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Organisational slack has been widely considered in strategic management, but there is a gap in understanding the process of accumulation and application of slack resources. From a dynamic perspective and over an extended period of time, this paper analyses the management of slack resources and evaluates whether the different behaviours, in relation to the accumulation and consumption of slack resources, have any effect on performance.

The resource-based view and the dynamic extension of this theory, i.e. resource management and resource orchestration, were analysed in order to evaluate how slack resources can be managed and generate value. Assuming a configurational approach, the analysis was structured into two stages to answer the proposed hypothesis. The first stage studied whether there were different patterns of management of slack resources over time using the DistatisR package. The second stage evaluated which behaviours had the greatest impact in terms of profitability by using a dynamic panel data regression.

Three different types of slack resource management were found in companies: efficient, effective and erratic. Different types do not have the same impact on performance.

The dynamic management of slack resources has scarcely been considered, even during periods of crisis and economic expansion. This research advances the understanding of how firms transform slack resources into performance from a dynamic perspective.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate students’ perception of blended learning instructional design in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the Sultanate of Oman. A course in a bachelor degree was offered using blended learning instructional mode, and students’ feedback was obtained on the impact of blended learning. The study was conducted in Ibra College of Technology, one of the seven colleges under the Ministry of Manpower in the Sultanate of Oman. A course in Business Strategy and HR Management was offered during Summer 2016 using a combination of traditional and online instructional design. A structured questionnaire was administered at the end of the semester to solicit feedback from students. The results of the study highlighted a positive attitude among students towards blended learning courses. The research stressed the requirements for proper infrastructure, training and development initiatives for staff and students, shift to a more focused practical assessment methods to measure the graduate attributes. Student engagement, learner autonomy, connection of learning to real life environments and flexibility all appeared to benefit from the blended learning course.

Technology-facilitated abuse, so-called “tech abuse,” through phones, trackers, and other emerging innovations, has a substantial impact on the nature of intimate partner violence (IPV). The current chapter examines the risks and harms posed to IPV victims/survivors from the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) environment. IoT systems are understood as “smart” devices such as conventional household appliances that are connected to the internet. Interdependencies between different products together with the devices' enhanced functionalities offer opportunities for coercion and control. Across the chapter, we use the example of IoT to showcase how and why tech abuse is a socio-technological issue and requires not only human-centered (i.e., societal) but also cybersecurity (i.e., technical) responses. We apply the method of “threat modeling,” which is a process used to investigate potential cybersecurity attacks, to shift the conventional technical focus from the risks to systems toward risks to people. Through the analysis of a smart lock, we highlight insufficiently designed IoT privacy and security features and uncover how seemingly neutral design decisions can constrain, shape, and facilitate coercive and controlling behaviors.

This paper evaluates an alternative queuing concept for marine container terminals that utilize a truck appointment system (TAS). Instead of having all lanes providing service to trucks with appointments, this study considers the case where walk-in lanes are provided to serve those trucks with no appointments or trucks with appointments but arrived late due to traffic congestion.

To enable the analysis of the proposed alternative queuing strategy, the queuing system is shown mathematically to be stationary. Due to the complexity of the model, a discrete event simulation (DES) model is used to obtain the average waiting number of trucks per lane for both types of service lanes: TAS-lanes and walk-in lanes.

The numerical experiment results indicated that the considered queuing strategy is most beneficial when the utilization of the TAS lanes is expected to be much higher than that of the walk-in lanes.

The novelty of this study is that it examines the scenario where trucks with appointments switch to the walk-in lanes upon arrival if the TAS-lane server is occupied and the walk-in lane server is not occupied. This queuing strategy/policy could reduce the average waiting time of trucks at marine container terminals. Approximation equations are provided to assist practitioners calculate the average truck queue length and the average truck queuing time for this type of queuing system.

Given the general consensus that creativity is a crucial driving force for innovation and progress, understanding how to promote it would benefit individuals, companies, society and academia. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the independent and contingent impact of individuals’ personality traits, team-member exchange (TMX) and gender on stimulating creativity.

The study uses a survey-sample of 639 university students (51.96% women) between the ages of 17 and 50. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated reliability and validity of its measures. To test hypotheses, using structural equation modeling, hierarchical regression analyses were performed.

Results show that four of the five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience) and TMX positively influence creativity. There are no significant differences between men’s and women’s creativity. High TMX reinforces the influence of extraversion on creativity, while low TMX harms this relationship. High extravert women are more creative than high extravert men, while low extravert men are more creative than low extravert women. Low emotionally stable women are more creative than low emotionally stable men, while high emotionally stable men are more creative than high emotionally stable women. There are differences in how women and men take advantage of their openness to experience when TMX is considered. That is, while women take advantage of openness to experience for any value of TMX, men only increase their creativity as openness to experience increases for low values of TMX.

Like all studies, ours has some limitations that provide opportunities for future research. First, care should be taken when generalizing these findings to other contexts. We use data from Spanish individuals, specifically university students. While they are suitable for testing our hypotheses, future studies should establish whether the general tendencies that we observe hold true for other kinds of people from Spain and other countries. Even more, this paper’s perspective might be biased by the authors’ country of origin (south Europe) in terms of gender. According to Hofstede (2001) south European and South American countries are more masculine than other cultures (Mensa and Grow, 2022). Therefore, analyzing these questions in different cultures (countries and settings) would facilitate the generalization of the results. Second, the data we use is mainly cross-sectional so strict causality cannot be inferred. The theory we use assumes specific causal directions, but alternative causal relationships cannot be ruled out. Finally, ideally, we should have controlled for additional variables that might influence the relationships in our model.

This paper has practical implications, as it demonstrates that neither gender is more creative than the other. It goes a step further, explaining how men and women can leverage their personality traits to be more creative. Moreover, since TMX could reinforce the impact of personality traits on creativity, this paper could help managers better organize teams and companies that want to be more innovative by taking into account the personality traits of their employees and how to get the best out of women and men.

Traditionally, women have considered creativity to be a man’s thing. The results of this work favor society, demonstrating that women are just as creative as men and that through personality traits and TMX, both men and women can be more creative. These results help to reduce the gender gap and may favor women’s place in today’s society.

This work offers academic and practical implications. The main contributions to the creativity and gender literatures are the following: (1) Women are as creative as men. (2) High extravert and low emotionally stable women are more creative than men. (3) High open to experience women with high TMX are more creative than men at any level of TMX. For practitioners, the understanding of what personality traits have higher impact on creativity depending on the levels of TMX for women and men could help companies and politicians in hiring the most suitable people, especially for those positions where creativity is needed. This would increase the quality of their human capital, allowing them to get the most out of their human resources, from the very beginning of the employment relationship.

The study examines the impact of digital platforms and supply chain capability on operational performance and tests the mediation effect of supply chain capability. Further, the purpose is to examine the moderating effect of digital culture and sharpen our knowledge of how organizational culture as a contextual factor affects the firm's digitalization.

The data were harvested from 194 Finnish manufacturing companies, and structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

The findings show that digital platforms positively and significantly affect supply chain capability. Moreover, supply chain capability mediates the relation between digital platforms and operational performance. Further, this study confirms that digital culture is a contextual factor that explains the differences in the effects of digital platforms on firm performance.

This study is one of the first attempts to examine the effect of digital culture in the context of digital platforms, supply chain capabilities, and operational performance.

This study aims to shed light on how internships' features drive employability outcomes and answers the question of how internships that maximize the employability of interns can be designed. The study assumes that the duration of an internship, degree of formalization and the use of internship-specific motivational practices by companies are likely to influence interns' perceptions of employability.

A study among interns investigated the relationship between different internship features and interns' employability. Data on the duration of the internship, motivational practices specific to internships and the formalization of the internship process were collected from a large sample of 13,565 interns in 27 European countries from 15 to 35 years old.

The findings suggest that internship duration has a curvilinear effect on employability with increasing effects on employability at the beginning of the internship, followed by a decrease over time. In addition, the use of practices specifically designed to motivate interns also favors the interns' employability. Finally, formalization of the internship placement moderates the effect of motivational practices on employability.

By identifying key features of the internship experience – duration, formalization and motivational practices – the authors contribute to the theory related to the development of career resources and employability in young adults and show that these features significantly shape young adults' employability perceptions.

The retail landscape is dramatically changing due to a series of socio-economic and technological challenges, which can be faced through the adoption of smart technologies. Accordingly, a significant number of publications in this field have been produced, albeit with fragmented results. Therefore, this paper aims at both providing a clear and organised overview of the main smart technologies for physical retailing, in terms of application fields and expected impact, while identifying the major shortcomings and future research avenues.

The research conducts a systematic review of the literature concerning the assimilation of smart technologies within physical retail environments, resulting in the analysis of 103 papers published from 2005 to 2023. The review highlights (1) the main smart technologies employed in retail stores, (2) their application area and (3) the beneficiaries of their adoption. Accordingly, these three aspects are initially assessed independently and then examined in combination.

The analysis presents a comprehensive list of 16 key technologies (what) that can support a wide range of processes, spanning from back-end functions to front-end activities, also enabling the connection with online channels (where), catering several and different benefits (why) to both customers and retailers (who). Besides, the research points out many uncovered topics that could be addressed by the academic community.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the review is the first one in the literature offering a thorough and organised overview of the different available technologies for in-store application and their impact on physical retail processes.

This study examines whether certification improves the dimensions of total quality management (TQM) and whether the impact of certification is similar across companies of different sizes and industries. The benefits of certification for companies have been widely discussed in recent years. The general debate has been partly marked by the dispute about whether companies will benefit more from certification or the implementation of TQM. This debate has led to numerous studies on the benefits of certification; however, few studies simultaneously have examined traditional TQM issues and the requirements of the new quality standard, ISO 9001: 2015, as well as the updated European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) criteria.

This study was conducted via a survey of Finnish SMEs and covered both industrial and service companies. The study comprehensively compared industrial companies with service companies and small companies with medium-sized companies.

In industrial and small enterprises, certification clearly has a positive effect on the dimensions of TQM, but a similar effect was not observed in medium-sized enterprises or in the service sector.

This is one of the first studies to examine the effect of certification on TQM in different types of SMEs while simultaneously considering EFQM and ISO 9001:2015 in Finland. The significant originality of this research lies in the formation of a comprehensive research framework for the dimensions of TQM.