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Work environments are undergoing a transformation where organizations have various spatial solutions at their disposal. However, organizations may have challenges in making the right decisions in a work environment change, when the spatial solution is only one dimension of the work environment. The purpose of this paper is to approach this problem in a holistic way and explain the relationship between work environment changes and the development of organizational performance in the activity-based work (ABW) environment.

The results are based on an extensive quantitative survey involving 471 participants. The survey was theory driven and built on former literature. The participants were randomly collected from the largest cities in Finland, and the data were analyzed with a regression analysis.

The results showed that ABW environments require no more attention to the different work environment dimensions when compared to other office types, with the exception of the social work environment; the changes of which have a relatively strong relationship with the development of organizational well-being. In the ABW environment, a change in the physical work environment has a stronger relationship with the development of organizational productivity and a change in the social work environment has a stronger relationship with the development of organizational well-being than a change in the other work environment dimensions.

This study yields empirical evidence of the relationship of physical, digital and social work environment changes with the development of organizational performance in the ABW environment. The value of this paper is that it offers a simple but holistic research model to distinguish the outcomes between the different work environment dimensions so that relevant expertise is applied to take concrete and targeted action.

Work environments are undergoing a transition and COVID-19 accelerated this change. Prior studies have associated various physical, digital and social work environment elements with occupational well-being. However, holistic approaches to the social work environment to compare the effects of the different elements have received less attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of various social work environment elements with hybrid worker well-being. The findings help organizations design their work environments and cultures for the post-COVID era.

The study builds on a quantitative survey with 1,057 respondents. The respondents were randomly selected, the answers were anonymous and the results were based on regression analysis.

The analysis indicated that working methods and practices, leadership and management practices, organizational communality and social interaction associate with hybrid worker well-being. Organizational values, reward systems and organizational structures yield no association with hybrid worker well-being.

The value of this paper is in that it investigates elements of the social work environment, presents a research model that examines the relationship of social work environment elements with hybrid worker well-being and provides new empirical data on their implications in a comparative manner.

The purpose is to examine the connection between leadership and its proximal and distal outcomes on employee, team and organization-level outcomes. As a more practical endeavor, a leadership measurement is constructed and validated.

The study takes a quantitative approach, statistically analyzing 301 online survey responses to a survey of leader attributes and their organizational impacts.

This study shows that the impact of leadership is associated more with actionable behaviors than personality traits. More specifically, leader success leans on leader dependability, management mode, emotive skills and coaching style, which relate to organizational outcomes. Additionally, preventative conflict management belongs to immediate supervisory foci, whereas already escalated conflicts ought to be outsourced to e.g. HR. Further, the findings verify that management is even more about communication than previously understood. Interestingly, employee satisfaction does not predict willingness to stay and is therefore irrelevant as a predictor of employee retention. This verifies the role of satisfaction as a proximal outcome and a post-goal state. Finally, the role of psychological safety is incoherent and equivocal in relation to organizational outcomes.

As a practical ramification, we devise an instrument, the Leadership Impact Inventory, for (1) diagnosing the quality and effect of organizational leadership in an easy-to-adopt, cost-effective and quick manner and (2) analyzing the influence of various leadership dimensions on satisfaction and goals on individual, team and organizational levels.

This study expands the earlier body of research on leader influence to factors promoting not only proximal outcomes that are typically post-goal states but also distal outcomes. Further, it examines outcomes on all organizational levels, as an extension to prior studies which are typically limited to the entire organization. Finally, the study does not explore leadership as a force or process separate from culture but rather appreciates their synergy through the inclusion of cultural features. This is achieved by monitoring leader success with such subjective aspects describing employee experience and organizational culture that are associated with follower performance.

Because the global economy is increasingly driven by digital businesses, and digitalization affects the businesses of traditional industrial organizations, the need exists for a theory, and empirical understanding, that elucidates the actual value-creating elements. By focusing on traditional industrial organizations that are facing changes and transformation caused by the increase in digitalization, the purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the characteristics of creating sustainable customer value through digitality.

To increase the understanding of creating sustainable customer value through digitality among traditional industrial organizations, quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were utilized in the study.

The results suggest that value creation through service process- and product-related elements constitutes improved company performance, whereas cost-related elements do not. In addition, when it comes to the role of digitality in value creation, results show that to generate benefits, digitality must be implemented in the company’s strategy and in an existing business model.

Despite the increasing amount of literature on value creation in the digitalized world, theory and empirical understanding that reflect the complexity and dynamism of the delivery of value to customers through digitality are still lacking. This study contributes to this research gap, by presenting the characteristics of sustainable customer value that contribute to value creation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the connection between performance management and employee engagement. More specifically, the authors address shortcomings in prior literature where employee performance has been controlled narrowly as cognitive task accomplishment. Accumulating evidence shows, however, that such performance-mediating factors as employee engagement constitute critical antecedents of employee and organizational performance. They can most effectively be influenced by attending sensitively to employees’ individual differences, which are ultimately driven by motifs and dispositions.

The study takes a quantitative approach to exploring predictors of employee engagement. The analysis is based on a sample of 503 online survey respondents from knowledge-intensive organizations.

The results indicate that employee engagement is driven more by employees’ inherent attributes than environmental factors. The analysis refuted the connection between engagement and social orientation, self-regulation and conscientiousness. Instead, the factors associating with employee engagement were analytical thinking, extroversion, systems thinking, assertiveness and leadership.

In this paper, the authors put forth a novel conceptual model of performance management, introducing new and evidence-based foci for effective people management that expand task performance to contextual performance and supplement quantifying approaches to performance control with the qualifying methodology.

Departing from the previously dominating frameworks of performance management that focused on task performance, this work extends to contextual performance and considers also employees’ psychological traits.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a performance measurement system (PMS) can be designed for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in a turbulent environment. The current models and frameworks for the design and implementation of a PMS are for large companies; these traditional design and implementation processes are too multi-stage and long term for SMEs operating in a rapidly changing environment.

The study constructs a conceptual framework based on the performance measurement and management literature and empirical evidence from a longitudinal case study. Interviews, an analysis of strategic documents and documentation of the prevailing measurement system were conducted.

The study results reveal the framework for a flexible PMS design. In the framework, the PMS consists of core permanent measures that control the profitability of the company and supportive measures of the realisation of strategic targets. The supportive measures change and develop along with the strategy.

The study provides new understanding about the performance measurement design process in SMEs operating in a turbulent environment. The existing literature presents performance measurement design and implementation process models for large organisations, but these frameworks are too multi-stage and long term for SMEs.

This paper aims to identify the specific problems faced by the Finnish public sector organizations in designing and implementing performance measurement systems (PMS).

An understanding of the problems is obtained by examining three case organizations in practice. In order to support the analysis of the empirical findings, a review of prior literature on the private and public sector PMSs is carried out.

The design and implementation processes in the Finnish public sector organizations differ significantly from the way they are realized in industrial private sector companies. The four underlying reasons for problems in public sector organizations are the following: there are many stakeholders with conflicting needs; the end products and goals are undefined; there is a lack of property ownership and lacking management skills.

By utilizing the results of the study, PMS design and implementation in the public sector can be carried out by taking into account and avoiding the evident pitfalls introduced in the study.

A large portion of the prior research on public sector PMSs consists of surveys and conceptual studies. This paper describes three case studies and reveals new insights into the specific challenges faced by public sector organizations, especially in designing and implementing PMSs.

This paper aims to focus on innovation development in enterprises with fewer than 50 employees. It explores differences in innovation capacity and in the diversity of developed innovations across the four enterprise size categories within the small manufacturing and service enterprises.

The empirical evidence is based on quantitative data gathered through an e‐mail questionnaire, which yielded 708 responses from the representatives of Finnish small enterprises. The analysis is based on non‐parametric tests.

The findings display a broad diversity of innovation patterns among small enterprises. The evidence identifies differences and similarities in innovation capacity and innovation development across the different size categories within the manufacturing and service sectors. Finally, a summary of the characteristics of small enterprises as innovators across size categories is provided.

This paper studies innovation patterns based on innovation capacity and developed innovations. There is a need to study how innovation capacity has been transformed into innovations; thus, the innovation process should be included in the examination.

At a public policy level, the results of this study give ideas for encouraging innovation development in small enterprises. The evidence suggests that there are significant discrepancies between the enterprises as innovators. It should be acknowledged that small enterprises comprise several divergent target groups for policy making.

This study makes a contribution to academic literature by crystallizing the relationship between the size of an enterprise and innovation development. Applying these results will provide more specific questions for studying the nature of innovation development in small enterprises.

The aim of the current article is to clarify how the staff of Estonian university libraries define the concepts of performance and efficiency in the context of libraries, what is the general conception of performance measurement and evaluation, what impact it is believed to have on the personal future career, and how one's own efficiency and performance is evaluated in comparison with one's colleagues.

The data used in this paper are based on reviewing and summarizing of relevant literature to provide an overview of the concepts of performance and efficiency in general and in the context of the library as well as on results of the study, held in 2011/2012 in Estonian university libraries to determine the attitude of the libraries' staff towards work organisation and performance appraisal.

Although a number of Estonian university librarians highly evaluated performance measurement and appraisal as a possible source of information and feedback for improving their work performance and seeking out their further training and education needs, they unfortunately do not see any relation between performance improvement and their salary increase and career. As for the library as a whole, performance appraisal is profitable, although it is assumed that it might raise some problems. Efficiency and performance in the library context are rather associated with service and user satisfaction. Performance measurement and appraisal system in Estonia university libraries is almost non‐existent and definitely needs to be developed.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no research has been previously carried out in the library context to determine library employees' attitudes towards their work organisation and coordination as well as measurement and appraisal of their work performance.