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Despite the large literature base associated with dyadic collaboration, its knowledge-based antecedents are still not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to better understand those antecedents and to explore why the supply chain (SC) literature has found mixed results regarding knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity in dyadic collaboration research.

The critical incident technique (CIT) was utilized, using qualitative semi-structured interviews to refine a proposed research model. In total, 43 executives were interviewed each providing a description of both a successful and an unsuccessful SC dyadic collaboration. The interviews were analyzed to better understand the knowledge-based antecedents of buyer–supplier collaboration.

This study suggests that dyadic collaboration and subsequent outcomes are improved by successful knowledge transfer. Additionally, knowledge transfer requires both distributive and absorptive capacities in each participant. The research also uncovered new evidence to support the need for a collaborative orientation to support successful knowledge transfer.

The interviews conducted using the CIT provided a wealth of information and executive experiences in SC collaboration. However, the interviews only provide a single perspective of collaborative engagements. Multiple perspectives of each collaboration would add value to this research.

SC collaboration and knowledge transfer have been well studied across disciplines. This research introduces new knowledge-related variables that can contribute to successful collaboration: distributive capability and SC collaborative orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the role of the source and recipient of knowledge in supply chain collaboration by providing evidence that the distributive capabilities of a source, working in conjunction with the absorptive capacity (AC) of a recipient, have direct and significant effects on levels of collaborative engagement between supply chain partners and indirect and significant effects on collaborative operational outcomes.

This study utilises 310 surveys and structural equations modelling to provide empirical evidence to support the significance of the source of knowledge in collaborative activities.

The study provides evidence for source-based knowledge transfer constructs (distributive capabilities) in supply chain collaboration. Further, this research supports these capabilities working in conjunction with recipient AC both as necessary but insufficient requirements for successful knowledge transfer.

Firm interdependence within supply chains continues to grow. In today’s environment of outsourcing and increasing levels of inter-firm activities, this research provides a parsimonious model of collaboration that allows firms to understand knowledge transfer better and how to more aptly manage these types of activities and complex relationships.

Earlier research in this domain has focussed on the abilities of a recipient firm to absorb knowledge in order to understand successful collaborative knowledge transfer. By solely focussing on the recipient firm, the role of the source of knowledge has been largely overlooked in this stream of research.

While innovative work practices (IWPs), such as self-directed teams and performance related pay, have become commonplace in firms around the world, little is known about their nature and effects in emerging market countries. This study uses new data collected from face-to-face interviews with large samples of workers from two manufacturing firms in Lithuania in 2005 mainly to investigate hypotheses concerning the effects of IWPs on firm and worker outcomes. In these cases we find: (i) the range of IWPs is limited though particular IWPs, notably self-directed teams, are strongly evident; (ii) in view of the historical legacy, the incidence of some outcomes, notably monitoring, was surprisingly high; (iii) typically self-directed teams positively impact worker outcomes, notably job satisfaction and employee involvement, though effects on monitoring and effort are less frequent; (iv) typically equity ownership and bonuses do not affect worker outcomes, though positive impacts on effort and peer monitoring sometimes are found; (v) the evidence for complementary effects of teams and performance pay or financial participation is very weak. In the main, these findings do not support the mutual gains theory that IWPs positively impact both firm and worker outcomes.

Most research on the work conditions and family responsibilities associated with work-family conflict and other measures of mental health uses the individual employee as the unit of analysis. We argue that work conditions are both individual psychosocial assessments and objective characteristics of the proximal work environment, necessitating multilevel analyses of both individual- and team-level work conditions on mental health.

This study uses multilevel data on 748 high-tech professionals in 120 teams to investigate relationships between team- and individual-level job conditions, work-family conflict, and four mental health outcomes (job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, perceived stress, and psychological distress).

We find that work-to-family conflict is socially patterned across teams, as are job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Team-level job conditions predict team-level outcomes, while individuals’ perceptions of their job conditions are better predictors of individuals’ work-to-family conflict and mental health. Work-to-family conflict operates as a partial mediator between job demands and mental health outcomes.

Our findings suggest that organizational leaders concerned about presenteeism, sickness absences, and productivity would do well to focus on changing job conditions in ways that reduce job demands and work-to-family conflict in order to promote employees’ mental health.

We show that both work-to-family conflict and job conditions can be fruitfully framed as team characteristics, shared appraisals held in common by team members. This challenges the framing of work-to-family conflict as a “private trouble” and provides support for work-to-family conflict as a structural mismatch grounded in the social and temporal organization of work.

The prayer against the Poultry (Hygiene) Regulations which we briefly mentioned in the editorial of our last issue, was lodged as a result of activity by the Environmental Health Officers' Association. Incidentally it is the first occasion as far as we can recall that a prayer has been lodged against any of the rash of food regulations of recent years, and reflects the strong feelings of the public health inspectorate.

Due to the practical complexity and fragmented nature of the construction industry, digitalisation, like other innovations, is not easily achieved. This study aims to explore organisational influences on digitalisation within construction firms.

The study uses structured open-ended questions as a data collection tool for a qualitative investigation. The qualitative approach enabled participants to express their inputs and maximise the diversity of data, offering new insights and discussions that are distinct from previous works.

Construction professionals from 22 organisations provided their perspectives on digital transformation and their organisations. Under four constructs – structure, culture, leadership and internal processes, findings uncovered 16 determinants critical to digitalisation in construction firms. The study offers a theoretical perspective supported by empirical data to explore the complex dynamics and internal interactions of organisational influence on the uptake of digitalisation in the construction industry.

This paper offers arguments from a theoretical lens by applying the organisational influence model and capturing the variables under each construct in an exploratory manner to highlight the reasoning behind the low digital uptake in construction firms. This research aids academia and practice on the pressure points responsible for enhancing, or undermining, digital uptake in construction firms at an organisational level.

Based more on practical (and contextual), rather than theoretical grounds, over time, job satisfaction came to be the work attitude of choice for many early researchers interested in studying the relationship between employee attitudes and efficiency. Surprisingly, research examining the basis for why this belief is practically nonexistent. This paper addresses this apparent void in the organizational literature.

First, a historical overview of the development of job attitudes is introduced. Second, incorporating important early, but now mostly forgotten, research on employee boredom, fatigue and customer satisfaction, a “missing link” explanation is presented for job satisfaction eventually becoming the “job attitude of choice” in organizational research.

Integrating early research from two long‐forgotten streams of organizational research, this paper provides a practical (and contextual) framework for why job satisfaction became the most widely used measure of happiness in the happy/productive worker thesis.

Future research endeavors on the happy/productive worker thesis might greatly benefit from an awareness of the important, but now mostly forgotten, stream of early research on worker well‐being.

This historical paper provides the reader with a better understanding of the contextual framework for how the fascination with job satisfaction developed over time.

Presents a broad review of theory and research about organizations as social, information processing, interpretive, and inquiring systems which locates the origins of key concepts behind organization learning. Shows how different schools of thought explain what is behind routine versus creative action in organizations, and what might be done to help people collectively unlearn old habits and develop new behaviours. Looks at contemporary models and practices, and considers to what extent holistic thinking and work arrangements will promote organizational learning, and how measures to enhance collective consciousness could enable people to learn how to learn.