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This study examines how and when family-friendly policies influence employee subjective career success in terms of work–home enrichment, perceived career success and work–home interference.

Pakistani employees (n = 369) working full-time in multiple organizations participated in this study. Structural equation modeling in Mplus 8.3 was utilized to test the hypotheses.

The results demonstrate that family-friendly policies foster work–home enrichment and perceived career success while reducing work–home interference. Furthermore, the findings suggest that an ethical work climate, in conjuction with family-friendly policies, leads to positive outcomes regarding employees’ subjective career success.

Based on the broaden-and-build theory, the authors provide new theoretical insights into how and when family-friendly policies affect subjective career success in terms of work–home enrichment, perceived career success and work–home interference. They also identify new boundary conditions (i.e. ethical work climate) that moderate the effect of family-friendly policies’ effect on subjective career success.

Brand heritage has gained traction in the B2C literature. However, its effects on the relationship with buyers in a B2B context, as well as the mechanisms for and conditions under which such effects are observed, remain underexplored. This study aims to examine and provide empirical evidence for perceived quality and identification – two critical determinants of close B2B relationships – as mechanisms that explain the effects of suppliers’ brand heritage on buyer loyalty. Further, this research identifies past time orientation and supplier size as boundary variables for the positive effects of suppliers’ brand heritage.

Three empirical studies were conducted to test the conceptual model. In Study 1, 211 professional buyers participated in a cross-sectional study by completing an online questionnaire. The data were analyzed through Partial least squares structural equation modeling. In Studies 2 and 3, 235 and 465 individuals, respectively, with professional experience in negotiation participated in experimental studies, providing support for causality across the hypotheses. Moderated mediation and floodlight analysis were performed.

This research provides consistent evidence for the hypotheses. First, the findings show that suppliers’ heritage positively affects buyer-supplier identification and quality perceptions in B2B markets, these variables mediating the effect of supplier brand heritage on trust. Second, the authors found support for past-time orientation and supplier size as boundary conditions. Specifically, past-oriented buyers tend to be more loyal toward suppliers boasting a heritage, and such heritage prompts stronger buyer-supplier identification for larger (versus smaller) suppliers.

Caution is needed when generalizing the results observed in this research to broader populations. Because the data were collected only in France and the USA and not in a broader set of countries, generalizability to other cultural settings may be limited. In addition, other effects of supplier heritage on buyer perceptions or behavior could be explored in the B2B branding context. For instance, future studies could explore the relationship between B2B brand heritage and legitimacy, a variable of strong interest for company performance.

Supplier – especially those of larger firms – managers should select the facets and episodes from their company’s heritage most likely to elicit identification. In this regard, companies can extol their brands in different ways to enhance buyers’ perception of heritage and, subsequently, identification. Building on the notion that distinctiveness, warmth and memorable experiences are strong drivers of identification, B2B brands would gain in communicating about themselves as having a unique and distinctive heritage through the success or personality of current or past leaders (e.g. CEOs, founders) or the successes of brand products or services over time.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to explore the influence of supplier brand heritage on buyer-supplier relationship and loyalty in the B2B context. Beyond mere quality, this research finds buyer-supplier identification as a mechanism explaining why suppliers’ brand heritage boosts buyers’ loyalty. This research also determines the conditions (i.e. past-time orientation and supplier size) in which the effects of brand heritage are seen in supplier-buyer relationships.

The Penrose effect, or the limitation of the growth rate during expansion due to managerial constraints, has been examined in the context of business diversification, withdrawal and MNE’s foreign direct investment, primarily in the for-profit sector. However, insufficient attention has been paid to its impact on professional service firms, particularly in the context of their expansion through service exports. The main purpose of this study is to examine the Penrose effect in the internationalization of professional service firms through service exports.

This study focuses on large Japanese patent firms as traditional professional service firms and constructs panel data for 48 large patent firms over the observation period from 2002 to 2010 to test our hypotheses.

Our results demonstrate a negative relationship between degree of internationalization and international business growth, thus confirming the Penrose effect. Furthermore, we found that the degree of internationalization has a curvilinear relationship with international business growth and that institutional distance does not have a negatively moderating effect on the relationship between the degree of internationalization and international business growth.

This study made a theoretical contribution to Penrose's growth theory and previous studies on international management and professional service firms and international management by showing that the Penrose effect can be observed in the international expansion of professional service firms through service exports. Moreover, this study identifies the factors that modify the Penrose effect, thereby making a significant theoretical contribution.

This paper aims to propose a methodology to assist manufacturing companies in the implementation of condition-based maintenance (CBM) to their equipment. The developed methodology intends to consider the use of sensors already installed on the equipment and, when required, to support the selection of sensors available on the market. Since CBM using sensors is not always feasible, the information gathered for the feasibility study of CBM implementation is also used to assign other maintenance strategies.

Based on the literature review, requirements and specifications were established for endowing the methodology with relevant and distinctive characteristics. The structure of the methodology and the associated steps were defined based on this information. Then, the methodology was validated and refined using a case study.

In the case study company, following the methodology and the respective steps, appropriate maintenance strategies were assigned to a selected manufacturing machine, considering information related to the failure modes with the most significant impact, and CBM was applied to a selected component for which the benefit outweighs the costs involved, using data acquired by sensors subsequently installed on the analyzed machine.

Due to its comprehensiveness, this methodology can contribute to make CBM implementation accessible to a high number of companies and encourage the application of a wide variety of monitoring techniques.

This new methodology can be easily integrated into a computerized maintenance management system and has the advantage of facilitating the collection, organization and standardization of technical knowledge required to support CBM implementation and define the most appropriate maintenance strategy systematically and automatically. It guides the prioritization of equipment and failure modes, and the decision-making regarding the selection of sensors and the allocation of maintenance strategies with the aim of reducing costs.