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The purpose of this descriptive research article is to investigate current benchmarking practices (2001 to 2010) so as to determine new approaches which may transcend the traditional benchmarking model developed by Watson.

Previous generations of benchmarking have been developed and utilized in the last century. Watson's generational benchmarking model predicted that global benchmarking would encompass future benchmarking. Watson's Strategic Benchmarking: Reloaded with Six Sigma links Six Sigma strategies with strategic planning and benchmarking.

Most articles and dissertations reviewed indicate usage of existing benchmarking practices. The research also uncovered complementary approaches, including the Boyd Cycle, which underscores flexibility and speed, Six Sigma tools to implement significant business change decisions, the insights of Hoshin Kanri's philosophy of management, which fosters communication such that everyone in an organization is working toward a common goal, and “rapidmarking” of business improvements.

These approaches, while complementary, do not represent a “new generation” of benchmarking.

The value of this article comes from making the connection between the very beginnings of benchmarking techniques and the latest techniques in use today.

Data collected from 319 senior executives and 2477 of their subordinates from a global diversified organization were used to explore the impact of differences in individual personality orientation on the processes by which these individuals enable their workgroups. Personality orientation was defined in terms of self‐ratings on four distinct groupings derived from a k‐means cluster analysis of self‐ratings on the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator and the Kirton Adaptation Inventory. Perceptions of enablement and ratings of executive behavior were based on questionnaires completed by subordinates. Although no differences were found with respect to the overall degree of enablement experienced by subordinates, personality orientation did affect the specific behaviors employed by executives to enable others and the degree of managerial self‐awareness exhibited (operationalized as congruence in self vs. subordinates' ratings). Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

In this chapter I address: (a) current perspectives on the teacher–student relationship; (b) assessment issues; and (c) the implications of early student-teacher relationships for school adjustment. While substantial progress has been made on the conceptualization and measurement of the teacher–child relationship construct, it is important to empirically establish the multidimensionality of the construct across the school years. Research that examines the perspectives of both teachers and children is also critically needed in light of growing evidence that the teacher–child relationship is crucial in the early school years. The evidence on the role of the teacher–student relationship on school adjustment indicates that low relational negativity seems to particularly benefit children who present with troubling behaviors early in school. However, the nature of the association between early school adjustment and the teacher–child relationship is far from conclusive. Attention to constructs that represent warmth, closeness, caring, and nurturance is needed for research to explore what aspects of these constructs might serve as buffers against adversity.

The Stressor-Emotion model of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is based on prevalent approaches to emotions, the stress process in general and job stress in particular. The sense of control is key to the appraised coping capacity. A combination of perceived stressors and insufficient control is likely to trigger negative emotions, which in turn increase the likelihood the employee will engage in CWB, which we view as a special case of behavioral strain. We highlight the centrality of several conceptualizations of control in theories of general stress, work stress, and CWB. A critical concern is the paucity of empirical support for the interactive stressor-control effects posited by models at all three levels of stress theory.

Like all other human behaviors, creativity must be examined by considering both personal and situational influences. “Person-organization fit” (POF) provides a suitable theoretical perspective to investigate the congruence between persons and organizations in the domain of creativity. However, few studies have examined the effects of POF on creative behavior. Although the majority of these studies have identified a positive relationship between POF and creativity, it is suggested that congruent individuals are less likely to be inventive. The current study will examine the positive relationship between POF and employees' self-rated creativity in the Turkish context. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Subjective POF measures and a creativity measure were adapted for this research, and multiple regression was used to calculate whether and how POF relates to creativity.

Two important conclusions were found from the analyses. One of these significant interaction effects was found on employee creativity. And the second is congruence between personal values and current organizational values would effect employee creativity positively. Detailed findings and contributions have been discussed.

Although providing an important contribution to POF and creativity literature, this study had some limitations. In this study, self-rating method has been used to measure employee creativity. However, supervisor rating is the most common way in field studies and gives more objective results than self-rating method.

The findings provide valuable information for human resource practitioner about the importance of situational factors as far as personal characteristics for enhancing creative behavior in organizations.

As far as it is known, there are few studies to examine the relationship between POF and creativity empirically. The majority of these researches examined the complementary fit (demand-abilities, need-supply, value-supply fit). On the other hand, this study specially has focused on supplementary fit (POF), rather than complementary fit and examined its relationship with employee creativity by considering a wide set of values in the Turkish context.

The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to the benchmarking literature by examining the historical emergence and evolution of benchmarking using the management fashion perspective as a theoretical lens.

The research approach followed in this paper can be characterized as explorative and theoretical. Insights from different data sources have been combined to provide a rich description of the emergence and evolution of benchmarking.

This analysis casts new light on several aspects of benchmarking’s emergence and evolution pattern. The characteristics of the benchmarking idea give it potential as a fashionable management tool. The widespread popularity and longevity of benchmarking can to a large extent be explained by the efforts of various actors to turn benchmarking into an institution.

The paper is explorative and is limited by a reliance on secondary sources.

Although some researchers have noted that benchmarking could be viewed as a management fashion, management fashion theory has, only to a very limited extent, been used as a theoretical lens in the context of benchmarking. This research paper demonstrates that management fashion theory can provide valuable insights for research on benchmarking.

The paper seeks to provide a theoretical foundation and empirical evidence on the impact of HRM fit on citizenship and task performance (CTP) of employees.

A range of recently published articles were critically reviewed in order to argue that HRM fit is useful to address issues of substandard CTP. A hybrid type of research design was adopted to collect both quantitative and qualitative data through questionnaires and interviews. Analysis is based on 433 survey responses gathered from employees and managers of seven manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka.

The findings provide evidence not only to confirm the HRM fit hypothesis (which states that the higher the HRM fit, the greater the performance) but also to negate the said hypothesis in relation to some HRM practices. It is also revealed that HRM fit does not matter to the majority of HRM practices examined, and that HRM fit is more important for citizenship performance (CP) than for task performance (TP).

The findings represent the Sri Lankan manufacturing sector sample only. The selection of HRM practices was limited to the HRM typology of Schuler and Jackson. The extent to which person‐organisation fit may change for individuals over the course of their employment was not considered.

The paper addresses the issue of transferability of HRM practices and aids practitioners to assess the impact of person‐organization fit on specific HRM practices. The relationship between the HR planning and control system and CTP sends signals for practitioners to consider the incorporation of HRM fit concept in selection, training and development, and the design of HRM systems.

The paper presents an exploration of the HRM fit concept and CTP and provides empirical evidence in a developing country context. An innovative analytical approach that addresses several person‐organisation fit methodological issues is presented, which could contribute to the current knowledge and future research.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically evaluate an adoption model for technology-based services (TBS) that integrates a customer’s willingness to co-create (WCC) as mediator complementing the well-known individual differences and innovation characteristics in predicting customer adoption of TBS.

The manuscript uses structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from two empirical studies (n=781 and n=181).

The empirical results show that WCC represents a key mediator between established antecedent predictors (innovation characteristics and individual differences) and the likelihood of TBS adoption. Additionally, the analysis reveals that WCC can even better explain and predict adoption intention of TBS than the commonly used individual differences and innovation characteristics. Finally, the results also suggest that a lack of customers’ WCC may help to explain persuasion-decision discrepancies within TBS adoption.

As the data of this manuscript pertains to the mobile apps market, future research might test the modified technology adoption model in other TBS contexts as well. While the studies used cross-sectional data, it would be interesting to assess the differential influence of WCC across the stages in the adoption process using longitudinal data.

The findings on WCC provide managers with a new set of factors (apart from known antecedent predictors like individual differences and innovation characteristics) to optimize TBS adoption.

This manuscript is the first to examine an adoption model for TBS that integrates a customer’s WCC. Furthermore, the findings provide first empirical evidence that WCC can help to explain persuasion-decision discrepancies within TBS adoption.

Despite evidence showing that cognitive biases – the systematic errors made by humans during cognitive processing, are prevalent among decision-makers, there is a lack of theoretical models providing insight into how these limitations of human mind might affect decisions made during performance management. This study aims to fill this gap and contribute to performance management scholarship by proposing a conceptual framework broadening our understanding of the role of cognitive biases in performance improvements practices and by highlighting remedies for cognitive biases.

Using benchmarking as an example, the authors integrate the knowledge from performance management and cognitive psychology literature. Examples of cognitive biases possible during benchmarking are used to illustrate how the limitations of human mind might have a critical role in performance management.

The cognitive biases might diminish the positive effect of performance improvement practice on organizational performance. As there is a prevalence of cognitive biases coupled with the inability of individuals to recognize and face them, the remedy for cognitive biases should be sought not at an individual but rather on an organizational level, in creating organizational cognitive biases policy (CBP).

The presented model provides new insights into the role of cognitive biases in performance management and allows seeing CBP as a safeguard against the effects of cognitive biases on performance. By referring to cognitive biases and CBP, our model also helps to understand why the same performance improvement practices might incite different opinions among decision-makers.