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The article seeks to analyse and explore the contradictions and variations in the concepts “team” and “teamwork” and their use in the NSW, Australia, commercial cleaning industry.

The article utilises an ethnographic study of a large Australian cleaning firm. Data were collected using participant observation, field notes, and interviews with managers.

The study provides evidence for the limited uptake of the idealised form of teamwork in commercial cleaning and suggests that teamworking is another means of coordinating groups of workers. Furthermore, the findings support previous research into the paradox of teams without teamwork.

The research provides an insight into the largely neglected area of the reorganisation of work in commercial cleaning. It also provides a critique of the concept of teams and teamworking.

This editorial seeks to explore changes in both teamwork and developments in teamwork research over the last decade.

The editorial review importantly focuses on the key debates that emerge from the papers covered in this special issue.

A review of the papers in this special issue, as well as historical analysis of teamwork research, indicate that while traditionally, analysis of teamwork was embedded in a manufacturing archetype, much of the contemporary research on teamwork is centred on service sector work where issues of cultural diversity, customer service, and lack of normative integration or task interdependence are increasingly apparent. This editorial suggests that we need to take account of the expansion of the service sector when attempting to conceptualise teamwork and the challenges that collective forms of working in such an environment bring.

This editorial and the special issue more generally provide an important contribution to the development of understanding of how changes in the workplace have had an impact on organisational and academic interest in teamwork.

The article outlines how the regional northern charity Developing Initiatives Supporting Communities (DISC) and twelve voluntary organisations banded together to win two government‐funded Supporting People contracts to provide flexible housing support in North, West and South Lancashire. It explains who DISC and the 12 Lancashire partners are, and who benefits from the independent living services they offer through one easily accessible service known as Compass. The partnership bucked the trend for large organisations to sweep away small local organisations in competitive tendering bids for public sector contracts. The article summarises the lessons learnt.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether sexual minority candidates are viewed as less likely to fit-in in their work environments than heterosexual candidates and, hence, to their being evaluated as less promotable.

Consistent with previous research, the authors used a hiring scenario where evaluators saw one of four different resumes, which varied based on candidate sexual orientation and gender, yet were equal on all factors, including candidate qualifications. The research included a pre-test and manipulation check to ensure the validity of the authors’ research design.

As the authors expected based on stigma theory, gay and lesbian candidates were more likely to be perceived as unable to fit-in than heterosexual candidates. Perceptions of a lack of fitting-in were negatively related to promotability ratings, as were beliefs about the controllability of sexual orientation. However, counter to the authors’ expectations, gay and lesbian candidates were rated more promotable than heterosexual candidates. This presents a more nuanced picture of sexual orientation discrimination than has been offered heretofore.

Previous research has suggested that gay men and lesbians may be trapped in “gay ghettos,” yet there is little if any research on evaluations of sexual minority candidates in employment decisions beyond hiring. The present study extends research on sexual orientation discrimination by investigating whether decision makers are biased against gay and lesbian candidates in promotion decisions, and the factors that are related to promotability ratings.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine how individuals’ hybrid entrepreneurial venturing activities (HEVA) influence key characteristics associated with one’s wage work, namely creativity and job satisfaction.

Through a cross-sectional self-administered survey design, data were gathered from 465 US-based useable responses via Amazon Mechanical Turk and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Findings show individuals reporting higher levels of HEVA – such as creating, founding, starting or running – tend to also exhibit higher levels of creativity and job satisfaction in their workplaces. Findings further reveal that income negatively moderates the relationship between creativity and wage work job satisfaction.

By providing a better understanding of how engaging in HEVA can impact creativity and job satisfaction, this study has important implications for (1) managers seeking to influence key employee outcomes and (2) employees considering such entrepreneurial activities.

This paper adds to the growing scholarly and practitioner interest in hybrid entrepreneurship and its outcomes. Specifically, the paper adds new insights regarding how engaging in HEVA can influence individual skills (i.e. creativity) or organizational goals (i.e. employee job satisfaction). In doing so, the paper also uses insights from the intrinsic/extrinsic motivation literature to suggest how extrinsic motivators (such as income) can interact with intrinsically motivated behaviors (such as creativity) in influencing employee outcomes in wage work. Finally, the paper contributes to the growing interest in applying the empowerment perspective within entrepreneurship research by exploring where and how empowerment may occur.

Management within the creative industries can face many challenges, some of which may be unique to these forms of organisations. The perceptions and actions of the creative employees, consumers and clients, can impact directly on the overall creative output and end product. This paper aims to explore the current literature relating to organisational creativity within the context of creative organisations and their relationships with those whom consume their output.

The paper opens with a discussion of the relatively recent trend towards considering social and contextual factors within creativity research. The next section discusses in detail some of the identified factors in relation to creativity and its consumption. The paper is then concluded with managerial implications and avenues for future research.

The literature review uncovers issues of relevance to owners and managers relating to social control and creative: leadership; motivation; evaluation; feedback; risk; trust; role ambiguity and organisational boundary structures. The review helps to draw attention to some of the possible barriers to achieving full potential between the main stakeholder groups during long‐term creative projects.

The review encapsulates many key issues that need to be taken into account due to the nature of the interface between creative employees and consumers. In so doing it outlines how many of these issues may interrelate, whilst providing a number of managerial implications and useful avenues for future empirical research.

The purpose of this paper is to help answer “To what degree can creative employees be encouraged or motivated to align with a leader's creative vision and what issues may be faced along the way?” The management and communication of vision in relation to the organisational brand within the creative industries can face many unique challenges.

As much of the existing creativity literature at an organisational level is not empirically based, a rigorous, inductive and exploratory case study approach was employed to explore emergent issues relating to the management and communication of the brand within creative small to medium‐sized organisations. Recent research attempts to uncover the link between organisational creativity and the brand are reviewed. The inductive case study approach undertaken is discussed. This incorporates interviews and thematic analysis with the aid of various qualitative data software packages.

The inductively generated themes uncover interrelating issues of relevance to owners and managers relating to: vision and alignment; creative growth; creative evaluation and rewards. The themes also help to draw attention to some of the potential barriers to achieving a desired or effective creative brand.

It can be argued that by taking an exploratory and inductive approach, a wide number of potential effects on creativity and the ensuing brand have been identified. Practitioners within the creative industries can potentially benefit from the observations because they are empirically based rather than being purely theoretical, and focus on both employees and clients. These also appear to go beyond the themes identified within previous studies within these same creative industry sectors. The investigation and reflections may act as a useful starting‐point for further research into the formation and management of a creative brand.

Conjoint analysis is a useful research technique, but has not been used in the leadership area. This study aims to examine its relevance in exploring the trade‐offs followers make about leaders and the value of the leadership attributes examined.

Eight leader attributes were obtained from three focus groups. Past research and a sample of followers indicated their preferences for a number of leader profiles developed from the attributes, as well as assessing their present leaders on the same attributes. This enabled an estimation of the trade‐offs followers made in assessing leaders and the computation of a value “score” for their leader.

The study finds that participants traded off leader attributes sensibly, providing useful information about the attributes' value. Inspiration, trust and communication were the most valued leader attributes. However, most leaders were not viewed positively.

Respondents were participants in development programmes, which may have impacted on the responses, but the results suggested the approach had merit. Research with more general samples of followers and a wider range of leadership topics is needed.

Future development programmes should focus on the “valuable” attributes and organisations also need to consider such attributes when selecting and evaluating leaders.

This paper uses a conjoint approach that has not been used in the leadership area. The results provide additional insights into the way followers view leaders and enabled a leader “score” to be computed, giving insights into the state of leadership within the group from which responses were obtained.

Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid venture creation represents a significant opportunity for Indigenous peoples to build vibrant Indigenous-led economies that support sustainable economic development and well-being. It is a means by which they can assert their rights to design, develop and maintain Indigenous-centric political, economic and social systems and institutions. In order to develop an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the intersection between Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid ventures, this chapter adopts a case study approach to examining Indigenous entrepreneurship and the underlying global trends that have influenced the design, structure and mission of Indigenous hybrid ventures. The cases present how Indigenous entrepreneurial ventures are, first and foremost, hybrid ventures that are responsive to community needs, values, cultures and traditions. They demonstrate that Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid ventures are more successful when the rights of Indigenous peoples are addressed and when these initiatives are led by or engage Indigenous communities. The chapter concludes with a conceptual model that can be applied to generate insights into the complex interrelationships and interdependencies that influence the formation of Indigenous hybrid ventures and value creation strategies according to three dimensions: (i) the overarching dimension of indigeneity and Indigenous rights; (ii) indigenous community orientations and (iii) indigenous hybrid venture creation considerations.

This paper extends Lawler's argument (in “An affect theory of social exchange”) that social exchanges can create a sense of shared responsibility to service settings, and predict that inseparability produces customer perceptions of shared responsibility for service outcomes, resulting in greater emotions. When emotions are positive, there should be increased loyalty to the service provider.

A questionnaire was used to obtain cross‐sectional data pertaining to our model's constructs: inseparability, shared responsibility, emotional response, and service loyalty. A structural equation model evaluated the strength of relationships between these constructs.

Support was found for the predicted relationships between inseparability and shared responsibility, shared responsibility and emotions, and emotions and service loyalty.

Inseparability and shared responsibility have not been measured before, and more research is needed to validate and test the scales we develop. Goods are seldom sold without some service attached, and anything that contributes to perceptions of inseparability and shared responsibility may affect emotional responses and brand loyalty for both services and goods.

Service employee training programs should emphasize the customer's role in the service experience to increase perceptions of shared responsibility and to create a positive emotional experience for customers.

This study contributes to the services marketing literature by viewing inseparability as a potential source of service brand loyalty, developing original scales for measuring inseparability and shared responsibility in a services setting, and applying a previously untested theory to a marketing context.