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As the literature reveals contrasting arguments regarding the positive effect of a proactive personality on well-being, this paper aims to investigate the negative consequences of a proactive personality on employee well-being. The paper tests the relationships between a proactive personality, trait competitiveness and well-being. It also examines the mediating effect of job burnout on these relationships.

The data were collected from 213 employees working in the retail sector across Malaysia. AMOS’s structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses of the study.

Overall, the findings showed that a proactive personality negatively affected employee well-being. Job burnout had a partially mediating effect on this relationship. However, the effect of trait competitiveness on employee well-being was insignificant and the mediating effect of job burnout on this relationship also found no support.

The main contributions of this study are twofold. First, this study shows that a proactive personality can have negative repercussions for employee well-being. In contrast to many previous findings on the proactive personality, this study tests and verifies the possibility of an adverse impact of being proactive. Second, this study reveals that job burnout can play a vital role in mediating the adverse effect of a proactive personality on well-being. This suggests that depending on the context, being proactive will not always result in desirable outcomes, especially if job burnout is present. Therefore, organizations need to prepare contingency plans to offset the negative effects of such burnout.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the applicability of employee engagement theories in a South Asian country, Sri Lanka, and determine whether engagement theories are universally applicable beyond the Western countries in which they have been developed and tested.

A heterogeneous sample of 451 private-sector employees in Sri Lanka was used. A mixed-method design was adopted; quantitative findings were compared with previous studies conducted in Western countries, and qualitative findings enabled a more nuanced understanding of employee engagement in the Sri Lankan context.

Despite cultural differences between Sri Lanka and Western countries, the antecedents of engagement did not manifest differently in a consistent way. Combined results suggest that the different manifestations of engagement in Sri Lanka cannot be attributed solely to cultural variance.

The authors used cross-sectional data and tested only four antecedents of engagement.

This study highlights the importance of multinational organisations' awareness of how employee engagement manifests across different contexts and going beyond cultural adaptation when developing context-specific engagement strategies.

This is among the first studies on an Asian country to examine whether cultural differences impact the antecedents of engagement to empirically test Kahn's (1990) theory of engagement and the motivational process of the job demands-resources theory in a single study and to use a heterogeneous sample and mixed-methods design. The authors challenge the centrality of national culture as a determinant of employee engagement and highlight the importance of considering other contextual factors when examining employee engagement in different countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore international buyer–supplier relationships in an emerging developing country context. The study examines a number of factors derived from internationalization process (IP) theory and their impacts in a novel research setting. The relational variables of trust and commitment, and their drivers, are integrated into a model examining importers’ perspectives of their supplier relationships.

This study applied a sequential methodological approach. Initially, a conceptual framework was developed from qualitative research and then quantitatively validated using structural equation modeling (SEM). The data for this study were collected conducting in-depth interviews and survey questionnaires. For empirical validation, the SEM technique was applied to assess the proposed model.

Importing firm managers perceived that the commitment of their suppliers bolstered their trust in the relationship, this contrasts with the conventional contention of a reverse relationship. The findings confirm cultural similarity facilitates communication, leading to increased knowledge and experience of importers, thereby contributing to an enhanced commitment to build trust in the relationship.

The conceptual framework developed in this study provides a direction to manage and enhance understanding of IP and relationship outcome. The findings have strategic implications for practicing managers in developing and supporting their importer–foreign supplier relationships.

This study is unique in assessing as well as validating key constructs of IP theory in an international exchange (importer–supplier) relationship. The study offers completely a new insight in relation to applying IP theory’s relational perspectives.

This paper aims to understand in-depth the concepts applied to the domains of organizational learning (OL) and learning organization, based on the notional perspectives of Professor Deborah Blackman and traces the evolutionary path of her academic journey and contributions in this regard.

A conversation with the distinguished academician, Professor Deborah Blackman.

How OL has pivoted around “shared mental models” that will enable in collective evidence-based decision-making across the organizational hierarchy.

The interactive session with Professor Deborah Blackman captured her ideas and critique pertaining to the theme of OL and the crucial aspect of “shared mental models” which promote “learning” in an organization. Delving deeper, it is seen that this trajectory offers the space and orientation to researchers and professionals to verify.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the potential role that performance management could play in enabling employees’ adaptability to change and, therefore, successful change implementation.

This research adopted a qualitative case study research design, focussed on seven case studies within the Australian Public Service (APS). This study utilized documentary analysis, semi-structured individual and group interviews.

The findings of this research demonstrate that adaptability to change is integral for high performance; however, the constant change faced by many public servants is disruptive. The authors posit that applying a performance framework developed by Blackman et al. (2013a, b) to change implementation will help overcome, or at least mitigate, these issues. The authors argue that applying this framework will: enable adaptability to change; and provide an ongoing management function that enables change to occur.

This research has been limited to seven organizations within the APS, yet it does reveal interesting implications in terms of the apparent role of performance management in both developing change capacity and supporting espoused outcomes.

This research identifies the potential role that performance management can play in supporting effective change implementation through enabling employees to cope better with the change through enabling clarity, purpose and alignment with the organizational direction.

The originality of this paper stems from the synthesis of different strands of literature, specifically high performance, performance management and change management, and empirical research in the public sector to provide a new way of looking at performance management as a change enabler.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationship between governance and knowledge management in an Australian university, paying attention to the ways in which the notions of knowledge, constructions of the role of governing councils and shared understandings about performance in committee roles, might impact on the university's future success.

Earl's taxonomy of knowledge is extended to reflect more recent literature and used as the framework of analysis for a qualitative case study which is based on observations and interview data garnered from key governance committees.

The paper illustrates that effective governance and strategic success are dependent on appropriate knowledge manipulation activities. The authors conclude that in the case example, the types of knowledge targeted are narrow and committee members are focused on processes that do not effectively enable the creation or transfer of knowledge.

This is a single case study and further research would be required in order to confirm the exploratory findings.

An important shift in improving effective knowledge strategies in the organisation will involve the reconceptualisation of the role of knowledge in the university.

This paper makes two major contributions to the literature; the extension of Earl's typology to reflect current knowledge management literature, and the identification of a lack of knowledge management as a major weakness in university governance. The paper begins to unravel the practical issues that constrain strategic decision making.

The potential implications of the European Social Charter for future human resource strategy within the UK hospitality industry is explored. Four key areas which were subject to change during the 1980s and which are likely to be affected by the proposed Community agreements are identified. This provides a backdrop against which possible results are discussed and some broad conceptual changes in strategy are postulated.

The advancement of technology and intelligence in most industries has been linked with the concepts of connectivity and the development of open systems. Currently the protocols found in the hotel and catering industry are not compatible between companies and/or products. First addresses the implications of this and then the advantages to the industry, should open systems be developed and standards set up for future installations. Such systems are becoming standardized in the Far East and concludes that the hotel and catering industry must follow suit if really “Intelligent Rooms” are to be developed.