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A recent cross-cultural study suggests employees may be classified, based on their scores on a measure of work ethic, into three profiles labeled as “live to work,” “work to live,” and “work as a necessary evil.” The present study assesses whether these profiles were stable before and after an extended lockdown that forced employees to work from home for 2 years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess our core research question, we conducted a longitudinal study with employees of a company in the financial sector, collecting data in two waves: February 2020 (n= 692) and June 2022 (n= 598). Tests of profile similarity indicated a robust structural and configural equivalence of the profiles before and after the lockdown. As expected, the prolonged pandemic-based lockdown had a significant effect on the proportion of individuals in each profile. Implications for leading and managing in a post-pandemic workforce are presented and discussed.JEL CLASSIFICATION: M12

Organizational politics are recognized as a ubiquitous and negative threat to knowledge sharing in organizations, yet less research has examined the boundary conditions that affect this relationship, particularly in interdependent manufacturing contexts. This article aims to explore how authentic leadership, intrinsic motivation, and prosocial motivation bound the effects of organizational politics on the knowledge sharing activities of individuals and workgroups in the shop floor of the Brazilian automotive consortium during a political and economic crisis context (2015–2017). This crisis context was marked by presidential impeachment, high inflation, economic instability, and massive plant layoffs. We sampled 144 shop floor workers using a questionnaire-based survey and established scales, and employed multivariate regression analyses to test our hypotheses. Contrary to expectations, we found that organizational politics increase, rather than decrease, knowledge sharing of individuals and groups. Moderation analyses suggest that worker intrinsic motivation and prosocial motivation significantly moderate the positive relationships between organizational politics and knowledge sharing of individuals and groups, while authentic leadership had no significant effect on this relationship.JEL CLASSIFICATION: D2: Production and Organizations

Researchers have acknowledged that women leadership plays an important role in the success of organizations. However, the effects of women leadership on the financial performance of firms are mixed results. This article focuses on women ownership (i.e., critical mass and ownership percentage) as a form of leadership and family ownership as two boundary conditions that help us understand when small and medium enterprises (SMEs) benefit from women leadership. We argue that for women leadership to impact the financial performance of SMEs, women need to have a critical mass to influence outcomes and have power through ownership to influence decisions. We also argue that the effects of these relationships are affected by the context of ownership. These ideas are tested with a sample of 10,696 private SMEs from the country of Colombia. Results indicate that the women leadership enhances SME financial performance through both critical mass and a larger percentage of women ownership. However, family ownership negatively moderates the relationship between percentage of women ownership and SME financial performance. Implications of these results are discussed.JEL CLASSIFICATION: D22; L25

The COVID-19 crisis has created instability in nurses’ workplace well-being (WWB) and work–family relationships. Exploring effective leadership tailored to the needs in a special context is significant to address these issues. Therefore, we examined how the interaction of self-sacrificial leadership (SSL) and self-leadership (SL)—explaining in the integration of conservation of resources and self-determination theories—related to thriving at work (TAW), WWB, and work–family conflict (WFC). A multi-wave questionnaire was distributed to 405 nurses working at a large hospital in China. The results indicate that (1) SSL brought more WWB and less WFC, (2) TAW mediated the correlations between them, and (3) SL stimulated more TAW than did SSL and weakened the influence of SSL on TAW. Alongside improving the understanding of the role of SSL and SL during the COVID-19 pandemic, we facilitate management interventions to practitioners.JEL CLASSIFICATION:L200

This study builds upon existing research on daily adaptive performance by focusing on two main aspects: (1) the fluctuations within individuals concerning uncertainty in relation to daily negative affect and daily adaptive performance and (2) the variations between individuals in the perceived effectiveness of their leaders as a relevant boundary condition of these relationships. Data were gathered during a post-COVID phase from a sample of 176 Portuguese working adults, for 10 days, resulting in a total of 1,760 measurement occasions. The results of the multilevel analysis revealed a positive correlation between fluctuations in daily uncertainty and daily negative affect. Notably, this relationship was influenced by the perceived effectiveness of leaders. Specifically, the presence of an effective leader mitigated the heightened negative affect caused by increased uncertainty. In addition, the findings demonstrated a positive link between daily negative affect and daily adaptive performance. Moreover, a statistically significant indirect effect was observed, indicating that uncertainty led to fluctuations in adaptive performance through its impact on daily negative affect. Essentially, higher levels of uncertainty contributed to increased negative affect among employees, subsequently influencing their daily adaptive performance. It is important to note that this pathway was further influenced by the perceived effectiveness of leaders. In cases where employees perceived their leaders as less effective, the connection between negative affect and adaptive performance was more pronounced. This study underscores the significance of perceived effective leadership, particularly in unique contexts such as the post-COVID era: an effective leader is always good for affective regulation, but a less effective leader is not always bad regarding adaptive performance. This complexity prompts discussions on implications for both theoretical understanding and practical application.JEL CLASSIFICATIONM0

Drawing on institutional and upper echelons theories, this study delves into the underexplored intersection of gender, context, and innovation performance among women entrepreneurs in Ecuador. Based on a sample of 45 women entrepreneurs, the study employs a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and identifies six distinct paths to innovation performance. Contrary to initial expectations, our research findings substantiate that both institutional and social factors play a key role in fostering innovation in women-led firms in Ecuador. This innovation is facilitated by establishing close and frequent interpersonal connections, as well as by the age of the female entrepreneurs. Conversely, certain individual variables traditionally associated with innovation, such as education level or prior experience, manifest only sporadically. Our research enriches the discourse in gender and innovation studies by employing a multilevel approach and provides valuable insights into female entrepreneurial leadership’s contribution to advancing developing economies.JEL CLASSIFICATION:O32; J16