Purpose – Amidst dynamic global changes, migrant workforce dynamics have become complex due to voluntary and forced migrations, coupled with talent competition. Paradoxically, many migrants experience deskilling and brain waste in host countries. To optimize migrant skills for enhanced job performance in fluctuating organizational and environmental contexts, it is vital to overcome this challenge. This study aims to verify the employees’ dynamic capabilities (EDC) based job performance model among migrants, exploring how the moderating effect of a meaning of life influences the relationship between EDC and job performance, considering job-related attitudes.
Design/methodology/approach – We conducted empirical research based on a survey of 453 Ukrainian migrants currently residing in Poland.
Findings – The results indicate that EDC influences job performance through person-job fit, work motivation, and job satisfaction. Particularly, migrants with a positive meaning of life show stronger relationships between EDC and job performance.
Originality/value – The article’s originality lies in exploring the concept of EDC within the context of migrant workers, bridging a gap in understanding how these capabilities impact job performance, particularly regarding brain waste and deskilling. The study delves into how EDC could mitigate the mismatch between migrant workers’ qualifications and job placements, thereby enriching international human resources management strategies to foster inclusive workplaces and enhance migrant workforce success.

Purpose – This study aims to enhance the understanding of adaptive capability (ADC) as a moderating and mediating factor in the relationship between a distinctive capabilities system (DCS) and the nonfinancial and financial performance of Portuguese micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) within the context of business model adaptation in response to exogenous shocks.
Design/methodology/approach – In this study, I utilized an exploratory and quantitative methodology. Moreover, I administered a structured questionnaire to collect data from 223 Portuguese MSME respondents. To ensure the variables’ validity and reliability, I conducted a confirmatory factor analysis and employed structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings – The results demonstrate a significant direct impact of DCS on both nonfinancial and financial performance, with the former mediated by ADC. These findings suggest that MSME management practices during an exogenous shock have the potential to generate superior performance by reconfiguring DCS with ADC support. This enables MSMEs to leverage existing resources and capabilities to continuously improve and adapt their business models, defend their market share and adjust their exploitation and exploration strategies in response to exogenous shocks. Moreover, the development of proactive managerial capabilities can contribute to this combination of factors and potentially lead to superior MSME performance.
Originality/value – Literature lacks studies on strategy and management regarding the role of DCS as a predictor of MSME’s business model adaptation and the mediating effect of ADC in this relationship. The current study sought to address this deficiency by investigating the crucial role of ADC in facilitating the reconfiguration, renewal or creation of resources, capabilities, processes and routines that foster adaptation while confirming DCS’s role as a critical component of the business model. My research extends and builds on earlier findings by demonstrating how these capabilities enable MSMEs to respond effectively to exogenous shocks while maintaining their superior performance.

Purpose – We wanted to find out how infant multinationals originating from Poland enact opportunities in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.
Design/methodology/approach – We conducted a comparative case study of four Polish firms operating in SSA.
Findings – We found that when entering SSA, studied firms employed effectual decision-making logic. Thus, their internationalization was means-driven, serendipitous, partnership-oriented, based on the “affordable loss” principle and focused on shaping opportunities in SSA, rather than predicting, analyzing and planning any firm-specific assets or capabilities.
Originality/value – We illuminated the nature of the means employed in effectual internationalization and the role of partners (“effectual stakeholders”) in this process. Thus, we contribute to a deeper understanding of how infant multinationals navigate extreme uncertainty in the emerging SSA markets.

Purpose – The authors analyzed the relationship between learning orientation (LO) and performance in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) by investigating the moderating role of environmental dynamism to answer the need for systematic research of models between LO and firm performance (FP). Design/methodology/approach – The authors investigated the (in)direct relationship between LO and FP. The authors collected data from 182 MSMEs operating in technology parks (TPs) in Poland. The authors used two methods in the quantitative empirical research. The authors used linear regression models to test the hypotheses, which allowed for a global assessment of relationships among all analyzed variables. Dynamic capabilities (DCs) framework guided the study.
Findings – The study results show that FP benefits from LO-related behaviors. LO is an important stimulant of FP. Meanwhile, the authors did not classify market dynamism (MD) as a moderator of the LO-FP relationship.
Research limitations/implications – By design, the authors surveyed only MSMEs open to participate in the survey, which potentially limits generalizability. Furthermore, future researchers may consider other types of strategic orientations (SOs) to further explain the impact of multiple SOs on FP in specific industries. Originality/value – This article presents arguments that allow for recognizing LO as a strategic organizational factor shaping FP.

Purpose – We investigated the relationship between personality and managerial assessment center (AC) dimensions, emphasizing age’s moderating role within volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity (VUCA) simulations.
Design/methodology/approach – We analyzed 327 managers and applied the AC method, examining areas like social skills, problem-solving, management and goal striving, openness to change, employee development using the VUCA framework.
Findings – We assessed personality metatraits through a questionnaire based on the circumplex model (CPM; Strus, Cieciuch, & Rowinski, 2014), identifying four bipolar metatraits. Results highlighted passiveness and disharmony as negatively correlated with all managerial AC dimensions, with passiveness adversely affecting social skills and problem-solving.
Originality/value – Age’s moderating role emerged as pivotal in the relationship between personality and managerial AC dimensions, especially in specific VUCA contexts. This underscores age’s influence on the interplay between personality and managerial efficacy, suggesting varying predictive capabilities across age groups. The research illuminates the complexities of these relationships, spotlighting age’snuanced impact.

Purpose: Managers of healthcare organizations must be much more dynamic and agile to survive in a competitive environment. Administrators, managers, and leaders in healthcare organizations must meet both patients’ and staff’s needs, expectations, and requests at the maximum level in order to create organizational agility. What counts among these responsibilities is the use of operational competitive capabilities at the highest level and being organizationally agile? In this context, this study determines the relationship between the operational competitive capabilities of healthcare organizations and organizational agility and examines the mediating role of organizational agility between operational competitive capabilities and organizational performance in healthcare organizations in Turkey.

Methodology: The data was collected from the 220 managers of health organizations in Turkey through questionnaires, which were analyzed with the SPSS 26 and AMOS 26 programs.

Results: The findings revealed a positive relationship between operational competitive capabilities of managers and between organizational agility and organizational agility, which have a full mediating role between operational competitive capabilities and organizational performance in healthcare organizations
.
Conclusion: Today’s healthcare organizations’ managers face such important problems and unexpected developments as adapting to a rapidly changing environment and struggles to avoid uncertainty. Therefore, the managers must use their operational competitive capabilities at the highest level and be organizationally agile to maximize their organizations’ performance and survive in this highly competitive environment.

Purpose: This research focuses on firm resources and capabilities used for value co-creation in service innovation. Specifically, I investigated how service innovation is created in an in-ternational engineering company. The aim of this article is to reveal what resources and capa-bilities are employed by a service provider for value co-creation in the innovation project of engineering service and how they vary in particular stages of this project.

Methodology: The research is based on qualitative methodology by a multi-case study strate-gy. Focus group discussion with senior managers and semi-structured interviews with project managers of the studied international engineering company were used as concrete data gather-ing methods. Data analysis was conducted using the content analysis method.

Findings: The research revealed eight value co-creation activities accomplished by the engi-neering company and client during the engineering service innovation project. The activities are as follows: co-identification of the client’s problem, co-evaluation of ideas, co-defining of client’s requirements, co-analysis of environment, co-design, co-testing, and co-adoption, co-production, and co-activities after the launch. These activities are diffused in different project stages and demand a range of resources: expert knowledge, diagnostic, communication skills, trust, experience, technological equipment, human resources. Moreover, they require diverse capabilities: relational, innovative, analytical, negotiation, knowledge absorptive, planning, organizational flexibility, and cross-cultural. The intensity and variety of using the mentioned resources and capabilities differ relying on the value co-creation activity. Expert knowledge, communication skills as resources, and relational and innovative capabilities were empha-sized by the researchers most often. We hope these findings will represent a step toward a more coherent resource-based view (RBV) and service innovation theories.

Implications: The study involved only one Lithuanian engineering company, so the research context may influence the findings. Another limitation is related to the small number of cases and research participants.

Originality: Unlike previous studies that revealed the importance of single resources and ca-pabilities for service innovation, this study determined the range of resources and capabilities employed in different activities of engineering service innovation project stages, especially in the value co-creation activities performed by the engineering company and clients. Moreover, research also identified how resources and capabilities vary at different stages of these pro-jects.

Purpose: This study aims to explore the role open data assumes in social innovation initiatives that combat the effects of Covid-19, in which quantitative information about these projects is complemented with the analysis of open data innovation capabilities.

Methodology: A mixed methods approach is adopted. Initially, quantitative data regarding the number of innovative projects is extracted from the OPSI framework. Then, in a second phase, qualitative data from each project is explored to explore the open data innovation capabilities offered by each initiative.

Results: The results reveal that most social innovation initiatives focus on the area of data visualization dashboards and open datasets. However, some projects address other areas, e.g. hackathons, service availability, and tourism information.

Implications: Covid-19 profoundly affects the lives of people and businesses, and open data can assume a determinant role in mitigating these effects and improve information transparency and collaboration between public and private entities.

Originality/Value: This study is relevant for the establishment of supportive public policies that promote the emergence of open-data-driven initiatives to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 in several areas such as the economy, education, and leisure.

Methodology: The paper discusses major issues with references to existing literature and real business cases from S&P500 consumer discretionary sector.

Findings: The main fi nding of this paper is that CSRS could provide the company with a competitive advantage as a growing number of consumers become more sustainable conscious. It could also help to overcome the increasing consumers’ skepticism towards corporate social responsibility practices. Finally, it can also be seen as a step forward in defi ning what types of corporate activities are associated with desirable social and environmental gains.

Research limitations: Our sample was restricted to the U.S. fi rms from the consumer discretionary sector. Therefore, conclusions should not be generalized to other markets. Our study is based on the analysis of environmental and social responsibility statements and assumes that they accurately represent corporate commitment in majority of the cases.

Practical implications: CSRS offers corporations the opportunity to use their unique skills, culture, values, resources, and management capabilities to lead social progress by making sustainability part of its internal corporate logic.

Originality: The paper raises the importance of the different conditions necessary for making sustainable development concept an important part of corporate strategy.