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Growing up in the technology era and heavily invested in longer full-time education, the millennial workforce holds unique characteristics that may influence important job outcomes. Building on the recent research on workforce generations, this paper aims to investigate not only the overall effect of the millennial generation on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) but also the nuanced effect of how workforce generations may interact with two factors in career development (i.e. job crafting and career anchor) in predicting OCB.

An online survey was conducted among full-time workers in the USA, 321 (64 per cent) of whom were millennials. Hierarchical regression was used to test the hypotheses.

Results indicated that millennials appeared to be less interested in OCB compared to earlier generations in the workforce. Nevertheless, some dimensions of OCB increased when millennials conducted resource-related job crafting or when they held a career anchor on service. In addition, both of these career development factors were positively correlated with OCB.

This study offers important implications to researchers as well as practitioners and highlights the significance of career development factors in motivating millennials toward desired job outcomes.

This research is among the initial attempts to assess the impact of job design and career factors on OCB among millennial workers. The findings highlight millennials’ unique perspectives toward OCB and how job crafting and career anchor may play influencing roles on OCB. With millennials becoming the largest generation in the workforce, such knowledge is critical.

This paper aims to highlight myriad accomplishments of C. Bertrand Thompson, who is perhaps most well known as a scientific-management bibliographer and a Taylor disciple, in the belief that his contributions as a pioneer management theorist and consultant in Europe deserve to be more widely known and more deeply appreciated.

Archival, primary and secondary sources were used in the research.

Thompson was among the first to bring management consulting to Europe. He understood the importance of adapting scientific-management principles to meet the diverse needs of each client for whom he consulted. Thompson’s strong belief and value system remained constant throughout his life.

Understanding the needs of customers or clients and adapting systems to meet those needs is essential in achieving success as a consultant.

By drawing on rarely accessed published and unpublished materials, this paper discusses Thompson’s many contributions to management thought and practice, most of which previously have not been highlighted in the referent literature.

Management history contains many unsolved mysteries. In this paper four categories of mysteries are discussed, along with methodologies that have proved useful in solving such mysteries. Examples of the successful use of the outlined methodologies are also presented with illustrations of the results achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of electric lamp renewal systems, an early, successful program to encourage the adoption of new technology, electric lighting.

Much material for the research comes from a variety of archival sources and publications of the early part of the twentieth century.

The free lamp renewal system was brilliant and effective: its high level of customer service and human contact dispelled fear raised by the new energy source, increasing the acceptance and use of electric lighting and thereby electricity. Lighting, in the absence of electrical appliances, was one of the few users of electricity. Thus, the electric companies created a marketing strategy that encouraged adoption of the new technology.

We examined the electric lighting industry at the turn of the twentieth century. Other examples of technology adoption could generalize our findings.

Our research suggests that supportive programs, which are high in customer contact and customized service, can aid in the adoption of new technology and unfamiliar products. By encouraging the use of such free or cheap products, customers are induced to higher usage of related products that increase the revenue stream to the provider.

The lamp renewal system is forgotten today, yet was a crucial factor in winning consumer acceptance of electric lighting and an early example of how companies can encourage adoption of new technology. Although the concept of uniformed men in trucks coming to customer homes once a month to clean and replace light bulbs is quaint – it worked!

The purpose of this paper is to explore work‐family conflict antecedents in four Latin American countries by studying whether marital status and number of children impacted values.

A convenience sample of 3,529 working adults in major cities in Argentina (n=1,198), Brazil (n=186), Colombia (n=989) and Mexico (n=1,156) were surveyed using the Rokeach Value Survey.

There were statistically significant differences in values depending on marital status for the terminal values an exciting life, national security, and pleasure, and also differences between respondents depending on having or not, and number of children for the terminal values pleasure, national security, and for the instrumental values logical, and polite.

This study fills a research gap, as no previously published studies have explored whether marital status or number of children impact values.

This paper aims to acquaint readers with Louis J. DeLamarter and the innovative strategies he used to extend the profitability of the street railway in the USA.

Initially the researchers were interested in street railways (trolleys) and why they had flourished in Grand Rapid, Michigan when they were failing in other parts of the USA. Extensive research in local and national newspapers, business journals and trade publications of the time led to the story of Louis J. DeLamarter. His innovative approach to running the street railway in Grand Rapids MI emerged as the cause of the Grand Rapids Railway Company's unique, though temporary, success.

DeLamarter conceived and implemented a number of innovative marketing practices which were rooted in a differentiation strategy: he focused on the customer whereas other transportation companies did not. His strategy made the company successful after others became bankrupt. His ideas were lauded in the industry, adopted, and are still used in public transportation today. Only external factors such as the depression, the advent of the automobile and burdensome regulations undermined his success.

Despite extensive searches, no original papers by DeLamarter could be located.

Public service companies worldwide can learn about the importance of customer focus from DeLamarter's work. Additionally, managers can learn that even the most successful innovative strategy will only yield a short‐term competitive advantage if the industry faces unfavorable external factors.

The story of Louis J. DeLamarter and his innovations in public transportation are presented for the first time.

The purpose of this paper is to report results from an exploratory, empirical research study that describes personal values and attitudes toward women, two themes that strongly impact employment relations and a wide variety of management issues.

Well‐established measures for the major themes for this paper were used in constructing a questionnaire. Data collection instruments were vetted for content, translated and back‐translated, and applied by native researchers, who also contributed local expertise to the paper.

Female respondents across all four countries were more egalitarian in their attitudes towards women in the workforce than were men. Additionally, Colombian respondents had more egalitarian attitudes towards women scores, followed by Brazilians and Argentineans; Mexicans exhibited the least egalitarian attitudes toward women.

This is the first empirical study that links two well‐validated constructs (personal values and attitudes toward women) in samples from the largest Latin American countries.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the burgeoning research, which provides evidence relating to the influence of religion upon work-related values.

The authors employed a survey methodology to collect data across seven countries and six religions.

The study provides evidence of differences as well as similarities in the way people belonging to different religions rank personal values. Thus, on the one hand, the authors can argue that religion helps shape our behavior and attitudes in the workplace, whilst at the same time, however, accepting the converging influence of globalization and/or the universality of some values that they include in their analysis. This finding leads the authors to focus upon a complex pattern of value variations and similarities across religions.

Overall, the findings provide a glimpse into what the paper interprets as (just one dimension of) plurality within contemporary organizations to support the paradox perspective, popularized by Lewis and Smith and Lewis, who contend that organizations embed multiple tensions and dilemmas in an ongoing cyclical process. Hence the paper argues that the similarities and differences across religious affiliations are not “either/or” choices but dualities that must be dynamically balanced in order to simultaneously meet multiple employee needs. The paper concludes that managers and employees need to articulate and embrace paradoxes related to religion, in order to create an awareness of the influence of religion that leads to being inclusive.

Although the topic of span of control (SOC) has been discussed in detail in management literature and education, less focus has been placed on the decline research since the 1970s and, thus, the future relevance of the concept. By providing a historical overview of the literature on SOC through the work of key management scholars, this paper aims to explain why the literatures’ coverage of the topic has been significantly diminished in recent decades and offers suggestions as to why further research on the topic is needed.

The authors provide a historical literature review and analysis on the decline of SOC as a construct of interest.

The findings of the paper include a brief analysis of SOC. The concept was a very strong concept that declined as management became more scientific, rejecting classical management theory. This rejection occurred because SOC was impacted by multiple factors making it impossible to effectively study, making it imprecise. Likewise, SOC is too applied and lacked theoretical relevance. However, SOC still has value, especially when paired with a theory such as leader-member-exchange (LMX).

The authors argue that SOC is still relevant today and management scholars should align its study with its practice in modern organizational structures. However, its focus needs to change and be added to other theories such as LMX.