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The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of connections between sustainability policy goals included in public procurement tenders and offers and their achievement through contract award.

Two hypotheses based on extant literature and the inducement–contribution theory were tested by means of a survey of 281 procurement files from 2007 to 2009 relating to eight product categories and four European Union (EU) member states. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Findings indicate that public procurement was more effective in influencing socially responsible goals than environmental goals. In terms of supplier readiness, vendors achieved greater progress in delivering green than socially responsible operations.

The collection and analysis of data are based on procurement files, which is a new but also a complex procedure. In comparison to survey data, the data from procurement file analysis are less biased.

Public procurement practitioners and sustainability policymakers should consider the use of public procurement as a lever to attain environmental and socially responsible goals.

Evidence has been provided to demonstrate the strategic use of public procurement impacts on environmental and socially responsible goals, thereby benefiting society.

This study contributes in three main ways: first, by adding to existing, limited research on the use of public procurement as a lever of policy goals attainment; second, by examining environmental and socially responsible policy in one study; and third, through providing evidence across EU member states.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit different industries and firms with widely differing degrees of severity. The authors investigate whether ownership structure (family vs non-family) might represent a differentiating factor. The article's purpose is to conduct an initial, descriptive analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on different stock and operating performance measures of listed German companies.

The authors use a sample of 299 listed companies in Germany and gathered operating as well as stock market performance data following the outbreak of COVID-19. For the purpose of this paper, the authors solely focus on static and descriptive observations thus far. The intention of this paper is to describe potential implications for more differentiated, especially multivariate causal research, on family businesses in a post-COVID world.

The results indicate that, over the last five years, stock returns of family businesses have been higher than those of non-family firms. This effect seems to have been more pronounced during the first month following the COVID-19 outbreak. When applying operating measures, the outperformance becomes even more evident. The findings therefore seem to support the hypothesis proffered in the literature that family involvement enhances the potential for resilience in such firms.

Scholars on COVID-19 crisis performance have begun to explore firm-level factors related to financial and organizational factors, industry characteristics and country-level factors. The research extends this line of inquiry by probing the importance of family involvement in ownership.

Based on media choice theories and real option theory, this study aims to explore the role of communication media portfolio in achieving collaborative innovation with suppliers.

Using data of the Study of Competitiveness, Technology and Firm Linkages 2002 collected by the World Bank and the Enterprise Survey Organization of the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, this study employed logit model to test the hypotheses. Moreover, some robustness analyses were conducted.

This study suggests that media multiplicity increases the probability for a firm to achieve collaborative innovation with suppliers on the basis of real option theory. Furthermore, distance from the suppliers and relationship formality make media multiplicity further important in collaborative innovation with suppliers.

Through investing how communication media portfolio affecting collaborative innovation with suppliers and the contingency factors, this study complements existing studies just concentrating on supplier capabilities, relationships with suppliers and characteristics of supplier network. Moreover, this study contributes in the information system field by exploring the role of media portfolio rather than individual media.

Much of management research has been based on what can be called a “deficit‐based” approach. In contrast, there is the recent emergence of a new paradigm shift with the appearance of positive organizational studies. This paper aims to discuss how to integrate knowledge coming from both sides of the fence and exemplify it by testing a model that looks for the intricate and paradoxical relationships between optimism and pessimism.

Using cluster analysis, a theoretical model is developed that includes the existence of a paradoxical type of personality beyond the dichotomous optimistic and pessimistic profiles. The validity of this model is tested in a sample of 343 workers of a company.

The data evidenced a good fit with the four cluster theoretical model and showed that almost half of the sample (46.36 percent) were clustered as “paradoxical optimists”, individuals that simultaneously reported optimistic and pessimistic expectations towards the future.

Management researchers should make an effort to better understand how positive and negative phenomena in organizations relate to one another, namely by studying paradoxical personality individuals. They should go beyond the normal positive/negative dichotomy and search for more integrative forms of functioning. In the specific case of optimism, they should also distinguish paradoxical optimists from both “purely” optimists and pessimists.

The paper illustrates that positive and negative issues in organizations can and should be integrated in more integrative theories. It develops and shows evidence of the construct of “paradoxical optimist”, a personality type that should be better investigated.