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This study aims to rectify a significant gap in traditional sales control research, which has predominantly focused on identifying factors contributing to positive sales performance, neglecting the essential conditions necessary for achieving these outcomes. This oversight is critical, particularly in inside sales, where dynamics are complex and monitoring stringent. Using necessary condition analysis (NCA), this research aims to delineate the indispensable “must-have” factors – specifically, activity and capability controls – crucial for achieving effective sales control outcomes and enhancing agent satisfaction within an inside sales context.

This study used a two-wave email survey to collect data from 184 business-to-business inside sales agents. NCA was used to identify the indispensable conditions that directly influence sales outcomes and agent satisfaction. This methodological choice allows for a nuanced exploration of how individual and combined sales control elements, such as activity and capability controls, contribute to overall sales effectiveness, addressing the what and the why of necessary conditions in sales control systems.

The findings underscore the critical role of both formal and informal sales controls in shaping effective sales environments. Specifically, activity and capability controls emerged as essential, nonsubstitutable conditions for achieving desired sales outcomes. Furthermore, cultural controls, grounded on autonomous motivation, significantly influence agent behavior and job satisfaction, often outweighing the impact of traditional behavioral and outcome controls. These insights reveal the complex interplay of formal and informal mechanisms in driving sales performance within the high-demand context of inside sales.

For sales managers and organizational leaders, the study’s insights offer actionable strategies to enhance inside sales performance and agent satisfaction. Emphasizing the integration of cultural controls can foster a supportive work environment conducive to high performance. In addition, understanding the non-substitutable nature of certain sales activities and capabilities enables managers to prioritize these elements within their control systems. By applying these findings, sales organizations can refine their control strategies to support their teams better, ensuring that essential conditions for success are met and potentially increasing overall sales effectiveness.

This research introduces NCA to sales control studies, significantly enriching the academic dialogue by shifting focus from sufficient to indispensable conditions for sales success. It uniquely identifies the essential factors that must be present for sales effectiveness and agent satisfaction, offering a pioneering perspective within sales research. The study bridges a critical research gap by comprehensively analyzing both formal and informal controls within the specific context of inside sales. It enhances practical understanding of effectively managing and motivating inside sales teams in various market conditions.

This study aims to examine the effects on student motivation and perception of technological interventions within undergraduate mechanical engineering and product design and manufacture programs at a Sino-foreign international university. The authors use an augmented reality game application within a class on Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA) that was developed using the approaches of microlearning and digital game-based learning (DGBL).

Structured as design-based research, the study reports on developing innovative educational interventions and provides an empirical investigation of their effectiveness. Data were collected using a mixed methods approach, using pre- and post-tests and questionnaires, together with researcher observations and participant interviews.

Through two rounds of playtests, the game positively affected intrinsic motivation and encouraged higher-order cognitive learning, critical thinking, communication and collaboration. Collaborative learning plays a significant role, DGBL is preferred over traditional methods and microlearning reduces information density and cognitive overload.

The study contributes to our understanding of digital game-based interventions on students’ intrinsic motivation and provides insights into effective ways to design instructional materials in similar teaching and learning settings.

This study aims to evaluate the activation of personality traits (PTs) as a means of explaining the emergence of intrapreneurial behaviour (IB) in engineers, particularly in response to goal-setting freedom (GSF) cues. Hence, this study proposes and empirically assesses the theoretical model underpinning trait activation theory (TAT), enriching its application by integrating goal-setting theory.

The proposed theoretical model was evaluated through a cross-sectional survey of 296 engineers in Pakistan’s textile industry. Testing of hypotheses using analysis of the data was done using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The obtained results revealed a positive relationship between the PTs of extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience and emotional stability with IB, while agreeableness was not found to have a significant relationship. The situational cue of GSF activated these traits, validating the theoretical model and demonstrating the contextual influence of autonomy on personality expression.

Granting engineers greater GSF can significantly enhance their IB. Organisations should foster environments that support autonomy to drive innovation, leveraging the intrinsic motivation and creativity of their engineers. This approach can lead to increased innovation, proactive problem-solving and competitive advantage.

This study contributes to the literature by extending TAT within the textile industry, illustrating how GSF acts as a situational moderator. It bridges gaps in understanding sector-specific dynamics and underscores the role of autonomy in activating PTs to foster innovation, proactiveness and risk-taking behaviours in organisational contexts.

This study aims to examine the influence of gameful experience (GAMEX) on customer brand engagement in the context of e-tailing. Drawing on the self-determination and social learning theories, the authors have developed a comprehensive model incorporating cognitive, emotional and behavioral factors leading to brand advocacy and re-visit intention for the retail website.

The data for this study were obtained from 715 customers across various e-tailing websites. This research uses both quantitative method (partial least squares structural equation modeling − PLS-SEM) and qualitative method (fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis − fsQCA) to investigate the relationship between GAMEX and customer brand engagement in the e-tailing context, with a focus on the long-term outcomes of brand advocacy and re-visit intention.

The PLS-SEM results indicate a significant impact of GAMEX on customer brand engagement. In addition, the findings reveal the moderating role of fear of missing out, internet self-efficacy and technoeustress in the association among GAMEX, customer brand engagement, brand advocacy and re-visit intention. The findings from fsQCA support the results obtained from PLS-SEM and reveal four configurations for brand advocacy and five configurations for re-visit intentions.

This research evaluates the impact of GAMEX on customer brand engagement using a mixed-method approach involving qualitative and quantitative procedures. This study offers valuable insights into the design of gamified marketing activities and current practices for fostering greater engagement.

Our study addresses the impact of COVID-19-induced work-family conflict on leaders' well-being and explores the influence of leadership style, coping strategies, and gender disparities in this context, filling a research gap on crisis-related leadership well-being.

We used hierarchical regression analysis and SPSS's PROCESS macro to analyze a dataset of 516 paired responses, including 231 leaders and 285 subordinates, from Mongolian organizations.

Strain-based work-family conflict (WFC) negatively affects leaders' workplace well-being. Servant leadership exacerbates this impact. In contrast, servant leadership positively moderates the relationship between time-based WFC and job-related well-being. Leaders who prioritize work and family responsibilities experience a stronger positive (negative) impact of time-based (strain-based) WFC on their workplace well-being. Furthermore, we observed that strain-based WFC has a more detrimental effect on female leaders' well-being, highlighting gender disparities in leadership roles.

Our study elucidates the intricate relationship between work-family conflict and leaders' well-being, underscoring the need to recognize gender differences and coping strategies. We advocate for organizations to proactively establish support structures tailored to various leadership styles and gender-specific challenges, especially in times of crisis.

This study focuses on leaders' well-being during COVID-19 and how it is influenced by work-family conflict, servant leadership, coping strategy, and gender. The study also differentiates between time-based and strain-based work-family conflict and uses dyadic data from Mongolian organizations. More importantly, we identify that gender disparity plays a crucial role in the pandemic-caused leadership challenges and leaders' coping behaviors.

The purpose of this research is to develop theory, thereby attending to the existing knowledge gap regarding the impact of family firms on entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). Reducing such a gap is both timely and relevant given the ubiquity of family firms across the globe and the lack of theoretical development at the intersection of EE and family firm literatures. By employing social capital theory in a propositional theorizing approach, this article presents unique propositions that enrich current understanding of the EE phenomenon.

Our method adopts a three-step propositional theorizing approach. The first step outlines our conceptualization, drawing on social capital theory and identifying multiple levels of analysis pertaining to EEs and family firms. The second step precisely identifies the constructs used for the theorization process, drawing upon relevant literature. The third step involves proposition building, which produces our findings.

As a result of our propositional theorizing method, we developed 10 theoretical propositions to explain interactions between family members, nonfamily entrepreneurs, family firms and new ventures in the EE, thereby focusing on the social elements of the EE and reducing its conceptual complexity while extending the explanatory power of family social capital in the EE.

Despite being increasingly relevant in research, policy and practice discourse, EEs remain under theorized. By theorizing in this context, we provide explanations of the mechanisms to explain social interactions between family members, nonfamily entrepreneurs, family firms and new ventures and how such interactions are likely to provide better access to the untapped resources in the EE. Furthermore, our theorization also identifies underexplored research areas paving the way for future scholars.

This article is relevant to practitioners and policymakers interested in creating balanced, inclusive and effective EE policies and interventions. Our theorization generates insights that complement a bottom-up approach where the state assumes a facilitating role for actors such as family firms to positively impact their EE. This research is both timely and necessary because, if unaddressed, it will lead to ineffective and potentially exclusionary policies and EE interventions.

We contribute to the literature by synthesizing the two domains and thereby advancing knowledge at the intersection of EE and family firm literatures. We strengthen the link between two burgeoning research areas through a propositional theorizing mode of theory development. Under the assumptions of a grand theory, social capital theory, we highlight the benefits that derive from social interactions in the EE between family firms and other EE actors.

Structural equation modelling (SEM) is a universal statistical tool used in different disciplines to visualise and validate multiple correlations concurrently. However, the potential application of SEM in construction management studies is less defined within the existing literature. Hence, the present paper reviews and organise the scattered knowledge on SEM applications in the construction management research domain along with the gaps and emerging areas.

This study followed a step methodological approach including (1) journal selection, (2) relevant paper selection and (3) qualitative analysis to obtain a comprehensive overview of SEM applications in the construction management area. The present paper reviews the 262 SEM-based articles published in 17 selected peer-reviewed journals from 2014 to 2024, June.

Yearly publication trends have identified the steady growth of SEM-related publications over time, with notable publication growth observed starting in 2020. Safety management and green or sustainable construction are the most popular SEM applications in this field. The study findings further stated that CB-SEM via AMOS and PLS-SEM using Smart-PLS software were the widely applied tools in SEM applications. Furthermore, reviewed articles highlight certain discrepancies between the main SEM approaches in terms of research methods, model creation and assessment. The latter part of the study includes a detailed explanation of the common issues and recommendations for using SEM.

The study gives an insightful guidance framework for future researchers interested in SEM in construction management.

The paper aims to explore and explain sustainable behaviours in an organizational context using self-determination theory, suggesting that individuals are likely to be engaged in green practices when supported by their needs.

The study used three waves of longitudinal design, consisting of 702 executives in leadership roles across public and private companies with an average of 15–20 years of work experience. Professionals working throughout PAN India, the USA, Germany and Australia provided us with the data.

Green transformational leaderships play a pivot in fostering optimism in employees when recrafting their work. Employees being encouraged to evaluate their jobs within the organization’s capacity would bring meaningful change and envision a sustainable future. All the study hypotheses were supported, highlighting the importance of green-focused leadership with individual agencies in line with the organization’s green values.

Using sustainable practices advances organizations in providing green commitment through leadership. Implementing this in the organization can help achieve long-term success by ensuring sustainable practices are embedded in culture rather than a peripheral initiative promoting sustainable decision-making and behaviours.

The study provides insights into the factors influencing decisions to maintain and adopt sustainable practices by providing a deeper understanding of green behaviour change and strategies for promoting pro-environmental strategies in organizations.

This study aims to examine the influence of employee vitality and tenure on the nexus between citizenship fatigue and knowledge-sharing behaviour among academic staff in Ghanaian higher education institutions.

A sample of 876 faculty members from traditional and technical universities was chosen for the study using convenience sampling technique. Data was analysed using PLS-SEM with SmartPLS 4.

Results reveal that citizenship fatigue negatively influences faculty members’ knowledge-sharing behaviour. In addition, employee vitality and tenure mitigate the negative influence of citizenship fatigue on faculty members’ knowledge-sharing behaviour.

The findings suggest that the management of higher education institutions should focus on creating a workplace culture that cultivates workplace vitality and promotes long tenure to reduce the negative influence of citizenship fatigue on the knowledge-sharing behaviour among faculty members.

This study represents one of the earliest attempts to examine a theoretical framework that connects citizenship fatigue, employee vitality, knowledge-sharing behaviour and employee tenure within the context of higher education.

Global warming and climate change are significant barriers to food production due to rising temperatures and extreme weather events. Thus, some households have taken to producing organic food on their rooftop gardens to mitigate the aforementioned challenges, which could improve the green environment and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Given the emergence of this trend, this study aims to predict organic food production intention and behaviour within urban rooftop home gardens using an integrated model of the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory and theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

Study data were collected from 352 households in two major Bangladeshi cities and analysed through SEM-PLS for model assessment and prediction.

Resultantly, biospheric and egoistic values led to an improved ecological worldview (EP). The EP, awareness of consequences (ACs) and social norms (SNs) predicted personal norms (PNs). In addition, PNs and SNs forecasted the intention to produce organic food in urban-area rooftop gardens. Strong intentions could promote and predict the adoption of organic food production in rooftop gardens. Based on the study outcomes, PN partially mediated the relationship between SN and the intention to produce organic food. Furthermore, the value–behaviour nexus performed serial mediation through beliefs, norms and intentions.

In this vein, the VBN framework provided a comprehensive guideline to encourage the intention and behaviour of organic food production in urban-area rooftops. Education and public policies potentially leveraged public beliefs and norms to engage in climate-friendly activities.

Cultivating organic herbs and vegetables on rooftop reduces dependency on industrially produced food and fertilised crops, making it a sustainable food choice and climate-mitigating activity. Thus, this study focuses on rooftop organic food production as a lens to examine pro-environmental intentions and behaviours. In addition, past studies have not emphasised the mediating roles of environmental beliefs, PN and intentions between the value–pro-environmental behaviour nexus. Such paths could be interesting to observe and add value to the VBN model. This study investigated the mediating roles of environmental beliefs, PN and intentions between the value–pro-environmental behaviour nexus and the role of PN between SN and pro-environmental behavioural intention with VBN farmwork.