interventions to fortify employee well-being and organizational effectiveness. Overall, this research can contribute to theoretical advancement and has practical implications.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100468

Authors: Peter Fusdahl

Public policy objectives often depend on contributions from multiple ministries, administrative bodies and levels of government. Implementation duties may be clear even when responsibility or capacity to assess the overall outcome is not. This article examined eight purposively selected Norwegian policy, financial-management and performance-audit documents. Qualitative framework analysis separated objective setting, implementation, information production and integrated outcome assessment, and distinguished horizontal, vertical and intergovernmental relationships. The general-steering documents showed that the financial-management framework permitted outcome-oriented evaluation, although recent reviews identified weaknesses in information about resources and results. The long-term research plan paired a broad judgement about research quality with relevant but incomplete indicators and acknowledged wider assessment mechanisms and indicator limitations. The health documents showed that the Ministry of Health and Care Services held overall responsibility for national health policy and steered the state specialist-health-service chain. However, routine linked information about patient pathways across specialist and municipal health services was unavailable. The health-service coordination case therefore showed formal responsibility with an assessment-capability gap, not an assessment-responsibility gap. The findings did not establish prevalence or policy effects. Together, the cases illustrated why distributed implementation duties alone do not ensure capacity to assess and explain the overall outcome.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100467

Authors: Rob E. Carpenter Brandy Dial Debaro Huyler Andrew Krouse Judy Sun

Organizations increasingly use digitally captured behavioral traces to infer engagement, performance, and participation. Yet visible activity is an imperfect proxy for underlying capability, particularly when structural constraints reorganize when and how participation occurs. Using working multigenerational caregivers as a theoretically revealing case, this paper develops a governance-centered account of how constraint-shaped participation variance in presence, timing, and pacing may be misclassified as disengagement within proxy-based organizational systems. We theorize this failure as a self-reinforcing control loop in which misclassification activates penalty-centered responses that further disrupt participation and contribute to capability-flow leakage. To address this inference-to-action failure, we specify the Caring Elasticity Index (CEI) as an interpretable, privacy-preserving decision-support framework. A visibility shortfall combined with sufficient output-conditioned performance–visibility divergence pauses automatic visibility-based escalation and routes the case to accountable review; continuity volatility and deadline friction guide review questions and bounded responses. The composite CEI summarizes these signals for reporting and routing but does not determine gate eligibility; its incremental value remains an empirical question. The framework extends organizational measurement, algorithmic governance, and human resource development theory by locating elasticity within the measurement-to-governance architecture itself and specifying how organizations can preserve capability flow without sacrificing accountability.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100466

Authors: Moeki Nemoto

Healthcare organizations must sustain the quality of clinical care while accounting for it to patients and families, staff, regulators, funders, and the wider community. Although Total Quality Management (TQM) and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) are among the most widely adopted management tools globally, how their integration can help healthcare organizations discharge the obligations imposed by clinical governance remains underexplored. Drawing on literature spanning healthcare management, management accounting, clinical governance, public accountability, and organizational resilience, this conceptual paper develops a quality governance framework. The four perspectives of the BSC are reconceptualized as accountability forums, each addressing a distinct constituency. At the same time, top management commitment is separated from the operational enablers of TQM and reconstituted as a strategic leadership layer. An integration model derives its activity set transparently from the management accounting literature while reconstructing it for healthcare, pairing each activity with the indicators through which it becomes visible to a specified forum. The resulting distinction between governance-process and performance indicators allows integration embedded in governance structure to be distinguished from integration adopted in name. The framework then locates the capacities to anticipate, monitor, respond, and learn within this architecture, with the measurement layer supplying monitoring capacity. Conditions under which the framework may distort conduct or conceal disparities are specified, and testable propositions are advanced.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100465

Authors: Raya Albarwani Mohamed Khudari Mohammed Salah Alhamzah Al Sayed Noor

This study examines how entrepreneurial psychological antecedents shape sustainable entrepreneurial behavior among small and medium-sized enterprise owners in Oman. Specifically, it investigates the roles of entrepreneurial alertness, orientation, prior knowledge, and trait competitiveness in explaining entrepreneurial passion and subsequent sustainable entrepreneurial intention and behavior. The study also examines the moderating effects of social media marketing and technological task–strategy fit on these relationships. Using a quantitative cross-sectional design, data were collected from 503 respondents involved in Omani SMEs, including SME owners, entrepreneurs, and senior managers, through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings show that entrepreneurial alertness and orientation significantly influence entrepreneurial passion, while entrepreneurial trait competitiveness does not. Entrepreneurial prior knowledge also shows a significant relationship with passion. Entrepreneurial passion significantly influences sustainable entrepreneurial intention and behavior. However, sustainable entrepreneurial intention does not directly predict sustainable entrepreneurial behavior, indicating an intention–behavior gap among SME owners. Social media marketing negatively moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and sustainable entrepreneurial intention, while technological task–strategy fit does not moderate the intention–behavior relationship. Overall, the findings show that sustainable entrepreneurial behavior depends not only on intention but also on entrepreneurial psychological characteristics, passion, and the conditions surrounding digital and technological use.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100464

Authors: Luis Eduardo Solís Granda Zuleima Santalla-Banderali

This study examines how organizational justice (OJ) and organizational climate (OCL) are statistically associated with self-reported job performance (JP) through job satisfaction (JS), work engagement (WE), and organizational commitment (ORC) among faculty in Ecuadorian public higher education. The original cross-sectional survey contained 448 responses; because the stated target population was public higher education, the primary reanalysis was restricted to 414 public-university faculty, with the full sample retained for sensitivity analysis. A disjointed two-stage partial least squares structural equation modeling procedure was used to represent multidimensional constructs, with OCL, OJ, JS, ORC, and WE specified as reflective–reflective higher-order constructs and JP as a reflective–formative construct. Directional hypotheses were evaluated using a 5000-resample one-tailed bootstrap inference. OJ and OCL were positively associated with JS; JS was positively associated with WE and ORC; and WE and ORC were positively associated with JP. All four prespecified serial–parallel indirect effects were statistically supported. Robustness analyses using alternative construct scoring, an OJ-JS collapsed specification, and alternative JP specifications preserved the principal downstream pattern. However, higher-order OJ-JS discriminant validity remained unresolved because its bootstrap HTMT interval included 1.00, and common-method diagnostics indicated residual same-source and construct-overlap concerns. Predictive relevance was positive, but no causal or temporal mechanism is established here.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100463

Authors: Ovidiu Iulian Bunea Oana Matilda Sabie Ruxandra Irina Popescu Răzvan Andrei Corboș Corina Cristiana Nastacă

Artificial intelligence (AI) integration in delivering public services (PS) has changed the way citizens perceive the necessity of PS digitalization. A gap exists in the academic debate, characterized by a limited number of empirical studies clarifying the structural mechanisms leading to perceived necessity—particularly the role of governance trust and accountability in mediating this relationship. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the relations between different constructs, like AI Engagement (AE), AI Service Prioritization (ASP), Perceived AI Efficiency in Public Services (PAEPS), Perceived AI Integration in Public Services (PAIPS), the Perceived Necessity of AI in Public Services (PNAPS), and AI Trust and Accountability (ATA). In this research, we employed PLS-SEM to conduct an in-depth analysis of our data and used combined importance–performance map analysis with the purpose of better understanding the interaction of the constructs and offering implications for the adoption of AI in public services. The main findings suggest that managers need to prioritize initiatives that effectively demonstrate the value of integrating AI into essential public services. Emphasis must be directed towards improving transparency, accessibility, and public engagement in AI-driven processes. Managers ought to facilitate opportunities for citizens to engage with AI tools. The proportion of unmet cases for AE suggests that additional support may be useful for individuals less familiar with AI—for example, through accessible interfaces and customized training programs.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100462

Authors: Luis Alfredo Badillo Rojas Marc Cowling Alexander Zuñiga Collazos

This study aimed to evaluate the influence of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), entrepreneurship education, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intention in Santander, Colombia. This research used quantitative methods to test seven research hypotheses reflecting relationships among variables, which we present in a research model. Our results are based on data from 467 adults from Santander, Colombia. The data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). All seven hypotheses—attitude (β = 0.188), perceived behavioural control (β = 0.360, the strongest predictor), subjective norms (β = 0.105), entrepreneurship education (β = 0.175), and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (β = 0.162)—were supported and were each significantly and positively associated with entrepreneurial intention; entrepreneurship education was, in turn, significantly and positively associated with attitude (β = 0.108) and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (β = 0.122). The results suggest that positive perceptions of entrepreneurship education, attitude, self-efficacy, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control are associated with higher entrepreneurial intention in the sample analysed. Because the study design was cross-sectional and based on perceptions, these results support the value of entrepreneurship education and related support initiatives in fostering entrepreneurial intention. By focusing on a broad adult population in Santander (Colombia), rather than a sample consisting solely of college students—as is typical in previous research on entrepreneurial intention—this study broadens the applicability of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), education, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy in a largely unexplored context, contributing new regional data to the existing literature on entrepreneurial intention.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100461

Authors: Ainul Mohsein binti Abdul Mohsin Shanshan Li Kenny Wei Jie Quah

This study examines how artificial intelligence (AI), social media usability, and personality traits jointly shape purchase decision-making among Generation Z university students. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and personality psychology, the study conceptualizes perceived usefulness of AI and perceived ease of use of social media as direct technological drivers of purchasing, while the Big Five personality traits are modeled as both antecedents and boundary conditions. Survey data were collected from 506 Generation Z students enrolled in northern Malaysian public universities and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results demonstrate that perceived usefulness of AI and perceived ease of use of social media exert small yet statistically significant, positive effects on purchase decision-making. Personality traits also exhibit significant direct effects. Furthermore, moderation analysis reveals that personality traits significantly condition the impact of AI usefulness on purchasing behavior, whereas there was no significant evidence that personality traits moderate the effect of social media ease of use. These findings suggest that while functional efficiency benefits from psychographic alignment, technological convenience operates as a broadly consistent driver of purchasing decisions. The study contributes to the literature by extending TAM beyond intention-based models and clarifying the contingent role of personality in AI-enabled consumption contexts. Practical implications for AI-driven marketing design and psychographic segmentation are discussed.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16100460

Authors: Nicole Griffiths-Catalan Raúl Ramírez-Vielma Claudio Bustos

Work design is a key antecedent of individual job outcomes, yet the mechanisms linking specific work design characteristics with performance and job satisfaction remain insufficiently understood. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 384 workers from diverse organizations in Chile (M age = 39.28; 57% women), and data were analyzed using regression-based mediation analysis with bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals (5000 resamples) to test a mediation model examining the role of work engagement in the relationship between motivational and social work design characteristics and three outcomes: task performance, contextual performance, and job satisfaction. Results showed that engagement mediated the relationship between motivational work characteristics and all three outcomes, providing empirical support for this mediation pathway; in contrast, although social work characteristics were associated with the outcomes at the bivariate level, they were not related to engagement once other predictors were considered, yielding no support for their indirect effect through engagement. These findings extend the Integrated Work Design Framework by positioning engagement as a key psychological mechanism through which motivational work characteristics translate into individual outcomes, while highlighting that social characteristics may operate through alternative pathways, with theoretical and practical implications for work redesign and human resource management.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090459

Authors: Tamás Zelles József Pap Csaba Makó

Algorithmic management (AM) has become a key lens for analyzing the digital transformation of work, yet empirical research remains centered on platform labor in North America, Western Europe, and China. This paper applies the five-principles framework covering organizational form, object of management, ideology, modality, and accountability in an exploratory comparison of contrasting organizational settings within one country, Hungary. We define AM as the exercise of managerial functions such as direction, allocation, evaluation, discipline, and remuneration through software systems that continuously capture worker data, process them automatically, and feed the resulting decisions back into the labor process. The analysis draws on a base of 43 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2019 and 2024, all of which, drawn from the five interview-based cases (Wolt, Bolt, Upwork, Data Analytics and ConLog), constitute the coded analytical corpus, together with 21 h of participant observation and documentary evidence, contrasting four platform cases (Wolt, Bolt, Uber, and the freelance marketplace Upwork) with two traditional organizations, a Data Analytics company and a multinational logistics subsidiary. Evidence on Uber is confined to documentary sources (regulatory, parliamentary, legal and media records); the case is therefore used as an institutional and regulatory comparator only, and no worker-level generalizations are drawn from it. Findings suggest that AM is neither homogeneous nor confined to platforms. Full co-optation, including twisted accountability and dissolved organizational boundaries, appears mainly in platform work, whereas AM in traditional firms operates within hierarchies and formal employment, producing constrained co-optation, bounded ideology, and partially re-anchored accountability. We propose the partial Möbius effect as a testable hypothesis rather than as an established theoretical result: it was derived inductively from two traditional cases only (Data Analytics and ConLog) and has not yet been tested against a third, independent case. Its scope, boundary conditions, and durability are left as questions for future comparative and longitudinal research.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090458

Authors: Iveta Ludviga Inese Sluka Valerijs Dombrovskis Anna Kvelde Laima Paraukienė

The rapid expansion of Generation Z in entrepreneurship education has intensified debates about whether educational innovation should prioritise digital technologies or pedagogical quality. Although technology-enhanced learning is widely promoted, empirical evidence comparing the relative importance of teaching methods and digital pedagogical tools in meeting students’ educational expectations remains limited. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between teaching methods, technology-based pedagogical tools, and students’ perceived fulfilment of expectations in entrepreneurship education. Using survey data from 2659 students across multiple European countries, hierarchical regression analysis was employed to assess the incremental explanatory power of teaching methods and digital tools beyond demographic characteristics. The findings demonstrate that teaching methods account for the largest share of explained variance, with practice relevance and integration of theory and practice emerging as the strongest predictors, while support for entrepreneurial activities and psychologically safe learning environments also showed significant positive associations with expectation fulfilment. Technology-based pedagogical tools provide only modest additional explanatory power, with positive associations observed for video platforms, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality. The results are consistent with the view that technology contributes to educational experiences primarily as a complement to coherent pedagogical design. The study contributes to entrepreneurship education by demonstrating that pedagogy, rather than technology adoption alone, remains the primary contributor to perceived educational quality for digitally native learners.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090457

Authors: Lambros Tsourgiannis Vasilios Zoumpoulidis Ioannis Petasakis Stavros Valsamidis

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming hospitality by enhancing service efficiency and customer experiences through AI-enabled services, such as chatbots, automated check-in/check-out, recommendation systems, and intelligent self-service applications. This study investigates the factors shaping tourists’ behavioural responses to AI-enabled hotel services and their subsequent online review sharing behaviour. The proposed framework extends the Model of PC Utilization (MPCU) by integrating constructs from the Motivational Model and UTAUT2 with hospitality specific factors, including perceived ease of use, operational improvement, need for human interaction, perceived risk, perceived intelligence, and trust. A quantitative design and convenience sampling were employed, with data collected through a structured questionnaire from 400 tourists staying at a four-star hotel on a Greek island during summer 2025. Binary logistic regression was used to examine the proposed relationships. The findings demonstrate differentiated associations between tourists’ perceptions of AI-enabled services and positive and negative online review-sharing behaviour, highlighting the roles of ease of use, intelligence, trust, risk, and human interaction. The study contributes by linking AI service evaluations with post-consumption electronic word of mouth and provides practical guidance for combining trustworthy, user-friendly AI with personalized human service.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090456

Authors: Teerasak Charoennapharat Wisuwat Wannamakok

This study aims to investigate the factors influencing kombucha purchase intention among online consumers in Northern Thailand by addressing the “perception–execution gap” between consumer preferences and entrepreneurial logistics and green supply chain practices in the rapidly growing functional beverage market in Southeast Asia. This study integrates an adapted Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) perspective with the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework. A quantitative research design was employed, collecting primary data from 400 online consumers from Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Lamphun provinces in Northern Thailand, complemented by qualitative insights from five local kombucha entrepreneurs. The study conceptualizes consumer belief, subjective norm, lifestyle, and last-mile delivery as external stimuli influencing consumer attitude, which is subsequently associated with purchase intention. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that consumer attitude serves as a significant mediating mechanism linking external stimuli to purchase intention. Among the antecedents, lifestyle and last-mile delivery emerged as important factors associated with positive consumer attitudes. Additionally, health consciousness significantly moderates the relationship between consumer belief and purchase intention, with the negative interaction indicating that this relationship becomes weaker as health consciousness increases. From an entrepreneurial perspective, the findings highlight the importance of last-mile accessibility, while the qualitative interviews additionally identify cold-chain management as a relevant operational consideration for maintaining product quality. This study contributes to the literature by offering an integrated theoretical framework that combines an adapted TPB perspective with the S-O-R framework to explain psychological and logistical determinants of consumer behavior in the functional beverage context. It provides a dual-perspective roadmap that bridges consumer psychology and entrepreneurial practice, delivering actionable insights for kombucha businesses to align distribution strategies with the needs of health-conscious consumers in Northern Thailand.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090455

Authors: Vivien Valkó Petra Platz Péter Karácsony

Empirical research on organizational behavior contributes significantly to the examination of workplace impacts and to a deeper understanding of the underlying drivers of employee behavior. The long-term sustainability of organizations operating in VUCA environments depends largely on flexible adaptation and effective change management. The aim of this research is to examine the associations between workplace factors related to organizational change and employees’ intention to quit and perceived job insecurity during a crisis. Special emphasis is placed on stress caused by organizational change as an appraisal-based construct that may statistically mediate the association between employees’ psychological and physical strain and intention to quit. The research was conducted on a Hungarian sample, using a questionnaire survey among employees working in an SME environment. Based on the TSM (Transactional Stress Model), JD-R (Job Demands–Resources), and COR (Conservation of Resources) frameworks, hypotheses were formulated regarding the associations among workplace strain, stress caused by organizational change, intention to quit, and job insecurity. The hypotheses were tested using mediation models estimated within a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. The results indicate a significant positive association between psychological strain and intention to quit, together with a significant indirect effect through stress caused by organizational change, a pattern consistent with partial mediation. Physical strain was also significantly and positively associated with intention to quit, but its indirect effect through stress caused by organizational change was not statistically significant. Indifferent leadership was significantly and positively associated with job insecurity, while the hypothesized indirect effect through stress caused by organizational change was not statistically significant.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090454

Authors: Steven Steel Peter Fieger David Dyason Soma Pillay

Organisational cultural change driven by demographic shifts is affecting employee perceptions of leadership roles within the Australian Public Service (APS). Despite longstanding diversity challenges, the APS has implemented policies to increase female employees’ representation in senior roles. This study examines the demographic composition and perceptions of Senior Executive Service (SES) leaders in the APS from 2018 to 2024, using APS census data (N = 127,262) and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to analyse relationships among age, gender, and perceived leadership effectiveness. Our findings show a statistically significant increase in women in SES positions concurrent with the implementation of APS gender-equity strategies, alongside declining millennial (under 40) representation. Regression analysis indicates that female employees and younger staff report significantly more positive perceptions of SES leadership, while older employees view leadership effectiveness more negatively. While gender diversity has improved, generational gaps persist in leadership perceptions. The study highlights the need for cross-culturally responsive leadership addressing demographic diversity, generational differences, and digital transformation in public sector organisations. Aligning with cross-cultural management themes, the research shows how representative leadership must evolve to navigate cultural change, AI adoption, and remote work demands in increasingly diverse globalised workplaces.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090453

Authors: Wen-Hong Chiu Min-Hsu Wang Chun Chen Huang Chi-Quyen Luong

Although developing service innovations is challenging, maintaining their relevance after implementation can be even more difficult, as their attractiveness may decline over time. This makes continued attention to service quality important in the post-innovation stage. However, prior research has rarely examined the integration of service innovation and service quality. Therefore, this study explores service-innovation events through the lens of customer value and discusses their implications for post-innovation management. A case study was conducted using 561 hostels and 66 international tourist hotels, yielding 6216 service-related events for analysis. The data were analyzed using a hybrid approach integrating text analysis and content analysis. The study identified a four-dimensional customer value framework comprising functional, hedonic, contextual, and relational values, from which 16 service quality indicators were derived to support service innovation during the post-innovation period. Drawing on these empirical findings, the study proposes five conceptual processes that may inform understanding of how organizations sustain service innovation after implementation. These findings suggest that maintaining the relevance of service innovation requires continuous attention to service quality as customer value changes. This study provides a conceptual framework for post-innovation service quality management and offers practical guidance for managing service quality after innovation implementation.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090452

Authors: Takeshi Inuta

The succession crisis in Japan’s rural communities has made external growth strategies, particularly corporate farm mergers and acquisitions (M&A), crucial for preserving agricultural resources and maintaining rural land governance. Simultaneously, agribusinesses must pursue Creating Shared Value (CSV) for regional sustainable development. This study empirically examines the mechanisms underlying M&A execution among agricultural corporations and clarifies the structural dilemmas faced by CSV-oriented agricultural corporations in maintaining rural land governance. Using structural equation modeling and comparative analysis on a nationwide survey of 388 corporate farms, we analyzed relationships between organizational capacity, management goals, and M&A. Results show that M&A execution is positively associated with scale-based organizational capacity—a proxy for internal management systems and absorptive capabilities—rather than financial surplus. However, farms prioritizing CSV goals, such as farmland maintenance, face a critical structural dilemma. Motivated by socioemotional wealth and community ties, they informally assume local farmland without profit to prevent land abandonment and sustain the rural landscape. This non-strategic burden depletes resources and suppresses the organizational capacity required for formal M&A and post-merger integration. Furthermore, these CSV-oriented farms remain isolated from existing financial ecosystems, underutilizing banks for M&A coordination. To prevent synergy traps and foster sustainable land governance, the findings suggest that financial institutions may benefit from redefining their roles. Rather than solely providing acquisition capital, they could potentially serve as regional ecosystem coordinators by offering capacity-building support to CSV-oriented farms.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090451

Authors: Husni Charif Nour Damaa Sam El Nemar Demetris Vrontis Evangelia Siachou

This research investigates the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and change leadership on educator engagement and productivity within the Lebanese educational sector. This study is grounded in both social cognitive theory (SCT) and dynamic capabilities theory (DCT), and it examines how AI adoption and change leadership, together with the human-centric factor of educator engagement, influence educators’ productivity in the context of a developing country. Data were collected from educators from various institutions in Lebanon. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to verify the validity and reliability of the latent factors under consideration. The hypothesized model derived from SCT and DCT and the literature was tested with structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that change leadership significantly improves educator engagement and productivity, highlighting its important role in supporting technological transformation in educational institutions. AI has an indirect impact on productivity through educator engagement, which acts as a key mediating factor. These findings stress the significance of promoting a human-centered approach to digital transformation in education. The research offers important insights for policymakers, educators, and institutional leaders who seek to use AI effectively, particularly in environments with limited resources.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090450

Authors: Adewale Adekiya Emmanuel Nkomo

While most studies seem to be of the view that job-insecure employees are more likely to engage in knowledge hiding, the recent literature has contradicted this view by arguing that employees who work in a highly uncertain environment are also likely to decline from hiding knowledge as they view the act of knowledge exchange to be essential for their internal and external employability. Thus, to have a clearer view of this type of proposition, this study examines the intricate interplay among perceived job insecurity, job involvement, co-worker and supervisor incivility, and knowledge hiding among a sample of 171 blue-collar employees in an unstable labor and economic environment. Structural equation modeling was performed to assess the direct and indirect relationship between perceived job insecurity and knowledge hiding through job involvement, as well as the moderating influence of incivility behavior in the indirect relationship. Results indicate that increasing job insecurity manifests itself in a decreased level of knowledge hiding. While job involvement fails to mediate the relationship between these two variables, it is, however, negatively related to knowledge hiding. Furthermore, both co-worker and supervisor incivility exert negative effects on employee job involvement and positive effects on knowledge hiding. With these results, this study delivers crucial insights into how structural features, contextual factors—such as labor market conditions, occupational structures, and workplace culture of blue-collar work—may weaken the psychological pathways typically proposed in mainstream organizational behavior theories.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090449

Authors: Norma Betanzos Díaz Jorge Oseguera-Gamba Marta Lilia Eraña-Diaz Lorena Paredes Francisco Paz Rodríguez

In Mexico, women entrepreneurs represent a significant portion of the population that contributes economically to the country. Few studies describe the challenges they face in creating and maintaining businesses, such as access to resources and the motivations that influence their intention and commitment to entrepreneurship, given that it is considered a predominantly male activity. To describe this behavioral intention that precedes entrepreneurship, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) is used as a theoretical framework. However, unlike previous applications of TRA in entrepreneurship research—which predominantly treat intention as a static predictor of the decision to start a business—we broaden the framework by conceptualizing behavioral intention as a continuous motivational force that sustains entrepreneurial passion and deepens organizational commitment in the entrepreneurial process. In doing so, the study addresses a gap in the literature: TRA has been criticized for neglecting the psychological mechanisms that underpin entrepreneurial behavior once the business has been launched. Based on in-depth interviews with ten women entrepreneurs in Cuernavaca, Morelos (Mexico), the findings show that entrepreneurial intention does not dissolve once the business is created: it re-emerges as entrepreneurial passion during the uncertain early stages of the venture and, as the business incorporates employees and customers, crystallizes into organizational commitment, which in turn feeds back into and reinforces entrepreneurial passion. These findings are synthesized into an integrative, sequential model—intention, behavior, passion, and commitment—that offers a novel processual account of women’s entrepreneurship beyond the moment of business creation.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090448

Authors: Daulet Shakenov Gaukhar Yeshenkulova Katarzyna Bratnicka-Myśliwiec

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how organizations plan, execute, and govern projects, yet management scholarship has not defined the “AI project manager” as a distinct organizational role, treating AI-related competencies mainly as prerequisites for AI readiness rather than as constituents of an evolving role. This study conceptualizes the AI project manager from practitioners’ perspectives and delineates the associated competency profile. Adopting an exploratory qualitative design, we combined Morse’s concept-development method with framework analysis across eight semi-structured expert interviews with practitioners self-identifying as AI project managers in six countries and the IT, fintech, and edtech sectors. Nine role attributes were derived from the literature and tested against the interview data; seven were confirmed, while data-driven decision-making and human-AI collaboration were reclassified as distinguishing rather than universal. Framework analysis distinguished competencies participants raised unprompted from those named in the interview questions. Prompt engineering was the most widely volunteered (six of eight) and is the study’s principal emergent finding, while AI literacy, AI ethics, adaptability, emotional intelligence, and leadership were endorsed by all eight but under direct prompting and are therefore reported as confirmed rather than emergent; competency development was largely self-organized. The study offers an empirically grounded role concept for organization and management scholarship, practical implications for human resource development and professional certification, and a transferable methodological template for conceptualizing emerging roles under technological change.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090447

Authors: Ramos Emmanuel Mabugu Machete (Eddie) Rakabe

This paper examines domestic revenue mobilisation in Zambia through a qualitative case-study design supplemented by descriptive fiscal data for 2020–2024 and historical policy evidence on mining taxation, VAT administration and revenue governance. This study asks how tax-administration capability, fiscal-governance arrangements and expenditure credibility condition recent revenue performance in a resource-dependent economy. The analysis shows that Zambia’s tax-to-GDP ratio rose from 15.4 percent in 2020 to 18.8 percent in 2024 while the fiscal deficit narrowed, but these gains cannot be attributed automatically to improved administrative efficiency. They must be interpreted alongside macroeconomic recovery, inflation, policy changes, mining-sector dynamics, VAT refund pressures, tax expenditures and continued debt-service constraints. This paper contributes by distinguishing recent fiscal trends from deeper institutional explanations and by showing how Zambia’s experience complements, rather than replicates, the 2024 Zambia Public Finance Review: whereas that review assesses broad public finance and investment governance, this article focuses specifically on the administrative and fiscal-governance conditions under which domestic revenue mobilisation becomes credible development finance. The findings support cautious policy recommendations centred on predictable tax rules, stronger taxpayer-registration and compliance systems, better VAT refund governance, transparent tax-expenditure reporting and expenditure institutions capable of converting revenue gains into visible public value.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090446

Authors: Nerantzoula Sevaslidou Eugenia Papaioannou Konstantinos Assimakopoulos George Stalidis

Artificial intelligence (AI) recommender systems operationalize personalized marketing by transforming behavioral data into individualized choice architectures, yet greater model complexity or personalization granularity need not improve every service objective. This study compares population-level item-neighborhood recommendation, behaviorally segmented neighborhood recommendation, and neural collaborative filtering (NCF) across 776,741 deduplicated 1–5 ratings from 646,576 anonymized users and 541 Coursera courses. The primary warm-start evaluation is restricted to 10,296 users (1.59% of the user population) with sufficient interaction history; the remaining sparse-history users contribute to fitting but not to the within-user confirmatory estimand. Configurations are selected only on three validation seeds and then frozen before guarded final evaluation across ten deterministic user-aware seeds. No rank-capable model dominates across objectives: KNN provides the strongest RMSE and personalized-neighborhood coverage profile, ClusteredKNN achieves the strongest observed Top-K retrieval with lower neighborhood support, and a metadata-rich NCF variant achieves the lowest MAE at substantially greater fitting cost. The rating-only UserMean baseline further shows that low numerical prediction error need not imply useful item ranking. Overall, the findings support a contingency view of AI personalization: greater segmentation granularity or model complexity does not inherently create greater value; model choice should instead reflect the service objective, available behavioral evidence, coverage tolerance, operating cadence, and governance requirements.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090445

Authors: Francesco Marcatto Diana Carbone Debora Bertolini

Employee retention is a strategic priority for organizations operating in increasingly competitive labor markets, yet predicting long-term employee departure remains a critical challenge. This study examines the longitudinal validity of the Ordinal Turnover Intention Scale (OTIS), a single-item instrument designed to assess employees’ progression through the decision-making stages of turnover. A three-wave longitudinal study was conducted over 12 months. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses showed that the OTIS substantially improved turnover prediction beyond traditional turnover intention measures. A three-wave mediation analysis further showed that employees’ progression through the OTIS stages served as a key explanatory pathway linking initial turnover intentions to subsequent turnover. Finally, ROC curve analyses identified preliminary diagnostic thresholds that can support timely and targeted HR interventions. Beyond providing longitudinal validation of the OTIS, this study shows that conceptualizing turnover intention as a stage-based decision process rather than solely as a continuous intensity construct improves turnover prediction. This single-item instrument is easy to administer, suitable for repeated assessment, and readily integrated into HR analytics to support early identification of employees at risk of leaving and talent retention strategies.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090444

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

This study examined the relationship between perceived internal coaching, toxic leadership, and perceived job performance, seeking to determine whether toxic leadership moderates the relationship between perceived internal coaching and performance, as well as whether the managerial/leadership role moderated that same relationship. A quantitative, correlational, and cross-sectional design was adopted, based on 313 valid survey responses. The results showed that perceived internal coaching (seen to be an intermediate level of leadership and management) was positively and significantly associated with perceived performance, supporting the hypothesis that internal coaching practices can contribute to professional effectiveness through reflection, feedback, the clarification of objectives, and behavioral adjustment. Hence, internal coaching is viewed as being essential. Toxic leadership did not have a statistically significant direct effect on performance; however, it significantly moderates the relationship between perceived internal coaching and performance, indicating that higher levels of toxic leadership attenuate the positive relationship between these variables (but perhaps less than thought initially). On the other hand, the managerial/leadership role did not significantly moderate the relationship between perceived internal coaching and performance. These results suggest that perceived internal coaching constitutes a relevant developmental resource for perceived professional performance, although relational and contextual dynamics may condition its impact, such as whether the culture is more individualistic or collectivist. The presence of toxic leadership appears to weaken the potential positive effect of perceived internal coaching, reinforcing the need for broader organizational interventions, including ethical leadership practices, accountability mechanisms, and psychologically safe work environments.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090443

Authors: Filiz Mizrak Umut Elbir

Self-leadership is increasingly important in service and knowledge-intensive work, yet sustained self-regulation may also create hidden psychological costs. This study introduces self-leadership overload (SLO) as a distinct self-regulatory strain state and examines whether it emerges nonlinearly, whether the self-leadership–SLO association is stronger under high work pressure, and whether SLO shows indirect associations with employee outcomes through work rumination. A two-wave survey of 408 full-time employees across seven service and knowledge-intensive sectors was analyzed using scale-development procedures, iterative PLS-SEM, two-stage nonlinear and moderation models, bootstrapped indirect-effect analysis, incremental-validity tests, and supplementary robustness checks. Self-leadership was positively associated with work happiness and sustainable performance, while its quadratic terms for these outcomes were nonsignificant. By contrast, the quadratic self-leadership–SLO term was positive and significant, indicating a progressively stronger association with overload at higher levels of self-leadership, and work pressure strengthened this association. SLO was associated with lower work happiness and sustainable performance and higher burnout and turnover intention; significant indirect associations through work rumination were observed for all four outcomes. SLO also explained additional variance beyond demographic and employment controls, conventional self-leadership, work pressure, and organizational and personal resources (ΔR2 = 0.049–0.123). General organizational resources did not show the hypothesized buffering pattern, whereas health-oriented self-care was negatively associated with overload. The findings refine the self-leadership paradox by showing that a beneficial self-regulatory capability can coexist with an escalating internal burden without a corresponding direct curvilinear downturn in positive outcomes. The study contributes a theoretically bounded and empirically differentiated SLO construct and highlights workload boundaries, recovery, and health-oriented self-care as important conditions for sustainable self-leadership.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090442

Authors: Adisak Suvittawat Napaporn Janchai

Growing concern for environmental sustainability has prompted the hospitality sector to adopt environmentally responsible practices that support both business performance and long-term competitiveness. This study explores the extent to which green marketing activities and digital transformation influence tourists’ perceptions and their decisions to reserve eco-friendly accommodation. Data were obtained from visitors to major tourist destinations in three provinces of Thailand through a stratified sampling technique. After screening the questionnaires, 410 usable responses were retained and examined through structural equation modeling to test the proposed relationships. The results indicate that green marketing, digitalization, and tourists’ perceptions play significant roles in shaping accommodation booking behavior. Together, these factors account for a substantial proportion of the variation in eco-friendly hotel booking decisions. Tourist perception was identified as the most influential determinant and served as a significant mediating mechanism through which green marketing and digitalization affected booking intentions. This study extends the sustainable hospitality literature by developing an integrated framework that explains how sustainability-oriented marketing efforts and digital technologies influence consumer decision-making. The findings provide valuable insights for hotel managers seeking to enhance green brand image, improve customer perceptions, and encourage environmentally responsible travel choices through the effective use of digital technologies.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090441

Authors: Sahar Babaei Saeed Nosratabadi Thabit Atobishi Sahar Abu Bakir

Telework has expanded rapidly, and understanding the behaviors employees enact under it has become correspondingly important. This study develops an integrative conceptual framework specifying the multidimensional nature of telework behavior. A systematic literature review following PRISMA identified 114 review articles, which were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory. Six behavioral dimensions were identified, covering performance, communication, environmental, task, policy, and well-being conduct. Antecedents were grouped into individual factors, job characteristics, organizational norms, technological factors, and work environment factors. Outcomes were grouped into job satisfaction, productivity, turnover, health and well-being, work–life balance, and social isolation. Three contextual moderators were identified, namely telework modality, telework preference, and cultural and national context. Fourteen propositions link these categories and are advanced as testable claims rather than established findings, since they are derived from published review evidence and have not been empirically tested. The framework proposes telework behavior as the construct through which the conditions of remote work are translated into employee and organizational outcomes, and it specifies a content domain from which measures of the construct can be developed. It also indicates where organizations can direct policy, training, and intervention.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090440

Authors: Ana Cid-Bouzo Francisco-Jesús Ferreiro-Seoane Adrián Ríos-Blanco

The most attractive companies to work for play a crucial role in the sustainability environment. Previous studies have examined the relationship between excellent human resource management and social and environmental sustainability. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between workplace excellence and economic sustainability. To this end, data from the annual ranking of the Revista de Actualidad Económica of the best places to work in Spain during the period 2013–2023 have been used, where Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is considered a key factor. This study uses observational secondary firm-level data covering the period 2013–2023 and applies comparative descriptive and inferential statistical analysis to examine differences between firms included and not included in the ranking. The findings indicate that the most attractive companies to work for are internationalized, large in size, and predominantly operate in the financial and insurance, professional and scientific, information, and energy supply sectors. These companies show better ratios in productivity, results and value added per employee, as well as equity. However, their profitability and solvency do not show significant results over time, so it cannot be clearly concluded that there is a relationship between the best companies to work for and economic sustainability. The practical implications of this study include recommendations for the government to promote complementary policies towards sustainability in general, such as both environmental (environmental certification) and inclusive social measures, among companies demonstrating higher CSR.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090439

Authors: Khaled Al-Awasa Krayyem Al-Hajaya Ahmed Eltweri Sajead Mowafaq Alshdaifat Munir Adali

This study is two-fold. First, it examines the impact of risk management committee characteristics on the level of risk information disclosure (financial, non-financial, and total risk disclosure). Second, it investigates the effect of risk disclosure on financial performance measured by return on equity (ROE). Data were collected from the annual reports of 39 banking and insurance companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during the 2019–2023 period, resulting in 195 initial firm-year observations. After excluding 64 firm-year observations for which risk management committee (RMC) characteristics were unavailable, the final regression sample comprised 131 firm-year observations. Multiple linear regression analysis was employed to test the study hypotheses. The findings indicate that risk disclosure improves with greater committee activity, as measured by the frequency of committee meetings. The results also reveal a significant negative relationship between committee size and non-financial risk disclosure. However, no significant relationship was found between risk disclosure and ROE. The findings demonstrate that governance effectiveness depends more on active committee engagement than on formal committee characteristics, extending current understanding of Risk Management Committee effectiveness. By distinguishing between financial and non-financial risk disclosure, the study provides a more nuanced explanation of how governance mechanisms influence organisational transparency within frontier market environments.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090438

Authors: Boshra H. Namin

Workplace incivility and workplace polarization represent two increasingly significant challenges in contemporary organizations. Although both phenomena have been studied extensively, their interrelationship remains underdeveloped in organizational behavior research. This conceptual study develops an integrative multilevel framework proposing how workplace incivility and workplace polarization may become reciprocally connected over time within the organizational context. Drawing on the Incivility Spiral Model, Organizational Justice Theory, and Social Identity Theory, the study proposes that repeated interpersonal incivility may contribute to identity-relevant interpretations and identity threat, which may, in turn, strengthen in-group/out-group differentiation. Trust erosion and emotional contagion may complement this process through relational and affective-transmission mechanisms, creating conditions that may support the emergence of workplace polarization. In turn, workplace polarization may reshape civility norms across perceived group boundaries and make expectations of respectful treatment increasingly group-contingent, thereby increasing the likelihood that subsequent workplace incivility will be directed toward perceived out-group members. The central contribution of this study is to explain how ambiguous interpersonal mistreatment may become interpreted as group-based disrespect and theorize how workplace polarization may make expectations of respectful treatment increasingly contingent on perceived group membership. The proposed model further identifies ethical leadership, organizational justice, psychological safety, and diversity climate as distinct contextual conditions that may influence different stages of the incivility-to-polarization pathway, rather than uniformly moderating the entire reciprocal process. By conceptualizing workplace incivility and workplace polarization as potentially reciprocally linked cross-level processes, this study contributes to theory development on workplace mistreatment, intergroup dynamics, and organizational division. It also outlines directions for longitudinal, experimental, multilevel, and network-based research to empirically examine the proposed relationships and highlights practical implications for fostering more respectful, cohesive, and inclusive work environments.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090437

Authors: Tamás Zelles József Pap Csaba Makó

Algorithmic management (AM) is spreading rapidly in platform work and traditional employment, yet empirical research remains platform-centric and skewed towards Western Europe, North America and China, leaving Central and Eastern Europe, especially Hungary, largely absent. This paper reports qualitative fieldwork on AM in two contrasting Hungarian firms, Data Analytics, a knowledge-intensive business services company, and ConLog, a contract logistics provider. Fieldwork in the EU-funded INCODING project (January 2022–July 2023) combined 15 semi-structured interviews, twelve internal and three external, with participant observation and documentary analysis. A sample limitation applies to one of the two firms: the Data Analytics evidence rests on only four internal interviews (two employees and two managers), so the findings for that case are indicative and exploratory rather than firm-level conclusions. A deliberately asymmetric comparison sets these findings against Hungarian platform labor, using secondary evidence on Uber, Wolt and Bolt from the CrowdWork21 project (2019–2021). Results show heterogeneity. In traditional firms, algorithmic systems sit within managerial hierarchies and produce hybrid human-algorithmic control. The older platform evidence documents real-time monitoring, opaque decision rules and market-mediated feedback that tighten control and erode autonomy. The contrast is a proposition for testing, not a measured difference. Workers in both settings adapt opportunistically, accommodating or partially resisting control. Hungary’s weak industrial relations institutions remain theoretically instructive despite limited generalizability. The contribution lies in the platform versus non-platform comparison, the institutional-bypassing argument and the design authority continuum.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090436

Authors: Réka Koteczki Boglárka Eisinger Balassa

Generative AI is increasingly integrated into organizational communication workflows, but organizations still have limited empirical evidence on how recipients evaluate AI-supported communication content when its source is not disclosed. This study examines how AI-generated organizational communication content becomes a decision alternative under hidden-source conditions and what this means for communication management. An exploratory mixed-method eye-tracking experiment was conducted with 20 participants, who evaluated six pairs of organizational communication stimuli, including text-based, image-based, and image-plus-text materials. Each pair contained one AI-generated and one human-created alternative, while the source remained concealed during the initial choice task. Data were collected through paired content-choice tasks, AOI-based eye-tracking with a Tobii Pro Spark 60 Hz screen-based eye tracker, an AI-identification task, and semi-structured post-experiment interviews. Within this six-pair exploratory stimulus set, AI-generated alternatives were selected in 66.7% of participant-by-task decisions, indicating that these specific AI-generated items were not automatically disadvantaged when their origin was hidden. Eye-tracking results showed broadly similar visual attention toward AI-generated and human-created content, while selected alternatives received higher attention than non-selected ones. Interviews revealed that participants evaluated content mainly through perceived quality, structure, professionalism, authenticity, and communicative suitability. The study contributes to research on AI-supported organizational communication by showing that responsible AI use requires human oversight, editorial control, and clear organizational guidelines.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090435

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

This study investigates the determinants of employees’ intention to stay in Thailand’s technology industry under remote work arrangements, using the technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework as a contextual organising framework and drawing on social exchange and job demands–resources reasoning to explain employee-level attitudinal responses. Drawing on survey data from 650 professionals, the study tests a model linking technological, organisational, and environmental conditions to intention to stay through organisational commitment and job satisfaction. The results indicate that favourable technological characteristics, organisational support, communication processes, and government regulatory support strengthen organisational commitment, whereas technological complexity and home environment interference weaken it. Organisational commitment positively influences job satisfaction, which in turn enhances intention to stay. Additional robustness analyses comparing competing structural specifications indicate that the proposed indirect pathway is substantively stable, although a direct organisational commitment–intention-to-stay relationship cannot be ruled out. The study therefore positions TOE as a contextual taxonomy whose employee-level effects operate primarily through attitudinal mechanisms rather than claiming that TOE alone constitutes an individual-level behavioural theory.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090434

Authors: Mateja Gorenc Aleksandra Grašič Katarina Aškerc Zadravec

Digital public services are increasingly recognised as important instruments of digital public governance, supporting administrative efficiency, citizen-centred service delivery, and broader sustainability transitions in the public sector. This study examines how authentication mechanisms, data protection, perceived sustainability benefits, and user experience influence trust and satisfaction with digital public services in Slovenia. A mixed-methods research design was applied, combining quantitative survey data (N = 96) with qualitative insights from 12 anonymous interviews involving users, public-sector employees, and managerial representatives. Quantitative data were analysed using independent-samples t-tests, Spearman correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression, while qualitative data were analysed thematically. The findings support all five hypotheses. Users of services requiring SI-PASS or qualified digital certificates reported significantly higher perceived security. GDPR compliance was positively associated with trust and more favourable service evaluations. Perceived sustainability benefits, particularly reduced paper-based documentation, were strongly linked to positive evaluations of digital public services. User satisfaction was positively associated with accessibility, ease of use, and time savings, while user experience emerged as the strongest predictor of overall satisfaction. The study extends digital governance literature by demonstrating that digital public services function as strategic enablers of sustainable, resource-efficient, and citizen-centred public-sector transformation.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090433

Authors: Yang Mu Jirapong Ruanggoon Jakkrit Thavorn

This study explains the organizational mechanisms through which strategic talent management (STM) forms, activates, and renews innovative human capital (IHC) in Chinese automotive firms. A qualitative process design was used, drawing exclusively on 25 semi-structured interviews with information-rich informants from 16 firms. Thematic analysis supported by NVivo produced 56 first-order codes, 12 second-order themes, and four aggregate dimensions. The findings indicate that participants described STM as a strategic architecture that anticipates capability needs, configures talent portfolios, coordinates expertise across functions, and uses feedback to sustain alignment. IHC formation was associated with the identification of innovation potential, experiential development, external knowledge integration, autonomy, and a supportive learning climate. Participants further linked the organizational use of IHC to activation mechanisms involving commercialization routines, cross-functional execution, incentives, accountability, and multidimensional performance assessment. Participants identified policy uncertainty, technological change, talent scarcity, organizational inertia, digital resistance, and cultural conflict as conditions that could constrain or reshape the STM–IHC process and prompt adaptive responses. Cross-case tensions show that digital systems, incentives, and formal assessment tools can both enable and constrain capability development. The study contributes a mechanism-based explanation of STM, theorizes IHC as an emergent and activatable capability, and identifies structural frictions as process-shaping conditions.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090432

Authors: Boglárka Eisinger Balassa László Buics

Translating sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments into operational management practices remains a challenge for organisations, including public higher education institutions. This study examines workload and capacity governance as an operational domain through which sustainability considerations can inform management-control decisions. Using a university enrolment process as an illustrative case, the mixed-method study combines process observation and time tracking, Business Process Modelling, semi-structured interviews, and P-Graph-based workload and capacity modelling. The model maximises completed enrolment cases subject to administrative capacity, processing-time requirements, process dependencies, and a 10–20% uncertainty range for case revisits. Three workload scenarios vary demand across 4400, 2200, and 1460 student cases. Results show declining completion rates as workload increases, with the paper-based second stage remaining particularly capacity-constrained. Interview evidence identifies workload concentration, rework, additional working time, and employee well-being concerns. The study contributes to sustainability-oriented management control research by showing how formal workload and capacity information can support resource allocation, capacity planning, and workload governance while connecting operational workload management with the social dimension of sustainability. The resulting case-derived framework provides a basis for examining these relationships in other administrative settings.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090431

Authors: Fatine El Ghali Ghorafi

Purpose: This study examines how large multinational corporations translate sustained macroenvironmental volatility into deliberate strategic reconfiguration processes, and how adaptive mechanisms differ across business models and sectors under shared environmental pressures. Design/Methodology: The study employs a qualitative comparative multiple-case design with abductive logic and a longitudinal perspective covering 2019–2024. Apple, Amazon, and McDonald’s were selected through theoretical sampling for their sector heterogeneity, their shared global regulatory and operational exposure, and their contrasting adaptive architectures—vertical integration, platform diversification, and franchising, respectively—rather than a uniform majority-international-revenue criterion. A corpus of 78 primary and secondary documents was analysed through open coding, axial coding, thematic aggregation, cross-case comparison, and pattern matching. Findings: All three firms converge around digitalisation, regulatory compliance, and sustainability as environmental legitimacy requirements rather than differentiating strategic choices. Divergence emerges in execution mechanisms: Apple deploys anticipatory vertical integration; Amazon converts operational complexity into structural barriers; McDonald’s exploits franchise flexibility for local adaptation while preserving brand coherence. The analysis yields an original Adaptive Reconfiguration Cycle (ARC Framework) comprising five iterative stages, evidenced for each firm across the full cycle rather than only its dominant stage. Theoretical Contribution: The study develops an integrated macroenvironment–capability reconfiguration framework that bridges PESTEL analysis, dynamic capabilities theory, and contingency theory, addressing an under-explored integration gap in each tradition. Three theory-building propositions, generated inductively from the three comparative cases and not presented as empirically established relationships, are advanced together with their moderating conditions. Practical Implications: Firms must institutionalise environmental sensing as a permanent strategic function, treat compliance capabilities as competitive assets, and build adaptive capacity as a standing organisational competency. Originality/Value: This study is among the few comparative analyses to integrate PESTEL trigger structures with dynamic capabilities reconfiguration logic across heterogeneous sectors using longitudinal evidence. The ARC Framework is offered as an analytically transferable, theory-generating model with explicit boundary conditions and testable propositions, rather than as a broadly generalisable one.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090430

Authors: Alexandros Garefalakis

This study examines the development and conceptual structure of research connecting green accounting, sustainability reporting, and ESG performance in dynamic organizational environments. A bibliometric analysis was conducted using 321 Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 2005 and 2026. Bibliometrix, Biblioshiny and VOSviewer were used to analyze scientific production, leading sources and countries, keyword co-occurrence, thematic evolution, and conceptual clusters. The findings reveal a marked increase in scientific production after 2017, followed by particularly strong growth after 2021. Sustainability reporting and sustainability accounting emerged as central themes, with increasing connections to environmental accounting, accountability, green accounting, corporate governance, innovation, financial performance, climate-related disclosure, and digitalization. The results suggest that green accounting is evolving from a specialized environmental measurement practice into a broader organizational information and management control mechanism. Sustainability reporting appears to connect internally generated environmental information with external ESG evaluation and stakeholder accountability. The study integrates previously fragmented research streams and clarifies the role of accounting information in supporting organizational responses to changing regulatory, technological, and stakeholder pressures. It also identifies opportunities for future empirical research on the relationship between green accounting, management control, reporting quality, and ESG performance.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090429

Authors: Roman Adamik Nikola Staffenova Milan Kubina Daniela Fedorova Lenka Kyrisova

Product management plays a key role in the development and management of digital products, but the current professional literature does not provide a unified and practically usable framework that systematically integrates product strategy, product manager responsibilities, and the product development process. The aim of the article is to analyze the role of the product manager, identify the main steps of the product management process, including the methods and analyses used, and propose an integrated framework based on empirical findings. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews with product managers and practitioners. The results showed that the role of the product manager and its associated responsibilities vary significantly between organizations, while the product management process itself shows a high degree of similarity. Four main phases of the process were identified: product discovery, product ownership, product launch and commercialization, and product optimization. The differences were mainly reflected in the methods used, the analyses conducted, and the interpretation of selected product management concepts. The contribution of the article lies in proposing an integrated product management framework that connects relevant knowledge from literature with empirical findings and provides organizations with a systematic approach to managing the development of digital products.

Administrative Sciences doi: 10.3390/admsci16090428

Authors: Khaled Salmen Aljaaidi

This study aims to examine whether sustainability governance mechanisms are associated with reported corporate carbon emissions among firms listed on the Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) and to assess their potential implications for carbon accountability associated with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 12, 13, and 16. Using an unbalanced panel of 188 firm-year observations from 51 firms during 2014–2021, the study estimates pooled ordinary least squares models with firm-clustered robust standard errors and industry and year fixed effects. Sustainability committee presence, stand-alone sustainability reporting, and external assurance are examined separately and through a 0–3 composite score. In the joint individual-mechanism model, external assurance is positively associated with reported emissions, whereas committee presence and reporting are nonsignificant. In a separate composite model, the sustainability governance score is positive and significant. The composite coefficient remains positive and significant in the asset- and revenue-scaled carbon-intensity and one-year-lagged specifications, although the assurance result is sensitive to the intensity denominator. The findings are consistent with an interpretation in which stronger governance is associated with greater visibility and completeness of reported carbon exposure; however, the observational data cannot distinguish this mechanism conclusively from differences in underlying emissions or endogenous governance adoption. Improved visibility may support responsible reporting (SDG 12), climate accountability (SDG 13), and transparent institutions (SDG 16).

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 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.