Purpose This study aims to investigate how firms’ pursuit of relative innovation ambidexterity, balancing exploratory and exploitative innovation, is associated with consistency in environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures. It highlights the tensions innovation creates in maintaining coherent ESG communication. Design/methodology/approach Using panel data from global firms (excluding financial and real estate sectors) between 2016 and 2022, the authors test the curvilinear relationship between ambidexterity and ESG disclosure dispersion. Moderating effects of board women concentration and industry concentration are examined, alongside mediation by coordination costs. Findings Results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between ambidexterity and ESG disclosure dispersion. Board women concentration and industry concentration both weaken this effect, while coordination costs partially mediate it. Research limitations/implications Findings are limited to large, publicly listed firms and rely on selling, general and administrative intensity as a proxy for coordination costs. Future work could examine smaller firms, longitudinal governance shifts or alternative coordination measures. Practical implications Managers should calibrate ambidexterity to avoid fragmentation in ESG reporting. Strengthening governance diversity and improving coordination processes can reduce disclosure inconsistencies. Social implications Clearer ESG communication fosters stakeholder trust and improves the credibility of sustainability disclosures, supporting broader societal goals of transparency and accountability. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to link innovation ambidexterity with ESG disclosure dispersion. By integrating governance and coordination perspectives, it advances understanding of how firms sustain coherent sustainability communication amid innovation-driven complexity.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to synthesize the rapidly expanding and fragmented literature on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in sustainable development by mapping its intellectual structure and emerging research trajectories. Design/methodology/approach This is secondary research using bibliometric techniques. This study analyses 3,175 journal articles from the Scopus database (1991–2025). To account for the temporal dynamics of the field, co-citation analysis is applied to mature literature (1991–2022) to identify foundational knowledge structures, while co-word analysis is used for recent literature (2023–2025) to capture emerging themes and research directions. Findings The analysis reveals four major thematic clusters: predictive intelligence for sustainability, AI-driven decision systems, smart cities and urban intelligence and governance and ethics of AI. Additionally, emerging themes highlight the growing importance of technological innovation, environmental sustainability, analytical methodologies and development economics. The findings of this study indicate a shift in the literature from a technology-centric perspective toward a socio-technical view-point of AI in sustainability. Practical implications This study reconceptualizes AI as a multi-level, integrative capability embedded within organizational, ecological and institutional systems, thereby advancing existing theory through its linkage with resource-based, dynamic capabilities, institutional and socio-technical systems perspectives. The findings provide actionable insights for managers and policymakers by highlighting the role of AI in enabling data-driven decision-making, sustainable innovation and adaptive governance frameworks aligned with sustainable development goals. Originality/value By integrating co-citation and co-word analyses across a large data set, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of both the intellectual foundations and evolving research directions in AI-driven sustainability.
Purpose Alliances have become prominent in the global economy. Firms enter alliances to enhance their competitive positioning. In practice, many partnerships fail to achieve their potential, either due to conflicting goals, divergent cultures, a lack of trust and/or shifts in the external environment. In this conceptual paper, the authors aim to demonstrate how friction leads to trade-offs and tensions that might impede the alliance’s ability to achieve its full potential. The authors conclude by discussing turnaround strategies to enhance alliance performance. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper draws on the extant alliance literature to develop a framework that will be helpful for alliance managers. The authors illustrate the usefulness of this framework through real-life cases. The examples highlight effective and ineffective ways of managing alliances. Findings The authors posit that there are four kinds of alliance states: destructive chaos, disruptive chaos, transient harmony and blissful harmony. The four states are a composition of friction that rises from various degrees of strategic congruence and relational harmony. Blissful harmony is the normatively ideal state to which firms should aspire. This is a state in which the partners are well aligned to achieve their strategic objectives. A key to any successful alliance is to manage the strategic and relational aspects of the relationship. Originality/value Although the alliance literature offers numerous frameworks, they do not directly address the issue of impaired integration. The authors believe that this is a key, underexplored avenue in alliance research and practice and this paper seeks to address this deficiency.
Purpose This study aims to examine the effectiveness and underlying mechanisms of hunger marketing strategies in the Chinese real estate industry, particularly under conditions of economic downturn. This study identifies the key elements of hunger marketing and examines their collective impact on purchase intention (PI). Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the signalling theory framework and prospect theory, this study used a quantitative research design. Data was collected through an online survey of 421 Chinese consumers, and analysed using SPSS and SmartPLS. Findings The results indicate that limited quantity and price discount significantly enhance consumers’ PI. Furthermore, risk aversion strengthens the link between limited quantity and PI, while emotional benefits significantly moderate the effect of price discount on PI. Practical implications As a result of this research, real estate marketers can design more effective hunger marketing strategies by leveraging the tactics of discount pricing and limited quantity, while considering the effect of risk aversion and emotional benefits. The findings arguably provide practical guidance for optimising marketing campaigns under shifting economic conditions. Social implications This study highlights how marketing strategies such as limited quantity and discounts can influence consumer behaviour even in high-stakes decisions like housing purchases. Real estate marketers and policymakers should consider these factors to avoid over-stimulation of demand and to support sustainable housing development. Originality/value This study addresses a gap in the literature by identifying the components of hunger marketing and its effect on consumer PI in the context of high-involvement real estate purchases. This study contributes to the broad application of signalling theory and prospect theory in consumer behaviour research.
Purpose This review aims to investigate the progression of work-from-home (WFH) practices through innovation, productivity and turnover intention. The study synthesizes a comprehensive strategic framework that encompasses the key mechanism contributing to effective remote work implementation. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a systematic literature review, bibliometric analysis and nomological network analysis to consolidate 52 peer-reviewed publications from 2000 to 2023. Scopus and Web of Science databases were used for data analysis. Findings The analysis shows an escalation in WFH scholarly articles after 2019. This study identified various theories and nine central thematic clusters relating to flexibility, trust and satisfaction, home office, challenges, inequality and economic barriers, crisis-driven emotional responses, leadership, work-life balance, digital innovation and well-being of employees. The nomological mapping indicates that WFH outcomes emerged through the interaction of organizational, technological and individual antecedents; mediated by well-being, digital competence and work–life balance; and moderated by demographic, cultural and job-related conditions. Practical implications For practitioners, the findings underscore the necessity to invest in digital capabilities, cultivating managerial competence and institutionalizing support mechanisms to ensure that remote work and hybrid work models promote workforce stability and sustained performance. Originality/value This review conceptualizes WFH as a sustainably strategic work model that is reshaping innovation, productivity and retention of employees in digitalized workspaces. It unifies fragmented WFH literature into a comprehensive conceptual framework.
Purpose Many organizations adopt an open strategy to broaden participation, yet struggle to convert expanded participation into sustained strategic influence. Recent research has advanced understanding of why open strategy concentrates influence despite formal inclusiveness, but has not yet specified the governance mechanisms through which these dynamics can be actively managed. This paper aims to ask: how do organizational actors govern strategic legitimacy across micro-role transitions in open strategy, and what consequences does this have for whether participation translates into sustained strategic influence? Design/methodology/approach Drawing on legitimacy theory, role exit theory and strategy-as-practice research, the paper develops a process framework that conceptualizes micro-role transitions in open strategy as governed by a recursive strategic legitimacy cycle comprising three mechanisms: authorization, validation and withdrawal. Findings Strategic influence in open strategy is determined not by participation volume but by how legitimacy is governed across repeated micro-role transitions. When authorization is explicit, validation is transparent, and withdrawal is constructive, legitimacy accumulates, and open strategy delivers sustained influence. When these mechanisms are misaligned, legitimacy depletes faster than it is replenished, producing the plateau pattern documented across open strategy research. Governance effectiveness varies across organizational hierarchy, episode length, platform modality and cultural context. Research limitations/implications This paper shifts open strategy research from participation breadth to legitimacy governance as the mechanism linking inclusion to influence. It suggests that future research should examine how authorization, validation and withdrawal operate across repeated strategy episodes, actor groups and organizational contexts. The framework also invites multilevel studies connecting micro-role transitions to macro patterns of influence concentration, participation fatigue and strategic durability. By treating strategic legitimacy as renewable yet exhaustible, the paper opens new avenues for theorizing how governance design shapes whether openness becomes institutionalized or remains episodic and symbolic. Practical implications Effective open strategy requires differentiated governance across three actor groups: senior leaders as legitimacy grantors who govern scope, sponsorship and narrative closure; middle managers as legitimacy advocates who support peers whose contributions may not reach senior audiences; and strategy facilitators as legitimacy brokers who design structurally equitable authorization, validation and withdrawal processes. Originality/value This paper extends discursive accounts of open strategy, the subject-position struggle perspective, and the micro-role transition performance perspective by specifying the organizational governance mechanisms through which these dynamics are enacted and managed. It reframes open strategy as a legitimacy management challenge and conceptualizes strategic legitimacy as a renewable yet exhaustible organizational resource that must be actively governed.
Purpose Population ageing is intensifying pressures on employees with eldercare responsibilities, yet eldercare remains weakly addressed within corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business strategy research. This study aims to examine how firms strategically respond to these emerging pressures and develops the concept of corporate eldercare responsibility. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on qualitative interviews with senior managers in large Japanese corporations. The analysis focuses on how firms interpret eldercare-related challenges and translate them into organisational responses within existing employment and CSR strategy frameworks. Findings The findings identify two distinct CSR logics shaping organisational responses. Provision-focused practices extend supports such as caregiving leave and flexible work arrangements, while unburdening-focused practices seek to ease work conditions that make caregiving difficult. The study conceptualises the institutional eldercare void – a demographic and relational gap shaped by rising care needs, limited public provision and enduring employment norms – and shows how firms begin to negotiate this void through strategic CSR. Distinguishing between provision and unburdening practices clarifies why some initiatives remain symbolic, while others more substantively reshape work and employment arrangements. Originality/value This study advances business strategy and CSR scholarship by conceptualising corporate eldercare responsibility as a strategic yet underdeveloped domain of social sustainability. By positioning eldercare at the intersection of CSR and HRM, it offers a multilevel framework explaining how firms negotiate the demographic and relational pressures of the institutional eldercare void. It demonstrates how demographic change generates new organisational responsibilities and shows how different CSR logics shape the strategic depth of firms’ responses in ageing societies.
Purpose This study aims to examine the contemporary mergers and acquisitions market, which has evolved into a shared domain where private equity (PE) firms and strategic acquirers co-exist, yet how these distinct acquirer types select their targets within the same market remains a gap. To address this, we conduct a systematic literature review to answer four questions: What theoretical lenses explain target selection? In which country contexts has it been studied? What characteristics drive target selection? and What research methods have been used? Design/methodology/approach The study systematically reviews 170 articles following preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis, (2020) guidelines and applies theory, context, characteristics and methods (TCCM) framework to organise the findings. Findings Drawing on TCCM insights, the study proposes a conceptual model explaining how strategic and PE acquirers select targets and outlines future research agenda for each TCCM dimension. Practical implications Practically, the study holds actionable insights for target firms, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisors and corporate development teams in improving deal positioning, structuring and acquirer-specific screening. Originality/value The paper offers comparative analysis of how acquirer identity (strategic vs PE) shapes acquisition decisions and develops a holistic model conceptualising target selection as a dynamic process influenced by antecedents (independent variables), leading to outcomes such as deal completion or acquirer-type preference (dependent variables) and introduces “acquirer orientations” as key moderators.
Purpose It has long been debated in the corporate governance literature whether board interlocks can effectively contribute to organizational innovation activities. Drawing on resource dependence theory, this study aims to show a curvilinear relationship between the presence of interlocking directors on the board and the innovation initiatives firms undertake. Design/methodology/approach The analysis was conducted on a sample of 896 publicly traded Indian companies with 8,015 observations from 2014 to 2023. The results depict an inverted-U relationship between board interlocks and the firm’s decision to invest in innovation projects. The implications of the results for the corporate governance and innovation literatures are discussed. Findings Using a resource-dependence perspective, this study clarifies the relationship between board interlocks and innovation. This analysis suggests that up to a certain limit, the presence of interlocking directors is beneficial for a firm’s innovative growth. Originality/value The findings suggest that boards must be more careful while adding new interlocking directors to an existing board to ensure that the maximum value is extracted from the directors’ extended social capital and that a requisite variety of expertise is available on the board.
Purpose This paper aims to introduce the Trifaceted Framework, which integrates ethical congruence, expertise and motivation as an interdependent system for managing talent in knowledge-intensive organizations. The framework demonstrates that expertise and motivation alone cannot sustain performance without explicit ethical alignment. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper. Conceptual synthesis extending the ability–motivation tradition (Hammond et al., 2004) into an expertise–motivation architecture with the addition of an ethics axis grounded in behavioral-ethics literature, mapping adaptive leadership behaviors (situational leadership theory) to dynamic employee profiles, and providing propositions linking ethical congruence to developmental transitions. Findings Ethical congruence functions as a conditioning dimension that stabilizes movement across expertise–motivation quadrants and reduces ethical drift. Leadership mechanisms – transparent accountability, developmental feedback and psychological safety – transform a static diagnostic typology into a dynamic developmental system enabling restorative interventions. Practical implications Provides managers a portfolio-management style framework: diagnose employee profiles across three axes, align incentives with organizational values, use HR-analytics dashboards to flag grey-zone risk and deploy restorative rather than punitive development pathways. Originality/value Repositions ethics from implicit organizational climate to an explicit conditioning variable; integrates situational leadership theory, the expertise–motivation architecture and behavioral-ethics research into an actionable talent-management system for sustainable performance and stakeholder trust in knowledge-intensive contexts.
Purpose This study aims to examine how consumers perceive and interpret corporate sustainability signals in light of the alignment between firms’ actual sustainability commitment and their sustainability communication. Design/methodology/approach Grounded in legitimacy theory and signaling theory, this exploratory qualitative study uses in-depth interviews with Brazilian consumers to examine how they interpret sustainability signals across various organizational commitment and communication configurations, as conceptualized in the transparency matrix. Findings Interview participants judge corporate sustainability by the coherence between what firms do and what they claim. The findings clarify how participants define sustainability commitment and show that they strongly penalize opaque companies, while viewing translucent companies more ambivalently. They also accept incremental progress and legitimize “shades of transparency,” where firms coherently disclose partial but authentic efforts. Research limitations/implications As the study is exploratory and conducted in a single national context, with participants predominantly well-educated, the findings should be interpreted cautiously. Practical implications The findings guide managers in aligning sustainability communication with actual commitment and organizational maturity. Acknowledging limits and trade-offs reduces perceptions of greenwashing, builds stakeholder trust and strengthens legitimacy, even when progress is incremental. Originality/value The study extends the transparency matrix by introducing an intermediate configuration, labeled “shades of transparency,” which captures companies that communicate partial but genuine sustainability efforts in alignment with their organizational maturity. This reconceptualization moves beyond dichotomous classifications, offering a more nuanced framework to understand coherence as a driver of legitimacy.
Purpose This study aims to examine how owner-managers’ humble leadership influences employee creative performance by exploring the serial mediating roles of job embeddedness and knowledge sharing. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 386 owner-managers and employees from small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana and the hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings The findings show that humble leadership by owner-managers has a positive effect on employees’ creative performance. Employee job embeddedness acts as a mediator in the relationship between humble leadership and creativity, whereas knowledge sharing alone does not. Notably, a serial mediation effect reveals that humble leadership first enhances job embeddedness, which then promotes knowledge sharing, ultimately leading to higher levels of employee creative performance. Practical implications Owner-managers should demonstrate humility, seek feedback and value employees’ contributions to foster psychological safety and encourage idea sharing. They can build trust by recognizing contributions, providing constructive feedback, encouraging experimentation and creating forums for discussion. Leadership development should emphasize emotional intelligence, self-awareness and relational skills alongside technical expertise. Support organizations and policymakers can reinforce these practices through programs that promote participative and people-centered leadership. Originality/value This study presents a novel multilevel framework showing how humble leadership influences employee creativity via job embeddedness and knowledge sharing, two key employee-level factors. By integrating social exchange theory and positive organizational scholarship, it highlights the relational and psychological mechanisms through which humble owner-managers promote discretionary and creative behaviors under structural constraints.
Purpose Researchers have mostly studied corporate social responsibility (CSR), from a business perspective, coping with CSR decisions as a corporate dilemma. This being the case, this study aims to focus on the emerging practice of CSR by exploring consumers’ perceptions of attributes, benefits and motivational values. Design/methodology/approach With a qualitative means-end chain (MEC) analysis, the authors explore participants’ CSR perceptions and purchase motivations through laddering interviews with 80 consumers from Western European countries. In contrast to traditional research in this area, which focuses separately on the moderating roles of a variety of brand specific attributes and initiatives, they adopt a holistic approach illustrating the pathways to CSR purchases. Findings The MEC analysis revealed five key values that captured the motivational patterns of participants: (1) personal social responsibility, (2) self-worth, (3) accomplishment, (4) social bonding and (5) safety. Originality/value This research provides an integrative understanding of CSR, bringing together drivers that so far have been examined in isolation. Hence, this research represents a more nuanced conceptualization of CSR and one of the first comprehensive attempts to simultaneously analyse multiple components. In addition to the extension of theories of CSR, the findings are equally valuable for practice as it informs CSR strategies that seek to maintain consumer support.
Purpose This study aims to examine how owner-managers’ use of teamwork influences entrepreneurial resilience, considering the mediating roles of adaptive organizational culture and entrepreneurial self-efficacy in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 419 owner-managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings The findings show that owner-managers’ use of teamwork has a positive impact on entrepreneurial resilience. In addition, teamwork fosters both an adaptive organizational culture and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, which partially mediate the relationship between teamwork and entrepreneurial resilience. Practical implications SME owner-managers should promote teamwork through open communication, staff engagement and participatory decision-making, while fostering adaptive, learning-oriented cultures. Capacity-building via training, mentoring and coaching enhances employee skills and confidence. Policymakers should extend SME support beyond finance to include leadership, teamwork and management training through business development services and mentorship programs. Originality/value This study departs from the traditional view of entrepreneurial resilience as an explanatory factor by conceptualizing it as a dependent variable. It introduces two key mediators, adaptive organizational culture at the organizational level and entrepreneurial self-efficacy at the individual level, providing a more integrated understanding of how teamwork contributes to resilience. Additionally, its focus on SMEs in developing economies offers a context-sensitive explanation of how these firms build and sustain resilience under conditions of uncertainty.
Purpose Firms operating in dynamic and innovation-driven environments face mounting pressure to align strategic intent with adaptable business models (BMs). Yet translating business strategies (BSs) into concrete BM transformations remains a persistent challenge. Design/methodology/approach This study proposes a conceptual approach that models BSs as systematic structural modifications, building on recent advances in BM innovation that adopt an operator-based design logic. The approach unfolds in three steps: establishing a baseline “Seed BM,” selecting BSs for integration and applying restructuring and specialization operators to capture their structural effects. A stylized illustration involving a delivery firm, DeliExpress, demonstrates the framework’s ability to visualize, compare and communicate how alternative strategies reshape components, channels and activities within a consistent representation. Findings This study shows that the proposed approach provides decision-makers with a structured method to embed strategic choices into BM design, enabling clearer assessment of trade-offs, comparability of alternatives and improved communication across stakeholders. Originality/value The originality of this study lies in formalizing BS integration as operator-driven BM transformations, thereby bridging the gap between abstract strategic intent and operational execution. While conceptual and demonstrated through a hypothetical case, the framework highlights avenues for empirical validation and broader application across industries. It offers practical implications by equipping managers with a visual and systematic decision-support tool and research implications by extending the strategic management literature with a theory-informed mechanism to operationalize the BS–BM relationship.
Purpose This study aims to examine how digital business capability (DBC)—a firm’s ability to strategically manage digital resources and technologies—shapes social media capabilities (SMCs) and drives social media performance. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory (DCT), a conceptual model was developed and empirically tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on survey data from 150 firms actively engaged in social media initiatives. Findings This study highlights the central role of digital business capability (DBC) in shaping firms’ social media capabilities and enhancing performance outcomes. The empirical results show that DBC has a significant positive effect on social media analytics, engagement and strategy, reinforcing its position as a foundational digital capability. Moreover, social media engagement emerges as the most influential predictor of social media performance. These findings suggest that firms that invest strategically in digitalization and cultivate adaptive, customer-focused engagement practices are better positioned to leverage social media for superior performance. Research limitations/implications This study is limited by its cross-sectional design, sectoral concentration and potential conceptual overlap among capabilities. Future research should refine the measurement of SMCs, use longitudinal designs and adopt broader sampling strategies to capture contextual variations across industries, firm sizes and levels of digital maturity. Practical implications To maximize social media impact, managers should invest in digital infrastructure and tools to strengthen DBC, providing a solid foundation for analytics, strategy and engagement. They should prioritize customer-centric practices that actively engage audiences and adapt content based on feedback, while ensuring all efforts are aligned with strategic goals and guided by data insights. This coordinated, adaptive approach positions firms to drive superior social media performance. Originality/value This study provides novel evidence on the mechanisms through which digital capabilities are translated into performance gains. In doing so, it extends DCT by identifying critical dynamic capabilities in the digital context. From a practical perspective, the findings move beyond the prevailing focus on technology adoption and demonstrate how firms can achieve superior outcomes by strategically leveraging social media platforms.
Purpose Although considerable research has done on the role of knowledge in organizations, relatively little has focused on the availability of knowledge to related units of an organization. This purpose of this paper is to focus on the performance benefits of three types of knowledge resources: industry-, product- and market-based. Design/methodology/approach The archival sample consists of 4,882 commercial radio stations in the USA, each of which offer a specific format of programming within a well-defined geographic market. The authors contrast the effects of knowledge resources on the performance of stations operating independently or as part of smaller groups with those that are part of a national chain. Findings The results of this study provide strong evidence of higher performance for stations that are part of a larger chain because of access to greater pools of knowledge. Further, the authors find that although these performance effects are subject to diminishing returns, they are clearly amplified in highly competitive markets. Originality/value This study offers contributions to the knowledge-based view and intra-industry diversification studies by examining the positive effects the availability of knowledge can have for individual business units within a corporation. The results reveal that when individual business units have access to a greater degree of available knowledge, they are better able to compete against rivals in their respective markets.
Purpose This paper aims to examine how legacy technology firms can achieve strategic renewal through integrative capability reconfiguration rather than structural separation. Using Microsoft’s decade-long transformation under Satya Nadella (2014–2024), the study addresses the theoretical gap in understanding alternative pathways for managing exploration-exploitation tensions beyond structural ambidexterity. Design/methodology/approach Using a longitudinal case study design, the analysis examines Microsoft’s transformation through 54 triangulated sources, using a process-tracing methodology. Data analysis generated 60 first-order codes organized into 13 second-order themes, with 27 direct quotes from primary sources providing empirical grounding across three transformation phases. Findings Microsoft achieved strategic renewal by rebuilding dynamic capabilities, seizing and transforming opportunities within a unified organizational architecture. The transformation involved cognitive reframing and ecosystem intelligence (sensing), platform orchestration and strategic commitment (seizing) and cultural architecture reconstruction (transforming). Cultural transformation served as a causal mechanism that enabled all three capabilities, while platform logic provided architectural coherence, thereby reducing exploration-exploitation tensions without necessitating structural separation. Originality/value This study makes three theoretical contributions. First, it demonstrates “integrative ambidexterity” as a third pathway beyond temporal and structural approaches, challenging structural determinism. Second, it repositions cultural transformation from a contextual factor to a causal mechanism in the development of capabilities. Third, it conceptualizes platform orchestration as a distinct dynamic capability that bridges the platform economics and capability development literature. The platform-oriented dynamic renewal model offers an alternative to divestiture strategies for transforming legacy firms into digital ecosystems.
Purpose Entrepreneurial humility is a strategic virtue that may help entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty, value diverse perspectives and collaborate effectively. Despite its potential importance, no validated scale currently captures humility within entrepreneurial contexts. This study aims to address this gap by conceptualizing entrepreneurial humility and developing a multidimensional scale to measure it. Design/methodology/approach A two-phase research design was adopted. Phase 1 involved a systematic literature review and line-by-line qualitative coding in ATLAS.ti 9 to conceptualize entrepreneurial humility and generate an initial item pool. Phase 2 focused on empirical validation: the items were evaluated through exploratory factor analysis using survey data from 185 entrepreneurs across multiple regions. Reliability and construct validity were rigorously examined in SPSS 27 to ensure the robustness of the proposed scale. Findings Six dimensions of entrepreneurial humility emerged – social cognition, social openness, social courage, social acknowledgment, social care and social learning. The final 18-item scale demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.928) and a coherent six-factor structure aligned with theoretical expectations. Research limitations/implications The validation was based on a purposive sample, which may limit generalizability. Future studies should test the scale across more diverse entrepreneurial settings and incorporate confirmatory factor analysis to further establish construct validity. Practical implications The scale offers educators, accelerators and entrepreneurial support organizations a structured tool for assessing humility-related capabilities such as openness, self-awareness and learning orientation. These insights can inform training, mentoring, team composition and founder evaluation practices. Social implications By providing a tool to measure entrepreneurial humility, this study encourages more relational, inclusive and ethical approaches to entrepreneurship, countering narratives that overemphasize individual heroism. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research presents the first validated, multidimensional scale of entrepreneurial humility, grounded in systematic conceptualization and empirical evidence. It provides a foundational measurement tool to support future research on the role of humility in entrepreneurial contexts.
Purpose This study aims to explore the role of neotenic traits in redefining the leadership paradigm amid the complexities of digital transformation. The primary objective is to examine whether neotenic traits drive leaders to adopt rapid-response leadership (RRL) strategies at the workplace in the age of digitalisation. In doing so, it explicitly differentiates RRL as a people-centred leadership capability within the digital leadership discourse. Design/methodology/approach Using adaptive leadership theory as the underpinning framework, 28 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with IT sector business leaders using purposive sampling. A combined Gioia methodology and thematic analysis was applied to strengthen transparency and coherence, with codes clustered into sub-themes and aggregate dimensions of neotenic traits and RRL. Findings The study found that traditional leadership approaches are insufficient, necessitating a shift towards agile, people-first leadership styles. The findings highlight the importance of neotenic traits such as curiosity, openness, playfulness, collaboration and visionary insight in fostering effective RRL. Three key organisational enablers, psychological safety, cross-generational mentorship and experiential learning environments, were identified as mechanisms through which traits are translated into agile decision-making, rapid adaptation and innovation acceleration, thereby enhancing resilience and competitiveness. Originality/value This study introduces neotenic leadership as a distinct construct supporting RRL capabilities. Theoretically, it bridges trait theory with behavioural and contingency perspectives by showing the developmental malleability of leadership traits in a digitally turbulent context. Practically, it informs leadership development, HR strategy and policy by offering clear interventions to institutionalise neoteny-based RRL across organisations.
