Search Results (573)

Organizational commitment is crucial for employee retention and performance; however, little is known about how social and leadership resources translate into organizational commitment through routine learning behaviors. Based on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study explores how trust and leader’s vision of talent influence organizational commitment through three informal training formats: peer/supervisor coaching, knowledge sharing, and job rotation. Using data from the 2023 Korea Human Capital Enterprise Survey (N = 10,371), this study employs a generalized structural equation model that combines Bernoulli logit mediation equations with Gaussian identity outcome equations, along with the bootstrap method, to test the proposed mediation model. The results show that trust and leader’s vision of talent are positively correlated with organizational commitment, whereas knowledge sharing and job rotation significantly mediate these relationships. Peer/supervisor coaching shows no mediating effect. This study conceptualizes informal training as a mechanism through which workplace resources are implemented and translated into employee attitudes, thereby extending COR theory from resource acquisition and protection to resource utilization processes in everyday organizational contexts. The findings suggest that organizations should strengthen trust-based and development-oriented human resource practices to foster employee commitment. These implications extend beyond Korean firms to global HR practitioners seeking to build learning-supportive workplaces. Full article

Establishing a strong safety culture remains a key challenge for safety professionals in the manufacturing sector. Although safety culture has been examined across South African industries such as food production, aviation and construction, limited research focuses on manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). This study addresses this gap by examining how employees perceive organizational factors influencing safety culture through a six-factor leadership and safety practices framework. Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected from a convenience sample of 487 employees aged 18–65 years working in South African manufacturing SMEs, recruited through a national market research panel. A structured, self-administered questionnaire measured employee perceptions of organizational factors shaping safety culture and related compliance behaviors. The structural model demonstrated satisfactory reliability and strong model fit, with six core factors identified, namely management commitment, safety incentives, safety training, safety communication with feedback, safety culture, and safety compliance. Findings indicate that stronger safety culture development requires SME leadership engagement, resource allocation and open communication, supported by frequent, context-specific training and intrinsic and extrinsic incentives, while clear, enforceable compliance measures help reduce workplace hazards and maintain regulatory alignment. Full article

Sustaining high performance in private healthcare requires that internal organizational processes actively reinforce the values employees carry into their daily work. This study examines how organizational communication and internal branding shape employee commitment, positioning commitment as a foundational condition for sustainable organizational performance in health services. Drawing on quantitative data from 247 healthcare professionals, a structured questionnaire validated through reliability analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to assess the direct and indirect pathways between these constructs. Multiple regression analysis confirmed that both organizational communication and internal branding are significant positive predictors of employee commitment, with communication carrying a marginally stronger direct effect. Mediation analysis further revealed that internal branding mediates the relationship between organizational communication and employee commitment, accounting for approximately 29 percent of the total effect. These findings suggest that coherent communication structures and well-anchored internal branding practices are associated with the kind of internal alignment that prior research has linked to workforce stability and service continuity, which are themselves proximal conditions for organizational sustainability. The study concludes by proposing an integrated managerial framework that brings these two strategic levers into closer coordination, while acknowledging that distal sustainability outcomes were not directly measured and should be assessed in subsequent longitudinal research. Full article

Building a sustainable workplace necessitates a fundamental commitment to employee safety and psychological well-being, particularly in high-risk sectors like construction. While individual unsafe behavior is a primary cause of accidents, the psychological mechanisms linking organizational practices to safety outcomes remain underexplored from an industrial-organizational psychology perspective. This study examines the relationship between safety ritual sense (a psychological outcome of socio-affective organizational practices) and the safety behavior of construction workers, with safety psychological capital (a positive psychological resource) tested as a mediator. Data were collected via questionnaire surveys from 444 construction employees in China and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results confirm a significant positive correlation between safety ritual sense and safety behavior. Furthermore, safety psychological capital significantly partially mediates this relationship, with its four dimensions—confidence, optimism, hope, and resilience—each playing distinct mediating roles. This research elucidates a critical psychological pathway through which ritualized organizational practices enhance safety performance. It provides empirical evidence that fostering safety rituals to cultivate employees’ psychological capital is an effective industrial-organizational psychology intervention, contributing directly to the development of safer, healthier, and more sustainable modern workplaces. Full article

This study explores how internal and external brand management synergistically construct employee brand equity in contemporary organizations. Drawing on social identity theory, brand equity theory, and relationship quality theory, we conducted a systematic literature review of research published from 2019 to 2024 to analyze the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral mechanisms underlying this process. Our findings reveal that internal brand management activities (brand-oriented HR practices, brand communication) and external initiatives (CSR, marketing strategies) jointly shape employees’ brand cognition, while brand relationship quality mediates emotional connections through brand commitment, trust, and advocacy. These elements ultimately manifest in behavioral expressions including brand citizenship behavior, loyalty, retention intention, and positive word-of-mouth. This research provides organizations with an integrated framework for strategically aligning internal and external brand activities to enhance employee brand support, thereby strengthening competitive advantage through consistent brand delivery across all stakeholder touchpoints. Full article

Increasing stakeholder pressures and environmental uncertainty require organizations to move beyond short-term financial outcomes and pursue sustainable performance. Despite the growing interest in sustainable leadership, the mechanisms and conditions under which this leadership approach is associated with sustainable performance have not yet been sufficiently clarified. This study examines the relationships between sustainable leadership and sustainable performance within a framework that incorporates the mediating role of organizational commitment and the moderating role of intra-organizational knowledge sharing. The research model was tested using data obtained from 399 employees working in SMEs operating in Türkiye through a convenience sampling approach, and the hypotheses were examined using PROCESS Macro Model 14 with a bootstrapping procedure (5000 resamples). The findings indicate that sustainable leadership is positively associated with sustainable performance and organizational commitment. Furthermore, organizational commitment is positively associated with sustainable performance and partially mediates the relationship between sustainable leadership and performance. In addition, intra-organizational knowledge sharing strengthens this indirect relationship, such that higher levels of knowledge sharing are associated with a stronger indirect effect. These findings suggest that sustainable performance is not solely a direct outcome of leadership behaviors but is associated with the interaction between employees’ relational bonds with the organization and knowledge-based processes. By integrating the natural resource-based view, social exchange theory, and the knowledge-based view, the study offers a conditional process perspective that is consistent with the observed relationships and contributes to the literature by providing a more integrated and contextually grounded understanding. Full article

This study examines organisational and ergonomic predictors of safety compliance in automotive just-in-time (JIT) production environments. Drawing on the theory of safety climate and the literature on organisational control, we developed a multivariate regression model to analyse how managerial commitment, production pressure, technological safeguards, training quality, severity of sanctions, and ergonomic prevention relate to employee safety compliance. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among the employees of five Central European Tier 1 and Tier 2 automotive suppliers (n = 221). The results show that organisational factors play a central role in explaining compliance behaviour. Management commitment and training quality emerged as the strongest positive predictors of safety compliance, while production pressure showed a significant negative association. Ergonomic prevention was also positively related to compliance, suggesting that workplace design and physical risk reduction contribute to safer behaviour. The severity of sanctions showed only a weak relationship with compliance. In general, the findings indicate that supportive organisational practices and preventive safety management are more strongly associated with compliance than sanctions-based control mechanisms alone. The results highlight the importance of integrating management commitment, training systems, and ergonomic design into safety strategies in high-pressure manufacturing environments. Full article

Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) are seen as promising pathways for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to enhance performance while preserving environmental and social resources. This paper identifies organizational determinants of AI maturity that can enable SMEs to use AI in a more sustainable, responsible, and capacity-enhancing manner. AI adoption becomes relevant to sustainability not only because a company adopts advanced technology but because this technology is embedded in leadership practices, employee competencies, interdisciplinary collaboration, and organizational learning. From this perspective, perceived benefits and management commitment are not outcomes of sustainability but mechanisms that help explain how SMEs transition from technological awareness to building organizational capacity. Such capacity building can be a necessary prerequisite for subsequent sustainability-oriented outcomes, such as efficient resource utilization, employee upskilling, responsible AI management, and long-term resilience. We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 402 managers from Polish SMEs (62 micro, 193 small, 147 medium) across manufacturing, services and trade industries. Respondents (mean age ≈ 42.5 years) assessed perceived benefits of AI, engagement of top leadership, AI maturity and competitive pressure. Partial least-squares structural equation modeling revealed that perceived benefits strongly predicted leadership engagement (β = 0.647), explaining 62.8% of its variance. Perceived benefits (β = 0.384) and leadership engagement (β = 0.362) in turn were the key drivers of AI maturity, with the model accounting for 65.5% of variance in AI maturity. Competitive pressure positively but weakly moderated the relationship between perceived benefits and leadership engagement (β = 0.011), while its moderating effect on the relationship between perceived benefits and AI maturity was not significant (β = −0.008). These findings suggest that articulating clear benefits of AI and securing active leadership engagement are more decisive for advancing AI maturity than external competitive pressure. The contribution of the study is to integrate the perceived benefits of AI, top management commitment and AI maturity into a model, empirically validated and interpreted from a socio-technical perspective of sustainable digital transformation in SMEs, while quantifying the moderating role of competitive pressure in the under-researched context of Central and Eastern Europe. For practitioners, investing in awareness of AI’s benefits and developing committed leadership may yield more sustainable digital transformation than reacting solely to external pressures. Full article

While the literature acknowledges the importance of emotion management for effective leadership, no leadership theory embeds the management of contextual emotions that involuntarily spread among multiple workplace stakeholders (i.e., holistic emotional contagion) and are jointly intertwined with leaders’ actions. The present research aimed to: (1) include emotional contagion into leadership theorizing and assess the cross-country validity of the accompanying measure (Leader Awareness of Holistic Contagion Scale; LAHCS), and (2) examine the LAHCS’ convergent, discriminant and nomological/criterion validity. Data (Study 1) from 1454 Italian employees supported the LAHCS construct and convergent validity with multiple leadership scales and discriminant validity against group-member-prototypicality. Data (Study 2) from the U.S. (N = 400) and Italy (N = 186) supported measurement invariance. SEM model results suggest that leaders’ awareness of holistic contagion and their orientation to manage contagion are associated with higher followers’ commitment and leadership satisfaction. Interestingly, the leader’s engagement in active exploration of contagion exchanges and their awareness of the leader–follower emotional distance is associated with followers’ higher burnout, lower commitment and leadership dissatisfaction. In conclusion, our cross-country findings support the LAHCS validity and reveal that leaders who are aware of workplace emotional traffic are appreciated. Notably, if they attempt to actively explore this traffic or are aware of followers’ emotional distance, then the situation becomes likely intrusive and uncomfortable, resulting in followers’ dissatisfaction, poor commitment and distress. For scholars and practitioners alike, our findings provide a leadership conceptual framework, including emotional contagion as a springboard to the understanding of some apparently inconvenient truths about emotions and leadership. Full article

A recurring question in contemporary society is: How can one survive on a single income? Escalating socioeconomic challenges worldwide are pushing many households beyond their financial comfort zones. As a coping strategy, many individuals have adopted side hustles, income-generating activities pursued alongside full-time employment. However, a crucial question arises: do side hustles come at the expense of primary employment, particularly in terms of employee commitment and workplace loyalty? This study examined the moderating role of work–life integration in the relationship between side hustles, employee commitment, and workplace attachment. The unit of analysis consisted of academic and support staff at South African higher education institutions. Primary data were collected through a survey of a stratified random sample of 300 employees, and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The findings support that side hustles offer meaningful opportunities to enhance individual livelihoods by mitigating the impact of declining income levels. Moreover, the results indicate that flexible work arrangements are critical for employees engaged in hustle, as such flexibility strengthens organisational commitment and workplace attachment. The study recommends adopting a humanistic management approach that promotes boundaryless jobs, thereby fostering employee commitment and workplace attachment through an inclusive, supportive, and empowering work environment. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly incorporated into organizational functions to streamline processes and improve performance outcomes. However, prior research has primarily examined AI from a technological and operational perspective, with limited attention to the role of employees’ perceptions of AI in shaping organizational outcomes. This study develops and empirically tests a moderated mediation model examining the impact of perceived benefits of AI (PB-AI) on organizational performance (OGP), both directly and indirectly, through organizational agility (OAG), while assessing the moderating role of management commitment (MC). Data were collected from 381 managers in medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that perceived benefits of AI (PB-AI) significantly enhance organizational agility (OAG) (β = 0.400, p < 0.001) and organizational performance (OGP) (β = 0.303, p < 0.001). Organizational agility also positively influences performance (β = 0.163, p = 0.001) and partially mediates the relationship between PB-AI and OGP. However, the moderated mediation effect of management commitment was not supported. The findings highlight the role of employees’ perceptions of AI as a mechanism through which AI-related benefits are translated into organizational outcomes. The study contributes to the literature by positioning perceived benefits of AI as a key explanatory construct and by demonstrating the role of organizational agility in linking AI-related perceptions to performance outcomes. It also provides insights into the role of management commitment in AI-enabled organizational contexts. Full article

This study examines the influences of various organizational performance factors on the application of Lean tools and the effects of Lean methodology implementation. Although Lean management has been widely studied, empirical evidence on the combined influence of internal organizational capabilities and external environmental pressures on Lean adoption and outcomes in transition economies remains limited. In particular, the relative importance of internal resources and competitive pressures in shaping Lean implementation results has not been sufficiently explored. Therefore, this study aims to analyze how different organizational and environmental factors influence both the application of Lean tools and the effects of Lean methodology implementation. The independent variables considered include: business performance, organizational culture, company size, technical infrastructure and resources, education and competence of employees, training for Lean methodology, management support, competitive pressure and motivation to reduce costs, degree of innovation in the company, the role of the Lean concept in strategic planning, years of company existence, and years of Lean tool implementation. The research was conducted among food industry companies in Serbia, and a total of 183 valid questionnaires were collected. The results indicate that the application of Lean tools is most strongly influenced by training for Lean methodology, followed by business performance and company size. In contrast, the effects of Lean methodology implementation are primarily affected by competitive pressure and motivation to reduce costs, as well as management support. Furthermore, the analysis shows that Lean application and Lean outcomes function as two distinct dimensions: companies may apply Lean tools without achieving significant effects if managerial support or competitive pressure is insufficient. Conversely, firms with strong competitive drivers and committed management achieve noticeably higher performance improvements even with moderate levels of Lean tool adoption. Overall, the findings suggest that the application of Lean tools largely depends on the company’s internal resources, such as employee knowledge and training, business strength, and scale of operations, while the success and outcomes of Lean implementation are more strongly driven by external competitive pressures and the degree of managerial understanding and support. By distinguishing between the determinants of Lean tool adoption and the determinants of Lean implementation outcomes, this study contributes to a clearer understanding of Lean effectiveness in the context of transition economies. Full article

The increasing adoption of servitization has led many manufacturing companies to operate simultaneously in manufacturing and service activities, creating dual-sector business models characterized by heightened organizational complexity. Although prior research acknowledges that both internal capabilities and contextual conditions shape organizational outcomes, fewer studies have examined these variables within the same empirical model in companies operating under both manufacturing and service logics. Drawing on the resource-based view and contingency theory, this study examines the effects of organizational culture, organizational commitment, knowledge management, environmental uncertainty, and employee retention on organizational performance in dual-sector companies, while also assessing whether these relationships vary by company size. Survey data were collected from 433 employees working in dual-sector companies and were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, covariance-based structural equation modeling, and supplementary hierarchical regression analysis. The findings indicate that environmental uncertainty and employee retention did not receive empirical support as independent direct predictors in the structural model. Organizational commitment, knowledge management, and two dimensions of organizational culture—consistency and adaptability—are significant positive predictors of perceived organizational performance. The moderation analysis does not provide strong evidence that company size changes these relationships, although the interaction suggests that environmental uncertainty may be more consequential in large firms. This study contributes to research on servitization by showing that, in dual-sector companies, performance is most strongly associated with internal capabilities that support coordination, shared meaning, and knowledge integration across manufacturing and service activities. For managers, the results highlight the importance of strengthening commitment, adaptive coordination, and cross-domain knowledge processes rather than relying on retention efforts alone. Full article

Organizational commitment constitutes a challenge for organizations. Despite the growing body of literature describing organizational commitment as a positive outcome of ideal job conditions, how organizational commitment develops has not been explored extensively. This study examines how organizational commitment develops in small and medium enterprises in Cyprus by modelling the roles of work–life balance, flexible work arrangements, employee remuneration, motivation, and job satisfaction. To test the hypothesized relationships among the variables, structural equation modelling was used to analyze survey data collected from 462 employees. The findings of this study show a strong effect of work–life balance and employee remuneration on organizational commitment. The results indicate a sequential pattern, in which work–life balance and employee remuneration showed stronger effects within the model, while motivation acted as a first-stage mediator and job satisfaction as a second-stage mediator linking these effects to organizational commitment. These findings suggest that organizational commitment develops primarily through earlier motivational and evaluative experiences, rather than resulting solely from favorable job conditions. The study offers theoretical insight into the process through which organizational commitment develops and provides practical implications for managers of small and medium enterprises seeking to strengthen employee commitment through everyday work conditions. Full article

Environmental sustainability has emerged as a strategic requirement of those organizations that want to remain competitive in the long run, but most companies continue to adopt green human resource management (GHRM) practices and organizational change initiatives individually, thus restraining their potential transformation. This paper constructs and confirms a combined approach of how the fit between GHRM practices and adaptive change management processes results in high performance in sustainable innovation. In this study, 83 organizations from both the manufacturing and service sectors were selected using a purposive sampling method, to ensure diversity across developed and developing countries and varying levels of GHRM integration (low, moderate, and high). The sample was chosen to represent a broad spectrum of sustainability maturity levels, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of how GHRM practices influence green product, process, and business model innovation. This selection, alongside 30 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025, underpins the conceptual framework used to activate change preparedness and link GHRM dimensions with innovation outcomes. I demonstrate that organizations with a high GHRM–change management fit have much higher levels of innovation performance—both in terms of the number of green product innovations (485%) and more sustainable performance improvement (90.5 on average)—than low-integration organizations. Findings also reveal that leadership commitment, employee engagement, organizational learning, and systemic reinforcement are key mediating processes that enhance the effect of GHRM activities. Temporal trajectory analysis demonstrates that integrated organizations go through deployment, consolidation, and optimization phases, as well as increasing returns to performance, with an accelerating trend of 36 months. This paper is important in management research as it fills in gaps in the literature, providing an explanation of how human resource practices facilitate organizational change at the system level. In practice, this study offers evidence-based recommendations to managers who want to establish sustainability-oriented innovation capability by implementing a coordinated GHRM and adaptive change management approach. Full article