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This paper seeks to take a Gestalts perspective to analyze the alignment between the HRM practices and strategic capabilities of SMEs.

Based on Miles and Snow's adaptive cycle, this study examines the coherence of HRM practices with the strategic capabilities of manufacturing SMEs (n=176) in terms of products, markets, and networks. A principal component factor analysis was first made to reduce the HRM practices into a lesser number of factors. A clustering algorithm was then used to determine three groups of SMEs or Gestalts. Finally, an a posteriori examination of the performance of each group was made.

SMEs align their HRM practices with their realized strategy within three configurations, namely local, international, and world‐class SMEs. Regardless of their strategic choices, these SMEs achieve comparable levels of performance.

The Gestalts perspective seems effective in its capacity to describe the role of the HRM function. While the firms surveyed are fairly representative of Canadian manufacturing SMEs, there might yet exist a bias in that these are firms that have chosen to undertake a benchmarking exercise.

The study is one of the first to use Miles and Snow's adaptive cycle as a foundation to specify the type of activities that researchers should consider in assessing the SME's overall degree of strategic alignment. A practical implication for owner‐managers is that their strategic choices in terms of product innovation, market expansion or network extension must be inter‐linked with the development of their HRM practices.

Over the last 10 years, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developed countries have faced increasingly stiff competition in their local markets, which has put the survival of many of them at risk. To reduce their vulnerability, many SMEs have targeted sales to other countries. Recently, however, the pace and intensity of these firms’ export activities appear to have decreased, as their traditional markets (i.e., the United States and Europe) have been experiencing slow growth. This situation has led some SMEs to explore the possibility of exporting to less traditional countries presenting more opportunities. However, a good number of entrepreneurs remain hesitant to go down this road, in particular given the uncertainty that prevails in those regions and the risks they represent in terms of exports. This study, which was conducted with a sample of 582 Canadian manufacturing SMEs, reveals that two characteristics help explain the fact that some SMEs choose to export to higher risk countries, more specifically to Asia. These characteristics are a positive attitude towards risk-taking among managers and the implementation of certain risk management mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the influence of high-performance work systems (HPWS) upon job satisfaction (JS), organizational commitment (OC) and intention to quit (QI).

The data come from a questionnaire administered to 730 employees in different organizations. All questionnaires were administered “live,” in the presence of one or more members of the research team, with the ability to answer any of the respondents’ clarification questions.

The results of this study allow the authors to better understand how the effects of HPWS are exerted on the intention to quit by highlighting the mediating role played by JS and OC. In addition, the results demonstrate a synergistic effect of HPWS, meaning that the combined effects of three sets of HR practices (skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing practices) is greater than the sum of each set taken individually.

The cross-sectional nature of the study prevents the authors from inferring true causality between human resource management (HRM) practices and the attitudes and behaviors of employees. Only a longitudinal study measuring levels of JS, OC and quit intention before and after implementation of such practices would establish such causality.

For leaders and managers of organizations seeking to reduce the rate of employee turnover, the results are eloquent: increased investment in a HPWS can significantly improve JS, helping to increase OC and reduce intention to quit. In the prevailing context of “talent war,” organizations that are the most proactive in the implementation of HRM systems, that is, systems designed to improve the skills of employees, to motivate them to use these skills and to empower them in their decision making at work, will be the employers that are more likely to retain skilled employees.

This paper focusses on the complementary rather than aggregate effects of three sets of HRM practices, thus contributing to the discussion on the notion of complementarity among HRM practices, a notion that has been called into question in certain studies.

This paper aims to determine the impact of online community participation on attitudes and product-related behaviour in the health and fitness sector.

Survey data are collected from 221 users of the social medium Instagram, members of the self-proclaimed health and fitness community (#fitfam). Data are analysed with structural equation modelling.

The study shows that online community identification and engagement significantly increase health environment sensitivity, resulting in heightened engagement in physical fitness and healthy product choices.

Given the difficulty to remain engaged in pro-health behaviour and the growing impact of social media on young adults’ lives, these findings are encouraging. They show that online health and fitness communities provide a supportive environment in which consumers can identify and freely engage and a fertile ground to the development of health sensitivity and product-related behaviour.

The study advances knowledge on the role of social media and online communities in promoting health and fitness product behaviours and attitudes.

This paper aims to examine how situational factors with social support affecting purchase intention in social commerce (SC). In Taiwan’s SC, the relationship between trust belief and purchase intention has always been a key issue.

This study presents a research model that comprises five hypothesis with five constructs, including situational factors, social support, senses, trust belief and purchase intention. The model is tested on data collected from 532 valid samples in Taiwan, using structural equation modeling. The results show that, in order of importance, control senses and raise mediation trust belief reach the better purchase intention.

The findings of the study provide practical insights in understanding how seller should notice consumer’s trust belief, in order to enhance purchase intention for the SC as a whole.

Much existing consumer behavior research is focused on decision making rather than the trust belief themselves. Accordingly, analyzing how senses influence trust belief and purchase intention is an important issue in SC.

The purpose of this paper is to know the effect of mediation of work motivation on the influence of job design and organizational culture on human resource performance.

The design of the study is the detailed planning used as a study guide that leads to the purpose of the study. The unit of analysis of this research is the expert and skilled labor of construction service actors working in the national consulting company PT. Yodya Karya (Persero) at the central level and branches spread over 11 branches in Indonesian territory. Data analysis method used is path analysis and Sobel test to test the indirect effect (mediation effect).

Based on the results of the analysis, several things can be concluded such as: there is a significant direct influence of work design on the performance of human resources and work motivation; there is a significant direct influence of organizational culture on work motivation and human resource performance; and there is a significant direct influence of work motivation on human resource performance. There is an indirect influence of work design on the performance of human resources through work motivation mediation variables. Meanwhile, work motivation is not the influence of organizational culture on human resource performance.

The originality of this research lies in forming the mediator variable that is the work motivation on the causal relationship of two variables and adding new variables of work design on the effect on the human resource performance.