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The purpose of this paper is to use a competency‐based model to explore empirically the factors that influence the suitability of different flexible work arrangements (FWAs) in organizations and investigate whether these FWAs match the preferences of unemployed women, whom the authors conceptualize as competitive resources.

Given the novelty of this model in FWA‐research, the authors conducted an in‐depth exploratory case study in a southern European country, Cyprus. Data were collected from both unemployed women and managers in organizations, using group interviews and questionnaires.

Overall, it was found that the FWAs that managers perceive as suitable for their organizations differ from those preferred by unemployed women. Nonetheless, specific organizational competencies affect positively the suitability of women‐friendly FWAs for organizations.

The results raise implications for policy makers and managers who want to enhance female employability and organizational competitiveness, respectively. The paper provides a blueprint for testing the concept of unemployed women viewed as strategic resources and emphasises the need to take measures to improve the perceived suitability of women‐friendly FWAs for organizations. Nonetheless, this study was limited to the Cypriot context, to private sector organizations, and to managerial intentions. Future research may build on this study to address these limitations.

This paper employs a competency‐based model to conceptualize unemployed women, who are neglected in extant research, as organizational resources. Further, it uses two different research samples to address its purposes and argues that FWAs differ in their ability to satisfy organizational and individual needs.

The purpose of the paper is to explore HRM practices and HRM-performance (HRM-P) link in public and private sector organizations across three societal clusters: the Anglo, the Germanic, and the Nordic European.

The article is based on international Cranet HRM survey data collected from large private and public organizations.

According to results, HRM is more advanced in private companies than in public sector organizations, even across three societal clusters. Instead, the analyses related to HRM-P link in private and public organizations refer to interesting similarities but also differences between organizational sectors (public versus private) and societal clusters.

The main limitation is retaining in those performance indicators that are applicable in both private and public organizations: subjective measures of productivity and service quality, only. Performance measures relevant especially in the public sector (e.g. qualitative targets, attaining budget frames) were not available, and the operationalization of HRM as an index covering the main areas of HRM may have reduced differences between public and private organizations. More in-depth research designs are needed in public sector HRM-P research.

The paper contributes to HRM-P research by showing that the level of HRM and the HRM-P relationship varies to some extent according to sector and across Western societal clusters.

The article seeks to demonstrate the benefits of using an integrative approach between human resource management (HRM) and knowledge management (KM), where one reinforces and supports the other in enhancing organisational effectiveness and performance.

This contribution is a collection of research articles that explore how HRM and KM are interrelated and provide empirical support for such connection.

The authors firmly believe that the articles of this issue will not only provide for interesting and worthwhile reading material, but also set the stage for enlarging and enriching the research base on the relationship between HRM and KM.

It is not an exhaustive analysis of the connections between HRM and KM; however, it is a very good first step in that direction. Even though HRM and KM have much in common, there are few studies that make such a connection explicit.

The article provides a very useful source of information and practical advice on how the connection between the two disciplines can enhance organisational functioning.

This special issue fulfils a gap in the existing literature for both academics and practitioners on the merits of using HRM and KM integratively.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a multilevel framework for examining the links between part time work, productivity and institutional context. The authors emphasize the importance of integrating different theoretical perspectives to enrich the understanding of nonstandard work arrangements such as part time and organizational effectiveness such as productivity.

The authors used data from 2,839 businesses in 21 OECD countries. At the firm level, primary data were collected from the 2008 to 2010 survey of the Cranet research network. At the national level, the authors used information from OECD and Botero et al. (2004). The authors analysed the data using hierarchical linear modelling.

Firm use of part time work relates negatively to employment legislation but positively to gender empowerment. The relationship between part time work and productivity at firm level is moderated by employment legislation.

This study provides a basis for research in nonstandard work, firm outcomes and institutional policies to further advance.

Results indicate how managers should consider the relevant institutional context when deciding whether to promote the use of part time work. Results also show that policy-makers should be careful since employment policies may have adverse effects on use of part time in specific contexts.

The authors make theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of nonstandard arrangements by introducing a framework that better captures the complex interrelations between use of part time work, productivity and institutional context. Theoretically, the authors combine the resource based view with institutional theory into a multilevel framework that challenges the conventional model of the flexible firm.

The purpose of this paper is to show why the establishment of “learning organisations” must be a central element of knowledge management – especially in firms operating on markets where product innovation is an important parameter of competition.

The argument straddles and combines insights related to management and organisation theory with an evolutionary economic analysis of the relationship between innovation, learning and knowledge. It is supported by an empirical analysis of survey data on Danish private sector firms. The survey was addressed to all firms in the private urban sector with 25 or more employees, supplemented with a stratified proportional sample of firms with 20‐25 employees.

The analysis shows that firms that introduce several organisational practices, assumed to characterise the learning organisation, are more innovative than the average firm.

The empirical findings are limited to the private sector and do not cover public sector organisations.

The learning organisation characteristics have a positive impact on dynamic performance and there are obviously lessons to be learned from the successful firms operating in turbulent environments that introduce specific organisational characteristics such as job rotation, inter‐divisional teams, delegation of responsibility and reducing the number of levels in the organisational hierarchy.

The paper puts “knowledge management” into the wider concept of “learning economy” and shows how a key element of knowledge management is to enhance the learning capacity of the firm.

The present study identified and addressed some important issues related to human resource management and its role within organizations. These issues involve human resource planning, training, management and career development, and work flexibility. Cyprus was used as a case study and practices among Cypriot organizations were compared with their counterparts in the EU.

E‐business requires small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to seek both external and internal knowledge and to establish external and internal relationships with partners, such as customers and suppliers. This paper aims to describe a model that examines how knowledge management has an impact on the adoption of e‐business, particularly in SMEs.

This paper reviews literature to identify relevant measures through a structural equation model, which is validated through an empirical investigation of 107 SMEs in the Spanish telecommunications sector.

The results show that, in order to implement e‐business systems, companies need to provide and support the acquisition, sharing and application of knowledge as prior steps.

Other factors that have not been included in this study are also likely to affect knowledge acquisition.

Organisations that engage in learning from their customers and suppliers not only test the effectiveness of a new direction of e‐business, but also have the potential to design their e‐business around what customers truly need and want, and as such gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

These results have implications for e‐business managers in formulating policies and targeting appropriate organisational capabilities to ensure the effective adoption of e‐business systems.

The paper aims to examine structural positions of individuals, especially HR actors (line managers and HR specialists) within relational networks for creating and sharing knowledge and to explore implications for designing and implementing HR practices in knowledge‐intensive firms (KIF).

This article used exploratory research design conducting a single case study of a KIF. Social network analysis (SNA) – network centrality measures and visualization tools – was used to examine the structural position of individuals.

Line managers who are HR actors are centrally positioned within examined knowledge networks, while the HR specialist is not, which implies that the decentralized approach to HRM in KIF can be effective. Results also show that the more operational (instrumental) the information or knowledge flow is, the denser the knowledge networks.

This study provides support for devolution of HRM to the line in KIF. It suggests that HRM could affect the process of knowledge creation and sharing by implementing HR practices through centrally positioned line managers. A limitation of the research is a single case study and observed intensity rather than quality of relations.

SNA appears to be an effective tool for mapping relationships in an organization. Centrally positioned HR actors (especially line managers involved in HRM) in knowledge networks are advantageous for HRM effectiveness only if obstacles to their effectiveness are properly managed. HR specialists should relate strongly to these actors to enable successful design and implementation of HR practices.

The paper applies SNA to the HRM field, thus expanding the traditional view of HRM into examining the position of HR actors in relational networks and exploring their role in effectively executing HR practices.

This study purports to examine the effects of a joint reward system (JRS) under a new product development (NPD) setting by identifying four neglected aspects of JRS that contains a procedural view (participation of reward decision and reward contingent on NPD phases) and a monetary view (risk‐free to participate and over‐reward incentive) in a conceptual model, and then to empirically test their effects on knowledge sharing and NPD performance.

Using regression analysis, the proposed model was tested on 233 valid respondents (112 in R&D, 50 in marketing, and 71 in manufacturing), including 92 from electronics firms, 87 from semiconductor firms, 29 from biotechnology firms, and 25 from pharmaceutical firms in Taiwan.

The results indicated that risk‐free to NPD project members is the most salient aspect of JRS on knowledge sharing and NPD performance. Joint determination of reward allocation was found to be a favorable JRS for only marketing and NPD performance. Rewards contingent on NPD phases have shown conflicting results between R&D and marketing. No relationship was found for over‐reward incentive on knowledge sharing and NPD performance. Despite the mixed effects of JRS, knowledge sharing is a strong predictor of NPD performance.

This study extends understanding of the complexities of rewards on knowledge sharing and NPD success by decomposing and testing four unique aspects of JRS, which sheds a new light on NPD researches.

The study aims to examine the human resource management challenges in Southern EU and their effect on organizational performance.

First, key challenges were identified in the existing literature. Then, these challenges were matched with those reported most often in the CRANET questionnaire. These challenges were operationalized into current organizational practices, also reported in the questionnaire. Last, t‐tests were used to explore the relationships between organizational effectiveness and the selected human resource management practices representing the challenges.

Key challenges involved training and development, efficiency and flexibility, and employee relations in all nations explored. Furthermore, practices of the training and development challenge, the employee relations challenge and the efficiency and flexibility challenge are significantly related to organizational productivity in most of Southern EU.

The study used single‐respondent, self‐administered questionnaires. Nevertheless, this study offers fertile ground for further, more in‐depth investigation of challenges and their relation to organizational effectiveness not only in Southern EU but also in other parts of Europe or the world.

Southern EU organizations should employ requisite training, development, flexibility and employee relations practices to achieve excellent organizational performance. Furthermore, governments may create policies to promote the above practices, since, in the long term, achieving organizational excellence will reflect positively on national economies. All these may be facilitated through proactive organizational, national and cross‐national HRD initiatives.

The significance of the present study stems from the fact that none of the existing literature explores the impact of human resource challenges on organizational performance.