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The aim of this study is to test for a moderating role of employee participation in volunteering in links between employees' relationships with peers and supervisors, work meaningfulness (WM) and affective commitment (AC).

The study is based on a survey conducted on a sample of 711 employees, both those involved and those non-involved in corporate volunteering (CV).

The results suggest that employee participation in CV strengthens the effects that employees' perceptions of positive relationships with peers and perceived supervisor support (PSS) have on employees' AC. Contrary to expectations, although participation in CV strengthens employees' sense of WM, it does not affect its links with other phenomena analyzed in this study.

CV is a fast-growing practice in corporate social responsibility. The reasons companies implement CV include the benefits they gain from it, such as positive effects on employee attitudes and behaviors. The paper contributes to the understanding of CV effects on employee attitudes and behaviors and builds a better business case for this CSR practice.

We propose an integrative model of how leaders (individual level) effectively relate to their social networks as a whole (network level). Additionally, we focus both on the leader constructs and the followers shared constructs about those networks.

Our conceptual paper uses the integration of literature from two main bodies of knowledge: individual and shared cognitions, fundamentally from psychology, and a structural perspective, mainly from sociology, organisational studies and social network analysis. We take a psycho-structural approach which allows the emergence of new perspectives on the study of leadership and more specifically on the study of relational leadership.

We propose a leader-network exchange (LNX) theory focussed on the behaviours and cognitions of leaders and followers as well as the relations between them.

Our model represents a new perspective on leader–followers relationship by stressing the importance of both followers and leaders' cognitions. We highlight the importance of the relationships between followers on the creation of shared meaning about the leader.

Our model helps leaders and managers make sense of the cognitions and behaviours of their teams. By considering the teams characteristics, i.e. cognitions and network structure, it allows leaders to adopt the most appropriate behaviours for effective leadership. Leadership and management development programmes designed around our model will enhance the use of networking skills.

Contrary to the traditional view of LMX, our approach considers the social context of leaders and followers. It also adds a new layer of knowledge going beyond what members think of their leaders by considering the social networks of leaders and followers.

The purpose of this study is to examine how employee competences can be developed through corporate volunteering (CV). Specifically, this study focuses on diversity of volunteering studies categorized according to the type of beneficiaries and intensity of volunteer contact with them. The study examines how the beneficiary-employee relation influences the development of employee competences in CV projects.

In this qualitative empirical study, interview data collected in Poland about the perceived effects of CV projects on employee competences was used.

The findings suggest that to understand the competences generated in CV, attention needs to be paid to the nature of the volunteering study itself. The study proposes four different logics of competence development in CV, based on the type of the beneficiary and contact with them.

The study builds on managers’ perceptions of competence development. For a holistic understanding, future research should include employees’ perceptions of the process. Also, more research is needed regarding national and organizational settings as factors in competence development through CV.

The study suggests how companies could best engage in volunteering programs and improve existing ones to make them more beneficial for all parties involved.

The findings build the better business case for CV and other corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, i.e. they deliver rationales for business engagement in this regard.

The study contributes to the conceptual understanding of CSR activities by presenting four logics of competence development in CV.

Together with increasing ambiguity and frequency of changes, management becomes full of seemingly conflicting choices, i.e. paradoxes, coming up in the process of decision-making. Successful management of paradoxes, i.e. treating them as “both/and” constructs leads to innovative solutions and better overall organizational performance. In response to a significant research gap regarding antecedents of managing paradoxes, the aim of the paper is to investigate how individual characteristics of strategic decision-makers, specifically their age, tenure and educational background, affect the ability to combine contradictions in their strategic choices.

An empirical study was conducted among 201 managers representing furniture companies in Poland. The CATI technique with an interview questionnaire was adopted in order to identify respondents' opinions on the main features, traits and dimensions of the strategy implemented in their companies. Participants' tenure, age and education were measured by single items.

The study suggests that the ability to manage paradoxes increases with age and tenure in a company and at a current position. At the same time economic/business educational background appears to be unsupportive in this regard.

While the issue of managing paradoxes energizes researchers in various disciplines, we still do not know much about antecedents of the process. The study shed light on effects that managers' demographics have on their ability of managing paradoxes. It contributes to the theory on strategic paradoxes as well as theory on the influence of decision-makers' individual characteristics on their decisions.

There is a research gap regarding frameworks identifying the specific activities and resources used by companies to build and enhance social ties between them and business actors. The purpose of this paper is to identify those activities and resources and propose a model of them for referring to successive stages of business relationship-building.

Qualitative research was conducted in the form of 16 semi-structured in-depth individual interviews in four companies operating in Poland, representing the construction, chemical, alcoholic beverages and automotive industries.

Resources and activities used by companies to build and strengthen interpersonal bonds within business relationships may be categorised according to the dimension of relationship-focused (RF) vs deal-focused (DF) approach. In the companies analysed, the RF approach appeared dominant, while some symptoms of changes towards a DF approach were observed.

The proposed model of resources and activities used in companies at successive stages of business relationship-building extends the understanding of how high-quality relationships are built. The study is exploratory in nature and aims to inspire further in-depth analyses, including cross-cultural comparisons.

The paper helps managers in their day-to-day management of B2B relationships. It provides particular guidelines for business people seeking a potential business partner in Poland and other countries with a communist past.

The paper’s originality results from combining the behavioural approach to B2B relationships with the concept of the RF vs DF approach. The latter concept is based on the experience and observations of its author and, as such, has so far received limited attention in the literature.