Current labour markets are witnessing a proliferation of hybrid or quasi-employment status whereby company directors and limited liability partners are gaining access to employment rights. At the same time, legislation is creating new forms of employee shareholder status, where employees trade employment rights for shares in the company. New corporate structures are being developed to promote one-man companies, small and medium sized enterprises and hybrid company/partnerships. This paper examines some of these developments in the light of the theory of the firm and the jurisprudence of company and employment law and considers the implications for workers, employers and the self-employed.

Research on prosocial behavior has tended to focus on the positive consequences of prosocial behavior. This paper draws on attribution, emotion and justice motive literature to expand the discussion of prosocial behavior in organizations. Specifically, an expanded definition of prosocial behavior is offered and a process-oriented process model of prosocial behavior is introduced. The process model of prosocial behavior is used to discuss the idea that prosocial behavior might have negative consequences. This paper contributes to the literature on prosocial behavior in organizations by (1) accounting for the effects of emotion and the need for justice on decisions to engage in prosocial actions and (2) identifying negative consequences of specific prosocial actions.

The present study investigates the influence of cultural differences on organisational-based self-esteem within New Zealand. A sample of 211 New Zealand European employees and 291 Māori (indigenous people of New Zealand) employees answered a range of questions on organisational-based self-esteem, job, and mood outcomes. Findings suggest that organisational-based self-esteem was directly associated with job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and organisational citizenship behaviours, as well as positive and negative affect. Relationships between variables were tested for each sample separately and for a combined sample. A comparison between the separate and combined samples was also investigated. The findings from this study suggest that organisational-based self-esteem has a greater influence on job outcomes and mood outcomes for Māori when compared with New Zealand Europeans. This could be because employment fulfils a basic need for self-determination. The present study suggests the implementation of tailored management policies to support cultural differences within New Zealand’s vibrant and diverse workforce.

This study offers a broader perspective on the effects of entrepreneurial orientation beyond its well-established implications for firm financial performance. Herein, it is suggested that through higher firm innovativeness, risk taking, and proactiveness entrepreneurial orientation contributes to an increase in the overall value accrued by the firm’s base of stakeholders. In doing so, we offer a broader perspective on the significance of an entrepreneurial orientation strategic posture for increasing stakeholder value beyond simply the financial value captured by firm shareholding stakeholders. Results from a comprehensive sample of 1,015 public US corporations indicate significant relationships between the three core dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation (innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness) and stakeholder value, suggesting that how organizations behave entrepreneurially plays an important role in the firms generation of stakeholder value.

This paper reports on an exploratory investigation into the concept of managerial wisdom. Six senior managers from diverse and large organisations in New Zealand were interviewed about their conception of managerial wisdom. The findings show that senior managers have a practical and positive conception of wisdom consisting of four factors: experience and knowledge, emotional intelligence, mentorship, and deliberation and consultation. The findings show that concepts of ‘spirituality’, ‘religiosity’, and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, ‘ethics’, are all absent from the participants’ descriptions of wise managers. A tentative definition of managerial wisdom is proposed based on these findings as well as an explanation for the absence of ethics. As interest in wisdom and management continues to grow, this exploratory empirical research serves as a base for further research on the understanding and place of wisdom in management.

Research on the team diversity-team creativity relationship has been mixed. We present and empirically examine a model of mediated moderation in which team knowledge sharing intervenes in the impact of the interaction of team work value diversity and positive mood on team creativity. Survey participants included 458 employees working in 47 R&D teams from 17 research institutes in China. The interaction of team work value diversity and team positive mood positively affected team creativity and was mediated by team knowledge sharing. Our findings suggest that knowledge sharing and positive mood are necessary to facilitate the positive link between value diversity and creativity; otherwise, diversity can have negative effects on creativity. Thus, value diversity, mood, and knowledge sharing should be considered in the formation, training, and performance evaluation of teams.

The paper deals with self-employment of one-(wo)man-firms as the smallest units of entrepreneurial companies and focuses at the blurred boundaries between dependent work and self-employment. We call the overlapping identities hybrid entrepreneurs. Based on the collected data it can be shown that the hybrid self-employed differ significantly from non-hybrid ‘regular’ entrepreneurs with respect to selected socio-demographic characteristics, professional, as well as company-specific factors. The paper takes up several of the findings and tries to discuss them in a framework of (micro) organizations, institutions and self-employment. Taking the case of hybrid employment fosters crucial and provoking questions for an appropriate understanding of the division of enterprises and occupations.

Few studies have presented structural turnover models including both job satisfaction and organizational commitment measures. Recent research suggests that perceived supervisor leadership may contribute to employee well-being, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This study proposes a structural turnover intention model including supervisory behavior (person-oriented and task-oriented dimensions), job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Furthermore, the study proposes to test whether this model fits in both small- and medium-sized enterprises and in large enterprises. The sample included 763 employees from different types of organizations who have completed a measure of their perception of their supervisor’s behavior and self-administrated measures of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention. Results show that person-oriented leadership behavior affects turnover intentions through job satisfaction and organizational commitment more than task-oriented leadership behavior. Only organizational commitment had a direct effect in explaining turnover intention. Finally, results indicate that the model is applicable both in small- and medium-sized enterprises and large enterprises.

The integration of work ethic theories with religious beliefs and Hofstede’s national culture typology implies that Islamic work ethics peculiarly support social symbiosis and collectivism. On the contrary, present globalized workplace is pragmatically driven by individualism. To sort out these concerns, this cross-cultural study links Islamic work ethics to individualism at globalized workplace and examines the moderating influence of employee religiosity and nationality. A stratified sample of 307 employees from leading multinational corporations operating in United States, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and Pakistan participated in the study. The study found a strong positive relationship between Islamic work ethics and individualism, and no significant interaction effect of employee nationality and religiosity was observed. Together, the findings suggest that Islamic work ethics advocate a great deal of individualism, and can benefit the multinational corporations in managing their diversified workforce with a view to get maximum advantage of the opportunities offered by globalization.

The environmental pollution caused by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering in October 2013 in Taiwan highlighted the fact that foreign investors tend to support the classical economic ideas of arbitrage and shareholder wealth maximization, which is in conflict with the fact that institutional investors in the current global capital market lean towards the stakeholder theory in ethical investments. Will local investors’ decision-making also be influenced by differences in the perceived ethics of negative environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR)? Compared to the remedial measures implemented by British Petroleum for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, another international corporation, decided to not respond to any news regarding the toxic wastewater incident. In contrast, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering only made clearer promises after extreme public pressure. This study investigated whether remedial measures for negative ECSR are an important factor influencing investors’ decisions. The purpose is to clarify the interactions among perceived moral intensity of negative ECSR, the implementation of remedial measures, and the intention of ethical investment. An experimental design was employed to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that perceived moral intensity has a significant negative impact on the intention of ethical investment. The implementation of remedial measures for negative ECSR affects investors’ intent to invest. Finally, positive ECSR remedial measures also serve as a key moderating variable in the relationship between perceived moral intensity and the intention of ethical investment. This study clarified whether the provision of remedial mechanisms can effectively recover or maintain investor investment intent when companies experience negative ECSR.

This article reflects on some of the major changes in the ways that people are working today, changes often driven by a preference for greater autonomy and choice, but also to work on a sharing, collaborative or networked basis. Many of the growing numbers of independent professionals are attracted by these ways of working. Developments in Information and Communication Technology have been critical, especially in enabling services, including professional services, to be delivered via internet platforms. This has created, in effect, new forms of intermediation and increasingly complex work relationships. These developments have often proved very controversial, as instanced by the disputes surrounding Uber, the international, internet-based taxi provider. Many of these changes also raise issues of accountability and work quality, along with creating new patterns of work relationships. Inevitably, the changes also highlight the role of regulation, which is the main focus of this article The topic is explored against a backdrop of much recent deregulation, challenges to so-called ‘red tape’ and laissez faire policies. The myriad of disputes and litigation involving Uber is examined and reflected upon. There are, of course, many differences between the taxi drivers of Uber and the designers, journalists, engineers and consultants, typical of independent professional working, but there are also some key parallels and experiences that provide a cautionary tale!

Like so many New Zealand stories, it began with a small, but innovative idea. One weekend at the beach, Tommy said to his friend James, ‘Why isn’t there a decent fruit juice ice block for sale?’. A market opportunity was obvious and the boys decided why not? The ‘Nice Blocks’ name and the ‘Tommy and James’ concept was developed. The company was registered in August 2010 and was New Zealand’s first Fairtrade-certified ice block company. Chris Morrison, a New Zealand pioneer of organic and Fairtrade opportunities (e.g., Phoenix Organics, All Good Bananas and Kokako Organic Coffee), joined them as a third partner in 2011, and since then two other partners have also joined the team. Nice Blocks led to Nice Cream, a coconut-based ice cream. Something nice had begun.

Even without a formal business plan, Tommy and James knew that if the company was to grow they needed to think big. After working in rented cafe space, in November 2011 they took the plunge and entered a 3-year sublease on an export-quality production facility, which included a fully equipped kitchen and office spaces, along with separate space for the ice block making and refrigerated storage. In this new space, the partners installed a 40-foot-long ice block machine that led the company to quadruple its output overnight. According to James, they had the second-largest capacity to make ice blocks in New Zealand, after market leader Tip Top. The pair employs five additional staff in the summer, making a total of 10 staff.

In April 2014, Tommy and James were deciding whether to focus on growing their New Zealand market share or to enter the Australian market. According to Tommy, ‘If we are to keep achieving our sales, which we have done all summer, where our growth is about 15% a month we will meet all the models that we put in place to have enough capacity to export to Australia. But we don’t want to move too fast’.