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Human resources (HR) are undoubtedly one of the most important factors of any organization. That is why making decisions on the HR policy is becoming a very sensitive issue, both when hiring adequate candidates for the job and during the process work, i.e., during training and development of employees who work in the organization. The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of HR and decisions on the HR policy as the premise for generating the organization’s expected business excellence. The starting assumption of this chapter is that appropriate decisions on the HR policy are predictors of engaging adequate employees and managing their potentials on the right way. The research is directed toward identifying differences in decisions on the personnel policy in organizations from Serbia that have different decision-makers and different management styles, which are directly related to their business success. Apart from the decision-maker, a significant role in profiling an organization’s personnel should also be done by the Human Resource Department, who take part in recruiting, selecting for education, building, and motivating personnel. In order to confirm the starting assumption, the comparative analysis method, the synthesis method, and the multiple comparison and statistical test methods are used.

The aim of the study is to examine the influence of remuneration committee (RC) characteristics, namely separation, size, independence, meetings, and female directors, on firm performance (FP) by using return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and earnings per shares (EPS). The study covers all firms being listed in Bahrain Bourse for two years which are 2020 and 2021. The results of the study show that having more directors in RC would significantly increase firm performance “ROE and EPS.” Further, having more females in RC would significantly increase firm performance “ROA.” In addition, having separate RC would significantly decrease firm performance “ROA and EPS.” Moreover, the independence of directors in RC and its frequent meetings has no significant impact on the firm’s performance. The results show that there is a need to re-evaluate the role of the RC and strengthen its effectiveness, as some of the variables examined by this study have an insignificant impact on a firm’s performance. Further, there is a need to allocate additional efforts and policies in developing corporate governance and RCs as well.

This chapter delves into how smart city innovations positively affect workforce efficiency, residents’ quality of life (QoL), and the delivery of services, particularly within the dynamic context of smart cities: innovation, development, transformation, and prosperity. It discusses the role of technologies like cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, and intelligent transport systems in creating efficient, sustainable urban spaces that benefit the workforce and the broader community. The chapter highlights strategies for improving urban environments, ensuring workforce well-being, and fostering sustainable growth by examining the interplay between these technologies and urban living. The narrative emphasizes the necessity of ongoing innovation, policy support, and workforce adaptation, underscoring the importance of tailoring smart city initiatives to regional needs for maximal impact on employee performance, QoL, and service delivery. Additionally, it introduces a comprehensive framework designed to guide the development of next-generation smart cities. This framework integrates advanced technologies for optimized urban management and service provision, directly linking to enhanced employee performance through improved urban infrastructure and services. The strategic application of this framework aims to elevate economic prosperity and societal well-being, ensuring workforce efficiency is central to the urban development agenda. The enhanced employee performance, catalyzed by smart city innovations, is pivotal in driving economic vibrancy, social inclusivity, and environmental sustainability, shaping the future of urban development. This analysis will offer valuable insights for smart cities research and development in the Gulf Region, suggesting pathways for implementing these concepts to address the region’s urbanization and development challenges.

Supporting employees’ work–life balance (WLB) has been a standard human resource management practice, thus the concern is now shifted toward its outcomes. The present study predicts that while WLB can boost organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), this positive effect may depend on the quality of leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships. The study seeks evidence to clarify how the WLB–OCBs relationship can be moderated by the LMX quality.

A sample of 216 frontline employees in New Zealand was used to test two moderation models using SPSS, AMOS and PROCESS macro.

WLB was found to have substantial effects on OCBs-individual (OCBs-I) and OCBs-organization (OCBs-O) if the quality of LMX was high. Under low LMX quality, however, WLB failed to boost OCBs-I and OCBs-O. Thus, the influence of WLB on OCBs seems to be conditional on the leader–subordinate relationship as a boundary factor.

Supporting low-LMX-quality employees to balance their work–life roles seems insufficient to push OCBs. Managers and organizations need to improve the quality of leader–subordinate relationships to unblock the desired effects of WLB toward OCBs, and, ultimately, organizational effectiveness and performance.

The findings extend the research stream around the boundary impact of LMX relationships on the employees’ WLB – OCBs link in which the OCBs construct was especially examined in terms of OCBs-I and OCBs-O.

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated teleworking, which inadvertently led to an impaired communication between supervisors and employees, resulting in abusive supervision. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and the social identity theory, this study aims to address this negative association by examining the mediating role of state mindfulness and the moderating role of COVID-19 corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the relationship between abusive supervision and counterproductive work behaviors.

This research employs both qualitative and quantitative research designs. Data collection involved an experimental design with 117 participants (Study 1), a cross-sectional survey with 243 participants (Study 2) and semi-structured interviews with 24 full-time employees (Study 3).

The results reveal that state mindfulness acts as a mediator in the positive relationship between abusive supervision and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). Furthermore, COVID-19 CSR mitigates the relationship between abusive supervision and CWB within the organization, but not with the supervisor. Additionally, COVID-19 CSR moderates the impact of abusive supervision on state mindfulness.

The results emphasize the crucial role of CSR when employees encounter abusive supervision during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations and managers should adopt appropriate strategies to enhance employees' perception of CSR. Prioritizing the cultivation of state mindfulness is also recommended, and organizations can provide short-term mindfulness training to improve employees' state mindfulness.

This research contributes to the understanding of abusive supervision and CWB in the context of forced teleworking.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of knowledge creation (KC) process on customer relations management (CRM) in Palestinian commercial banks, taking into consideration which factors of KC process support the CRM system.

The study uses a quantitative research design wherein questionnaires have been used to collect data from 345 respondents in the Palestinian banking sector. Research hypotheses have been tested using multiple regression analysis.

The findings unveil that socialisation and combination processes have a positive impact on CRM. In contrast, internalisation process negatively affects CRM system, but outsourcing knowledge does not significantly affect CRM.

Past studies empirically validated the success of CRM adaptation in the context of different industries. This study provides a new conceptual model which validates the influence of KC on CRM in the banking sector. It also affirms the integral role of KC in supporting CRM from an emerging country perspective like Palestine.

This study offers new insights into creating of knowledge by employees in supporting CRM. It will encourage future scholars to further explore the key dimensions of the KC process for a more detailed investigation at a workplace. This study suggests that banks’ directors and employees should behave in a social manner to support relationship with customers. This study also suggests facilitating knowledge from different resources in innovative ways, through encouraging creative thinking from experiences, using technology in sharing knowledge, focussing on appropriate training to resolve customers' problems and disseminating new knowledge among employees.

This study expands the body of knowledge on KC process in supporting CRM from an emerging country perspective. This study validates the influence of KC on CRM in the Palestinian banking sector. This sheds light on the integration of these two concepts.

The role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in stimulating economic growth and innovation underscores the crucial need to understand the factors that influence their participation in public sector markets. Drawing on network theory, this research delves into the interaction effect of innovation culture and collaborative relationships on SME participation in public procurement. It assesses how collaborative relationships can serve as a vital mediator, enhancing the impact of innovation culture on SME participation in public procurement.

The research was carried out with 248 SME suppliers in Ilala district, located in the Dar es Salaam region of Tanzania, utilizing a questionnaire survey and a stratified random sampling technique. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and the Hayes PROCESS macro were employed to analyze the data.

The study findings highlight collaborative relationships as a pivotal mediator between innovation culture and SME participation in public procurement. Although no direct link between innovation culture and SME participation in public procurement was established, the results indicate a noteworthy positive influence of innovation culture on collaborative relationships, subsequently affecting SME participation in public procurement.

The research underscores the significance of promoting an innovation-driven culture to support the participation of SMEs within public procurement activities. Additionally, the research offers valuable perspectives on the role of collaborative relationships in stimulating innovation and achieving success in public procurement, guiding SME managers, policymakers and industry stakeholders in cultivating productive relationships and partnerships.

The research enhances both theoretical and practical insights, adding to the literature that addresses the effects of innovation culture and collaborative relationships on SME participation in public procurement. These insights can be valuable to policymakers and SME managers in designing appropriate strategies that foster an innovative culture and explore the benefits of collaborative relationships for effective participation in public procurement.

This study aims to explore the use of knowledge sharing (KS) in delivering open social innovation (OSI) solutions for sustainable development in the context of economically marginalized, rural societies in India.

The study is guided by an exploratory, qualitative approach using an embedded case study design with four social enterprises. The study approaches the use of KS in three stages of OSI: (1) the stages of ideating and prototyping, (2) the initial stages of experimenting and business development and (3) the more current and future-oriented stages of organizations’ strategies for expanding market opportunities for maximizing impact.

The first stage used KS for collaborative efforts among diverse stakeholders to recognize the needs of marginalized people and ideate suitable ecological solutions. The social enterprises acted as orchestrators in this stage. The second stage involved a more dynamic role of KS in the refinement of social enterprises’ market offerings, generating additional innovations and value propositions, which diversified the scope of the social enterprises. This was facilitated by enterprises’ ability to be open systems, which change and evolve through OSI processes and KS. In the third stage, social enterprises’ use of KS was shifted towards future business development by expanding market opportunities with solutions that tackle complex societal and ecological problems, thereby contributing to sustainable development goals.

The present study contributes to studies on OSI, focusing on sustainable development and the role played by social enterprises operating in rural, economically marginalized areas, which have been an understudied phenomenon in the open innovation literature.

Considering the standards developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), this study aims to examine whether the link between material sustainability and financial performance depends on the extent to which the company is oriented toward stakeholders.

To test the predictions, 13,942 firm-year observations from 43 different countries are used, covering the period from 2010 to 2019. Using a hand-mapping approach to match the indicators suggested by the SASB with those of the ASSET4, the authors realize that there are 170 material sustainability indicators among 466 indicators of the ASSET4. The authors use three different methods to verify if the materiality matters, including the alphas obtained from the Fama and French factor models, comparing the average abnormal returns of the portfolios and the bootstrapped Cramer technique.

The findings show that companies investing in material sustainability activities perform better than those investing in immaterial activities. Also, consistent with the theoretical foundations, the authors find that the effect of investing in material sustainability activities is more pronounced in stakeholder-oriented countries than that in shareholder-oriented countries. The results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests.

Owing to COVID-19 in late 2019, data from 2020 to 2022 have not been used to obtain reliable results.

The results obtained in the current research provide valuable guidance for investors to make investments considering the degree of materiality of sustainability activities in different industries. It also helps managers to increase the company’s financial performance, make efficient decisions related to investment in sustainability activities and find investment strategies on the material sustainability issues in their industries.

This study provides a clearer understanding of investment in sustainability activities in different industries by separating material and immaterial sustainability activities in stakeholder and shareholder-oriented countries, and the results obtained can change the perspective of investors and company managers regarding investing in such activities in different countries. Investing in more materiality sustainability activities than the immateriality dimension can be new opportunities for companies to achieve predetermined goals, help retain and attract business partners or be a source of innovation for new product lines or services. Internal morale and employee engagement may increase while increasing productivity and firm performance. This discussion opens the way for future research.

This study provides insight into the effect of investing in material and immaterial sustainability activities in different industries on the company’s performance in shareholder and stakeholder-oriented countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on all facets of education. This led to educational institutions deploying blended and online systems for teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of blended learning in promoting quality education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The qualitative research design was deployed in this study and enabled the researcher to collect data via in-depth interviews. Twenty-five (25) tertiary institutions accredited by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) were randomly selected to participate in this study. The registrars of the institutions were purposively selected and served as the participants for the study. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data collected via the interview. Ethical considerations were adhered to during the study.

The study established that COVID-19 had a devastating effect on tertiary institutions; multiple technological and open-sourced systems were deployed for teaching and learning; blended learning was adopted to augment the traditional face-to-face mode of teaching and learning due to its ease of use, usefulness and accessibility as it was used for quizzes and assignments, accessing lecture notes, among others. Despite these, the deployment of technological and blended systems was met with challenges that somehow affected effective teaching, learning.

The study was limited to 25 tertiary educational institutions in Ghana. It was again limited to the COVID-19 era.

This research aids in understanding the extent of the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning and how blended learning is currently deployed and used in tertiary institutions in Ghana. The findings are relevant to policymakers and management of educational institutions as it informs them of the right method and tools to deploy for teaching and learning during pandemics.

As educational institutions globally are dealing with the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is prudent to look into how tertiary institutions in Ghana deploy blended learning to facilitate teaching and learning. Thus, this paper is original as it fills the relevant literature gap in terms of scope, setting, methodology and findings.