This study explains the inconsistent findings of previous research on board management by examining the direct and interaction effects of board independence and the top management team's external ties on firm performance. The results obtained using a multiyear sample of firms indicate that outsider-rich boards improved firm performance when they worked with top managers imported from outside the focal industry. On the other hand, a high proportion of outsiders on the board and top managers imported from the focal industry were not a desirable combination for firm performance. The findings imply that researchers and practitioners should pay more attention to identifying the conditions under which board competence aligns with top management.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between McGregor's Theory X and Y management styles and affective commitment through the mediating mechanism of the leader–member exchange (LMX). Adopting a multilevel perspective to explain the complex relations among variables, data were collected from 56 supervisors and 173 subordinates from yacht building companies in Turkey. The results indicated that the Theory Y management style related positively to affective commitment and LMX. In addition, the results indicated that LMX partially mediated the relationship between the Theory Y management style and affective commitment. However, the Theory X management style had no relationships with either LMX or affective commitment. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

R&D is uncertain work that involves the knowledge, skills, or perspectives of team members. When R&D teams develop new products or technologies, the need for psychological safety within the teams is increasingly emphasized. If R&D team members perceive that team psychological safety exists, they may be willing to offer knowledge or perspectives during the development process because they are not afraid of being rejected or embarrassed for speaking up. However, the application of the theory of team psychological safety to R&D teams is considerably limited. This study explores the antecedents and consequences of team psychological safety in R&D teams. Our research model is assessed using data from a sample of 245 team members from sixty technology R&D teams at a leading R&D institute and is analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) method. The results of this study suggest that: (1) social capital exerts a positive and significant effect on team psychological safety; (2) team psychological safety has a positive and significant impact on team performance; (3) knowledge sharing and team learning positively and significantly mediate the relationship between team psychological safety and team performance; and (4) knowledge sharing exhibits a positive and significant effect on team learning. This study also discusses the implications of team psychological safety for R&D teams.

The aim of this paper is to present and test a model that examines the relationship between organizational learning culture and innovativeness. Organizational learning culture consists of the organizational learning process and of different culture types that can be placed within the competing values framework. It is defined as a set of norms and values within an organization that support systematic, in-depth approaches aimed at achieving higher-level organizational learning. Innovativeness consists of both innovative culture and innovations. Innovations, the process or outcome of innovating, are more likely to occur and be more successful if there is a strong innovative culture, meaning that the behavioral patterns of the employees are directed towards innovating. We used data from 112 Turkish firms employing more than 50 people. The relationship between organizational learning culture and innovativeness is empirically tested via structural equation modeling (SEM). We found support for a very strong positive relationship between organizational learning culture and innovative culture, as well as for the indirect relation between organizational learning culture and innovations via innovative culture.

This study uses structural equation modeling to test a model hypothesizing the impacts of overload and non-participation on job strain, turnover and commitment of urban transit drivers. The study sample comprises 331 responses from transit drivers from bus companies in Australia. The results show that non-participation has a direct and negative impact on organizational commitment while role overload has a direct and positive influence on intent to leave. An unexpected finding is that while overload and non-participation have significant positive impacts on job strain, there is no significant relationship between strain and organizational commitment. The implications are that work-related stressors appear to influence the organizational commitment and intent to leave of transit drivers directly rather than indirectly through job strain. Role overload and non-participation have not often been considered in the context of the commitment and intent to leave in stressful occupations such as urban transit driving.

Customer relations provide a valuable link between customers and the companies who produce the products they buy and the services they use. Every organisational member carries out actions which reflect the existence of counter-knowledge (i.e., obsolete knowledge and inappropriate knowledge structures) which in turn can lead to detrimental effects on customers. A decision to reorientate counter-knowledge takes an extended period of time to produce significant results as this process involves the integration of existing capabilities with newly acquired knowledge. Crucially, however, it also involves the unlearning of capabilities which are no longer relevant. Unlearning is the process by which firms eliminate old logics and behaviours and make room for new ones. With the development of this paper, we intend to address the following question: How can managers help to correct counter-knowledge in order to foster customer relations? These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 164 small and medium enterprises in the Spanish construction industry. Our results show that an unlearning context (i.e., the examination of lens fitting, the framework for changing individual habits and the framework for consolidating emergent understandings) is an important solution for the process of counteracting the negative effects of counter-knowledge (e.g., misunderstandings and misconceptions). The results also shed light on a tangible means for managers to enhance customer relations through unlearning practices.

Existing research suggests that leaders/supervisors are the major persons in work organizations to promote employee perception of job significance, which is an intrinsic motivator for employee productivity. However, the literature remains unclear on the relationship between workplace friendship and perceived job significance. Results from a survey of 290 Taiwanese employees indicated that workplace friendship enhanced perceived job significance, and such enhancement did not vary across organizational levels. Our findings suggest intrinsically motivating employees through workplace friendship, which extends extant literature on work role of leaders/supervisors in employee motivation. Further, although lower organizational levels have a disadvantage of objectively less job significance in work organizations, our findings suggest workplace friendship is an effective factor in promoting employee perception of job significance. Thus, organizations can embed the mechanism of workplace friendship into the factors of job design to promote employees' intrinsic motivation and thus job and organizational productivity.