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This paper aims to identify the essential skills required by Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals to effectively respond to the various modes of labour organisation implemented due to the mandatory lockdown imposed by the Portuguese government in March 2020 as well as implications for learning and development (L&D) issues.

Data is based on 34 semi-structured interviews with HRD professionals from companies in different activity sectors.

The results reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the development of socio-emotional skills among HRD professionals such as creativity, improvisation, self-exploration, innovation, collaboration, team spirit, resilience, flexibility, problem-solving, adaptability, priority management, emotional intelligence, social influence, social contact, interpersonal relationships, communication and online learning development.

It will be interesting for future research to explore “what” and “how” HRD managers are planning, organising and implementing training and development plans to improve the skills of remote workers, which tend to grow in a post-pandemic COVID-19 phase.

This research emphasises the importance of HRD managers’ role in better coordinating the work of employees who are physically distant from the company. It also highlights the need for different skills required for effective digital HRD, support and monitoring of remote employees. The results provide important inputs to design and implement effective L&D programs for professionals working remotely and to reinforce the HRD role in organisations.

The research is original for twofold reasons: 1) HRD professionals are usually not trained to manage remote workers, which also means that they probably lack the skills to take the most out of remote working models; and 2) HRD professionals and the HRD function need to address the skills required to successfully implement flexible forms of work organisation as well as to implement adequate L&D policies to answer remote work practices.

This paper investigates how organisations responded to the home office imposition during the recent global health crisis and its impacts on people management, detailing the organisational factors crucial for effective home-office implementation.

We used an exploratory design based on a multiple case study with four companies from two contrasting sectors (manufacturing and information technology (IT)). We interviewed a total of 12 managers, including one HR manager (HRms) and two team managers from each company. We also conducted an online questionnaire with open questions, reaching out to 128 home-office workers from the four participating companies. This diverse group consisted of 67 workers from the IT sector and 61 workers from the manufacturing sector. To ensure a comprehensive analysis, we opted for a qualitative approach to examine the data.

Findings enabled detail of the organisational factor of the Belzunegui-Eraso and Erro-Garcés (2020) extended Baruch and Nicholson’s (1997) model into people management issues: organisational culture, team management and human resources management (HRM) practices, as well as the technological support. The results also revealed that people management benefits from the successful home-office implementation, which boosted the digitalisation of human resources (HR) processes.

Considering the lessons learned from the home-office imposition, this research provides original insights into the field by exploring the roles of supervisors and HR managers, in non-health organisations, with different previous remote work experiences, in a recent global disruptive moment, based on a rich qualitative approach. The paper offers concrete guidelines for companies that intend to implement remote work management programs and contributes to deepen the knowledge of home-office experience, offering a model focusing on managers’ roles (HRms and TMs) and HRM practices.

The purpose of this paper is threefold. Firstly, a new concept, teacher buoyancy, is introduced. Based on the significance to study how teachers bounce back from minor and frequent setbacks (vs. major adversities emphasized in resilience) in their daily work and the research on buoyancy by Martin and Marsh, a dual-component framework to conceptualize this new concept is introduced. Secondly, the development of a new instrument, the Teacher Buoyancy Scale (TBS), to measure it is presented. Thirdly, results of a study using the TBS are reported, which provide insights into how teacher buoyancy can be fostered.

The study employed a quantitative design. A total of 258 teachers taking a part-time initial teacher education (ITE) program completed the TBS. Their responses were analyzed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA). In addition to descriptive statistics and reliability coefficients, Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to examine the relationship among the factors.

The data analysis indicated five factors, namely, Coping with difficulties, Bouncing back cognitively and emotionally, Working hard and appraising difficulties positively, Caring for one's well-being and Striving for professional growth. These factors can be readily interpreted by the dual-component framework. Correlations among the factors further revealed that enabling factors can be subdivided into more proximal personal strengths relating to direct coping, and more distal personal assets pertaining to personal well-being. It is the latter that correlates most highly with perceived teacher buoyancy.

The most original contribution of this paper is the proposal of the new concept of teacher buoyancy which is teachers' capacity to deal with the everyday challenges that most teachers face in their teaching. The delineation between buoyancy and resilience sharpens the focus of the problem domain that is most relevant to teachers. The development of the TBS provides a useful and reliable instrument to examine teacher buoyancy in future studies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors facilitating and influencing the adoption of DevOps practices specifically tailored to mobile software development, with a focus on understanding the influence of mobile-specific requirements on DevOps integration.

The study employs a qualitative methodology, including a literature review, exploratory case research and partial quantitative assessments through DORA metrics and survey applications. This approach, guided by the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, prioritizes in-depth insights into the adoption of DevOps practices and explores strategies for integrating DevOps in mobile software development.

The research identifies several key themes specific to Mobile DevOps adoption, including tool integration issues, testing complexities, deployment challenges and security concerns. These findings underscore the necessity for tailored DevOps solutions that can effectively address the unique demands of mobile software development. The study also proposes actionable strategies to overcome these challenges, thereby enhancing the efficiency, quality and security of mobile applications.

The insights gained from this study provide valuable guidance for practitioners in the mobile software development sector. By understanding and addressing the specific challenges of Mobile DevOps, organizations can improve their DevOps practices and achieve better outcomes in terms of project delivery speed, quality and security. For example, implementing robust testing strategies, investing in compatible tools and developing well-defined rollback procedures can significantly enhance Mobile DevOps effectiveness. Furthermore, incorporating continuous security measures and improving cross-functional collaboration can lead to more secure and efficient mobile application deployments.

This study offers valuable starting points for researching Mobile DevOps in real-world settings, based on insights from practical DevOps implementations in a single-case organization. Organizations can use this information to compare their own DevOps approaches with those of the studied organization, and can facilitate self-assessment and improvement.

This study contributes to the limited literature on Mobile DevOps adoption and proposing actionable strategies. By incorporating the TOE framework, it provides a comprehensive guide that enhances understanding and management of DevOps practices throughout the mobile application development lifecycle and offers significant value to practitioners and researchers alike.

The present study aims to identify and investigate the antecedents of enhanced level of cyber-security at the organisational level from both the technical and the human resource perspective using human–organisation–technology (HOT) theory.

The study has been conducted on 151 professionals who have expertise in dealing with cyber-security in organisations in sectors such as retail, education, healthcare, etc. in India. The analysis of the data is carried out using partial least squares based structural equation modelling technique (PLS-SEM).

The results from the study suggest that “legal consequences” and “technical measures” adopted for securing cyber-security in organisations are the most important antecedents for enhanced cyber-security levels in the organisations. The other significant antecedents for enhanced cyber-security in organisations include “role of senior management” and “proactive information security”.

This empirical study has significant implications for organisations as they can take pre-emptive measures by focussing on important antecedents and work towards enhancing the level of cyber-security.

The originality of this research is combining both technical and human resource perspective in identifying the determinants of enhanced level of cyber-security in the organisations.

Today, as the understanding of diversity is further expanded, the meaning of social justice becomes even more complicated, if not confusing. The purpose of this paper is to explore how school principals with social justice commitment understand and perceive social justice in their leadership practices.

A qualitative research design is used for this study. In total, 22 school principals in Ontario were interviewed. The interviews glean data on principals’ work context, their perceptions of social justice, and anecdotes, stories, and examples concerning social justice in their practices.

The research findings draw attention to the central importance of awareness of the social injustices in schools – in structure, policy, and practices – and open space for debate on what can be considered as leadership for social justice. They also provide a useful starting point in exploring how leadership roles and practices can be improved to reverse injustices associated with the diversity of students based on race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, and ability.

What principals perceive may have a significant impact on the actions and practices for social justice. Therefore, it is important to gain insight into principals’ persecutions and perspectives on social justice as they may become norms and criteria that guide their actions.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

The dynamic of the business environment has escalated the competition and uncertainty, which is challenging business survivability, particularly for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). SMEs attract researchers due to their unique characteristics that have limited resources but great flexibility and adaptability. Furthermore, Collaborative Networks (CNs) have been proposed by business scholars as a critical strategy to gain resilience and antifragility. However, the concept of antifragility and its relation with CNs is still vague in the SME sector. Therefore, this study aims to develop a complete understanding regarding: (1) the emerging knowledge that is critical in explaining antifragility in the business sector based on co-citation and thematic analysis; (2) the relation between resilience and antifragility in emerging business research; (3) the relation between CNs and antifragility in emerging business research and (4) a framework of antifragility in the SME context.

Bibliographic Analysis and Systematic Literature Review are performed to reach the research objectives. We use co-citation and thematic analysis to identify the map of emerging knowledge and the related concepts, which are the fundamentals of antifragility. Furthermore, we use a systematic literature review to determine the relation of antifragility, resilience and CNs in the SME context.

Antifragility is a higher level of survivability compared to resilience. Antifragile SMEs could gain an advantage from the uncertain business environment. However, both in resilience and antifragility, SMEs should become active learners. Furthermore, CNs are proposed as the gateway for SMEs to manage their resource limitations. The conceptual framework of Antifragile SMEs is presented as the theoretical contribution of this manuscript.

This article explains the knowledge structure of antifragility in the business sector, particularly among SMEs. Based on bibliometric data, we describe critical characteristics or mental states entrepreneurs should have when facing uncertainty. Furthermore, we propose a conceptual framework for antifragile SMEs where active learning and positive psychology are the pillars, and CNs are critical ingredients of antifragility in SMEs.

Through a review of the literature, this article seeks to outline and understand the evolution and extent of user–participant involvement in the existing library and information science (LIS) research to identify gaps and existing research approaches that might inform further methodological development in participant-oriented and design-based LIS research.

A scoping literature review of LIS research, from the 1960s onward, was conducted, assessing the themes and trends in understanding the user/participant within the LIS field. It traces LIS research from its early focus on information and relevancy to the “user turn”, to the rise of participatory research, especially design-based, as well as the recent inclusion of Indigenous and decolonial methodologies.

The literature review indicates that despite the reported “user turn”, LIS research often does not include the user as an active and equal participant within research projects.

The findings from this review support the development of alternative design research methodologies in LIS that fully include and involve research participants as full partners – from planning through dissemination of results – and suggests avenues for continuing the development of such design-based research. To that end, it lays the foundations for the introduction of a novel methodology, Action Partnership Research Design (APRD).