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How to design jobs to support innovation is an issue that has received plenty of consideration over the past years. Building on the job characteristics model, the present study is set up to identify configurations of perceived job characteristics for innovation.

By adopting a fuzzy-set configurational approach (fsQCA), the research question is addressed through a two-wave self-report survey of 199 employees of an Italian manufacturing company.

Results reveal four compatible configurations of job characteristics leading to high levels of innovative work behavior and two for low levels.

The results offer guidance for managers and organizations that aim to strengthen employee-driven innovation by offering different recipes of job design to maximize the chance of boosting innovative behaviors among their workers.

This research is one of the first to empirically test the relation of job characteristics for innovative behavior using a configurational approach. By doing so it contributes to the literature by advancing the notion that innovative endeavors are determined by the holistic effects of different interdependent configurations of job characteristics.

This study aims to explore whether expected image outcomes (risk and gain) represent a mechanism through which perceived organizational climates, in the dimensions of tradition and reflexivity, affect key components of the innovation process (idea generation and idea realization).

Structural equation models have been conducted to empirically analyse 3 waves of longitudinal survey data from an Italian military organization (N = 410).

Results confirmed that image outcome expectations mediated the effects of perceived climate on idea generation, and that a serial mediation of image expectations and idea generation those on idea realization. Additionally, reflexivity was directly associated with idea generation.

The findings offer guidance for organizations that aim to strengthen employee-driven innovation, highlighting the importance of organizational climate and image outcomes expectations.

Advancing from existing organizational behaviour and individual innovation literature, this article contributes to extend knowledge about the role of organizational climate and image outcome expectations in enhancing innovative work behaviours.

This paper aims to examine the emergence of passion-driven entrepreneurship within the context of small and medium-sized towns (SMSTs). SMSTs are seen as peripheral areas lacking the resources to support autonomous economic development and renewal. The paper explores the relationship between entrepreneurship and the context of SMSTs through the concepts of entrepreneurial passion (EP) and domain passion (DP). Industrial marketing and purchasing approach is adopted as a theoretical foundation to conduct the analysis through the actors–activities–resource framework.

This paper adopts a multiple case-study methodology. Two passion-driven entrepreneurial ventures (PDEVs) have been traced from the conception of the initial idea until the new ventures establishment.

EP and DP emerge as key resources in transforming the initial idea into a real entrepreneurial venture in resource-scarce settings as SMSTs. Shared passion fosters the involvement of local actors and the propensity to overcome relevant hurdles in the entrepreneurial process.

This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship through the analysis of the role of PDEVs in SMSTs’ contexts. It highlights the role of “passion for place” as a new dimension of passion in entrepreneurial studies. From a managerial perspective, it emphasizes the role of passion as a key resource for networking and marketing. From a policy perspective, it calls for monitoring and support for training, funding and networking.