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This paper aims to point to the shift in the temporal orientation, going from reporting on the past to creating insights about the future, which might be suggestive of perennial managerial attempts to push the boundaries of bounded rationality.

In this essay, the authors want to critically engage with the concept of “data-driven management” in the context of digitalization. To do so, they sketch the edges of current discourses around the emerging idea of data-driven management and its relationship with the inner workings of organizations from an accounting perspective. They question the often-times supposed objectivity and increased rationality of the concept and instead introduce the idea of becoming “data-curious” (before being data-driven).

The authors observe that this push also seems to be accompanied by trends of individualized decision-making and prevailing hopes of technology to solve organizational problems. They therefore suggest that it is valuable for current debates to take a moment to give attention, in practice and in research, to the role of temporality, benefits of collective decision-making and changes in professions (of accountants).

The aim of this paper is to spark curiosity and engagement with the phenomenon of data-driven management by outlining a novel set of potential future pathways of research and point towards methods that might help studying the questions arising for a data-curious approach.

The study examines the effects of organizational compassion during the COVID-19 pandemic on teachers' mental health and, consequently, their commitment and work engagement. The study tests a serial mediation model for the effects of organizational compassion on employee engagement via mental health and the three components of organizational commitment.

A cross-sectional sample (N = 436) completed an online questionnaire towards the end of the prolonged lockdown of schools in Uganda (2021–2022). Serial mediation analysis in PROCESS Macro was employed to test the hypotheses.

As hypothesized, organizational compassion was significantly related to teachers' mental health, the three components of organizational commitment, and employee engagement. A double mediation path of the effects of organizational compassion on employee engagement via mental health and affective commitment was significant.

The findings highlight how organizational compassion benefits employees’ psychological health and work attitudes and behavior. The findings draw attention to the need to design compassion practices that boost the emotional value of organizational compassion to the individual over the economic and normative value.

The study contributes to the literature on organizational compassion outcomes by focusing on employee engagement and the underlying mediating mechanisms. The study is also one of the few that has examined the effects of organizational compassion on the three components of organizational commitment.

The 7th decade manager (7DM) is an overlooked and under-researched group in organisation studies. This paper explores the changes which 7DMs experience in later life through the lenses of age, work and identity.

An interpretivist methodology was adopted and data were obtained via semi-structured interviews with 32 managers across 10 different sectors in England and Scotland. These data were analysed thematically.

Change manifested itself in various contradictory ways across three domains of age, work and identity. Age was experienced dichotomously, with these 7DMs identifying as subjectively younger yet openly (if reluctantly) accepting signs of ageing. They appeared more tolerant and kinder but could be impatient and outspoken. Work remained important, providing structure, a sense of purpose and camaraderie; however, career progression was not. Altruistically, the 7DMs exercised generativity by providing their colleagues with counsel in both work and personal matters. Their sense of self and identity work featured prominently, particularly in the liminality associated with the impending cessation of work. Preparation for the psychosocial transition to retirement was lacking.

This project would have benefitted from a larger and broader cohort demographic. Whether there are any significant gender or ethnic differences in attitudes, values or approaches to work cannot be ascertained from the data obtained. Future studies should therefore include a greater diversity of participants. There may also be merit in investigating if any differences exist for the ex-military 7DM manager compared to others.

Organisations can benefit from greater recognition of the value experienced managers in their later working lives can bring. Both the broader community of managers and their employers would benefit from leveraging the experience, knowledge and attributes of older managers in their passage through their 7th decade and better prepare younger people to succeed them.

Different agencies such as government, employers, professional bodies like the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Trade Unions or consultancies may wish to explore the benefits and practicalities of preparing the individual for the transition to retirement. Importantly, this should address the psychosocial connotations associated with ceasing work. Whilst this applies to all 7th decade workers, we suggest that there are some challenges that are peculiar to being an older manager.

Whilst much is known about older workers, research relating to older managers, especially those in their seventh decade, is largely absent. This paper illustrates the changes and challenges they experience in both their professional and personal lives, some of which seem to be unique to this age group and many of which would benefit from being addressed in organisational policy and practice as well as further research.

This conceptual paper aims to present a perspective on how to engineer sustainability through the prism of Industry 4.0 technologies and outline propositions to guide future research.

This study presents a literature review developing four research propositions, focusing on the nine leading technologies underpinning Industry 4.0 to engineer economic, environmental and social sustainability dimensions.

The authors derive benefits and challenges of Industry 4.0 technologies across all three business model elements: value creation, value delivery and value capture. The authors derive those for the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. Thereupon, we develop several propositions for future research.

The authors provide suggestions to practice how to better achieve value in all three sustainability dimensions through implementing a business model perspective, ecosystem thinking, societal demands and Data Governance and AI integration.

By linking societal aspects of Industry 4.0 technologies with environmental, and economic aspects, the authors provide several suggestions how to implement Industry 4.0. For instance, policymakers are recommended to support entire ecosystems than isolated solutions.

The paper contributes to extant literature by conceptualising how Industry 4.0 can leverage value in reaching sustainability in all three dimensions and produce broader ecosystems-wide impacts.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the implicit motivations of entrepreneurial philanthropists during different stages of their lives.

The authors follow a Historical Organization Studies approach by performing a psychobiographical analysis using McClelland’s Thematic Apperception Test on the autobiography of Andrew Carnegie across different stages of his life while considering the historical context.

The configuration of the implicit motivations of entrepreneurial philanthropists change with achievement motivation decreasing and power motivation increasing over time explaining the shift of focus from self to others.

While researchers have been theorizing and using interviews to uncover shifts in entrepreneurial motivations, this is the first paper to longitudinally uncover implicit motivations to explain why successful entrepreneurs give back later in life.

This study explores the relationship between intellectual capital (IC), dynamic capabilities (DCs) and organisational performance (OP), addressing disagreements on whether IC is an antecedent or consequence of DCs and whether IC and DCs mediate or moderate the interactions between these constructs.

To address the study questions, four different models were developed that highlight the controversy among researchers regarding the nature of the interplay between IC, DCs, and OP. A cross-sectional survey of 394 managers working for government agencies and departments in Jordan’s capital city, Amman, was conducted to investigate different scholars’ perspectives on the nature of the interaction between these variables. The retrieved responses (166 with a 42.1% response rate) were analysed using SmartPLS.

Our results revealed that IC did not affect OP, whereas DCs did across the four models. IC affects DCs, and DCs also affect IC, highlighting the potential reciprocal relationship. The relationship between the variables is one of mediation and not moderation, which implies that DCs do not function as a moderator between IC and OP, and IC does not act as a moderator between DCs and OP. These results offer a complex picture of the connections between IC, DCs and OP, which has interesting implications for practice.

Our study reveals the significant role of DCs in OP within government institutions by extending theories on DCs’ adaptability and competitiveness. It emphasises the need for active management of IC to yield performance benefits, aligning with resource-based theories. This study also clarifies the mediation and moderation effects, opens new research avenues and highlights the potential reciprocal interaction between IC and DCs.

This study is the first to explore the reciprocal interaction between IC and DCs and the mediating and/or moderating role of either IC or DCs in their relationship with OP within the public sector, which has not received sufficient attention from scholars, especially in developing countries such as Jordan.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the two-factor theory (Herzberg et al., 1959), determining whether millennials experience similar job satisfaction and dissatisfaction with Herzberg et al.’s motivation/hygiene descriptors as they relate to job enrichment.

This paper analyzed the historical relevancy of Herzberg et al.’s controversial motivation theory to 21st-century workers. Extensive research of scholarly journal articles included historical studies and recent studies from 1919 to 2024.

In the late 1950s, Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman identified, from two simple reflective questions to participants, 14 work factors, which vary in the degree of motivational effect across two independent continuums of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Given the seminal work by Herzberg et al. in this area of motivation and hygiene factors, as well as subsequent contributors in the field, the authors of this study explored the role of generational motivational changes as they relate to job enrichment.

The authors offer a reassessment of the Herzberg motivation theory to account for the generational differences that might influence its practice in the current historical context. The authors laid a foundation for further inquiry into how future workplace motivational choices compare with past generations, potentially increasing performance, and higher levels of personal achievement.

This paper investigates whether resilience capabilities influence manufacturing performance dimensions. Specifically, it empirically analyses how supply chain agility, alertness, adaptability and preparedness affect manufacturing firms’ operational and sustainable (economic, social and environmental) performance aspects.

The paper employed a deductive approach and an explanatory design. It gathered survey data from 285 managers in 5,329 Ghanaian manufacturing firms and analysed it using structural equation modelling.

The study found resilience capabilities comprising agility, alertness and adaptability to significantly and positively predict changes in manufacturing firms’ sustainable (environmental, economic and social) and operational performance. However, the preparedness capability positively impacts the firms’ operational and environmental performance, not economic and social.

This paper is restricted to Ghana’s manufacturing industry. Underpinned by the dynamic capabilities theory and extensive empirical reviews, the model was developed with four resilient capabilities and four manufacturing performance dimensions.

The study highlights the relevance of resilience in today’s highly disruptive manufacturing environment for achieving sustainable and operational performance. It encourages manufacturing firms to prioritise heavy investments in alertness, adaptability and agile capabilities to overcome supply chain disruptions and enhance sustainable and operational excellence. It also offers significant insights for policymakers, managers and industry players to advance resilience capabilities and swiftly detect and recover from emerging disturbances in manufacturing supply chains, leading to higher performance.

The study contributes to resource conservation and a more sustainable future by projecting resilient capabilities in today’s disruptive environments. The shift towards SCR can influence public attitudes and opinions toward manufacturing and contribute to firms’ sustainability goals.

This study is the first to investigate the linkages between resilient capabilities and performance aspects simultaneously in less developed economies like Ghana. In these economies, manufacturing supply chains often face varying risks that continue to disrupt their operations and sustainability goals.

This review aims to summarize the extent to which sustainability dimensions are covered in the selected qualitative literature, the theoretical and ontological underpinnings that have informed sustainability research and the qualitative methodologies used in that literature.

This study uses a systematic review to examine prior empirical studies in sustainability reporting between 2000 and 2021.

This review contributes to sustainability research by identifying unexplored and underexplored areas for future studies, such as Indigenous people’s rights, employee health and safety practice, product responsibility, gender and leadership diversity. Institutional and stakeholder theories are widely used in the selected literature, whereas moral legitimacy remains underexplored. The authors suggest that ethnographic and historical research will increase the richness of academic research findings on sustainability reporting.

This review is limited to qualitative studies only because its richness allows researchers to apply various methodological and theoretical approaches to understand engagement in sustainability reporting practice.

This review follows a novel approach of bringing the selected studies’ scopes, theories and methodologies together. This approach permits researchers to formulate a research question coherently using a logical framework for a research problem.

Degree apprenticeships are becoming more established within the higher education sector, however within England there are growing concerns around the completion rates of apprentices. Whilst there are a number of factors which could be impacting this, the support structure surrounding apprentices throughout their programme is a key consideration. This study aims to investigate the support relationship between construction degree apprentices and their work-based mentors through the lived experiences of both the apprentice and the mentor.

This study adopted a qualitative cross-sectional approach, collecting data from three focus groups involving Level 6 apprentices from a higher education institution and their work-based mentors based in England. The data was analysed inductively using NVivo 12 software to identify codes and key themes.

The relationship between the apprentice and their work-based mentor is key to the success of degree apprenticeships. The data analysis recognised three key themes: knowledge of the apprenticeship process, support structure and employer provider relationship.

This study is an original contribution addressing a gap in the literature around higher-level apprentices and their work-based mentors, generating and analysing new primary data, identifying ongoing issues and formulating subsequent recommendations for practice. There are also implications for the current English apprenticeship model and those seeking to adopt or adapt it more widely.