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 – Coopetition is ubiquitous in the economy, but managing effectively this type of relationship between firms remains a challenge for many organizations. This paper investigates the coopetition within corporate groups and focus on factors that determine the simultaneous competition and cooperation between subsidiaries therein.
Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on a dataset of 121 corporate groups listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), this paper theoretically advances and empirically validates the impact of 18 factors which determine the coopetition relationship.
Findings – This study’s findings confirm the importance of an organizational design among external and internal drivers of intrafirm coopetition. However, the role of an environmental uncertainty as a driver of intrafirm coopetition is not proven. Furthermore, the paper finds that internal determinants explain the phenomenon of coopetition between subsidiaries within a corporate group more than determinants related to the environment.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the coopetition theory by empirical identification of drivers of intrafirm coopetition and advances the corporate groups studies by exploring internal relationships (cooperation and competition) and the determinants therein.

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
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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: The present study investigates the survival and success of new organizations in the light of complex network theory.

Methodology: The empirical data was collected using the survey method from the technology park companies are analyzed with social network analysis. Two main methods were used in this study: descriptive statistics and social network analysis.

Findings: The findings indicate that new nodes appearing because of splitting up of bigger nodes from present or other related networks have a higher degree of centrality. In practice, this means that companies founded by former members of large-scale companies from these networks are more successful due to the ease in providing the flow of resources and information through previous links. This suggests that the imprint effect can be observed in the appearance, lifecycle, and performance of new nodes in complex networks.

Originality: The literature lacks studies on new organizations’ lifecycle in complex networks despite the existence of studies about new organizations in organizational networks. This study examines the appearance, success, and survival of new organizations in networks by complex network approaches such as dynamism, dissipative structures, and uncertainties.

Purpose: The article presents business models developed in organizations of the “new cooperativism” trend, whose application leads to a bottom-up solution of important social problems at the local level and, in a broader perspective, stimulation of sustainable development.

Methodology: The adopted methodology uses a qualitative approach. The research was conducted in the form of case studies of four organizations following “new cooperativism,” based on in-depth interviews, observations, and analyses of organizational documents and various types of publicly available materials.

Findings: The study showed that “new cooperativism” organizations use in their business models the old practices developed by classical cooperatives, which work well in today’s conditions and have the potential to provide a positive impact on important socioeconomic dysfunctions, which can be fully implemented through modern technologies.

Research Limitations: The limitations typical of the case study method entail the uncertainty of results replication, which disallows their broad generalization. However, the obtained results indicate the need to conduct a scientific diagnosis of emerging collaborative grassroots organizations and the importance of their participation in the three-sector economic concept of the state.

Originality: The article and its conclusions are based on empirical research of the practical effectiveness of business models used in organizations of the “new cooperativism” trend.

Purpose: The aim of this article is to present the results of the research on the export of venture capital backed firms in the European Union countries.

Methodology: For the purpose of this article, the author created four linear regression models. He decided for export revenue to be a dependent variable. Then, the author verified the influence of four independent variables on export value.

Findings: The research found that the turnover of venture capital backed firms positively influences their export value. Moreover, the costs of employees also play an important role in export value explanation. Nevertheless, the empirical study did not confirm any strong positive correlation of analyzed firms’ export value with the number of employees and their share of shareholders’ funds in operating income.

Limitations: The analyzed period was limited only to 2016. Second, the study used only one dependent and four independent variables. Further research must include other variables, especially moderating ones, such as entrepreneurship ratio or availability of external financing forms. Third, the regression models were based on data retrieved from Orbis Database and can induce uncertainty regarding its credibility.

Originality: At present, there are still only few research studies that explore the export of venture capital backed firms.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to find out whether the online shopping behaviors ROPO and Reverse ROPO Effect differ between Poles and Germans.

Methodology: The author conducted quantitative research among Polish and German students (129 questionnaires). The measures for this study were hypotheses that tested in mean and comparative analysis.

Findings: In the context of online consumer behavior, the results indicate that consumers display different preferences for ROPO or Reverse ROPO Effect. These differences trace back to cultural differences, particularly different uncertainty avoidance levels, and different stage of e-commerce markets maturity.

Research implications: E-commerce markets constantly evolve and so does online consumer behavior. While immature e-commerce markets follow their mature counterparts, their respective online consumer behavior also evolves, currently displaying different tendencies in ROPO and Reverse ROPO Effect between markets.

Limitation: Respondents that cover all age groups would be more representative of the respective countries of analysis. Moreover, instead of a cross-sectional, one should conduct further research with a time-series study to capture trends in behavior adoption, which effect from the evolving nature of the e-commerce retail market.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine shareholders’ reaction to the decision of the supervisory board to appoint a CEO in companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Methodology: An event study and the mean-adjusted model were applied. The abnormal returns were measured as the CAAR in the entire (-60, + 60) window and selected sub-windows.

Findings: The obtained values of abnormal returns indicate the shareholder’s negative reaction. Throughout the observation window, they oscillate slightly below zero, and in the window (0, +20) they are negative at -1.566%. Irrespective of the observation window, negative abnormal returns were obtained for over half of the observation (52–57%). Therefore, preliminary results indicate the predominance of the information effect over the real one. The decrease in market value as a result of the event may result from an increase in investors’ uncertainty as to the effects of changes in strategy and skills of the new CEO.

Originality: The research is a unique one. To date, no one has carried out research into shareholders’ reaction to a CEO appointment in either the Polish or Central and Eastern European capital markets. They primarily bring the value of cognition of shareholders’ behaviour in the analysed event, which is reflected in share prices. They extend the literature on the signalization instruments, i.e. the activities that boards can undertake due to the new information transmitted to the capital market participants and stakeholders. The market reaction to a CEO appointment will without a doubt interest investors; the institutions responsible for supervision (which in the case of Poland is the Financial Oversight Commission) and the legislator in charge of regulations that prevent insider trading while promoting corporate disclosure transparency.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to find out whether the online shopping behaviors ROPO and Reverse ROPO Effect differ between Poles and Germans.

Methodology: The author conducted quantitative research among Polish and German students (129 questionnaires). The measures for this study were hypotheses that tested in mean and comparative analysis.

Findings: In the context of online consumer behavior, the results indicate that consumers display different preferences for ROPO or Reverse ROPO Effect. These differences trace back to cultural differences, particularly different uncertainty avoidance levels, and different stage of e-commerce markets maturity.

Research implications: E-commerce markets constantly evolve and so does online consumer behavior. While immature e-commerce markets follow their mature counterparts, their respective online consumer behavior also evolves, currently displaying different tendencies in ROPO and Reverse ROPO Effect between markets.

Limitation: Respondents that cover all age groups would be more representative of the respective countries of analysis. Moreover, instead of a cross-sectional, one should conduct further research with a time-series study to capture trends in behavior adoption, which effect from the evolving nature of the e-commerce retail market.

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to compare the phenomenon of interfirm cooperation strategy in both hyper-growth, and stable-growth knowledge and technology–intensive firms, in a country characterized by a high level of generalized trust: Sweden.

Methodology: Qualitative methods were incorporated: direct semistructured interviews with top managers in 13 ICT firms (8 hyper-growth and 5 stable-growth), analyzis of reports, corporate websites and press releases. Furthermore, interviews in 3 expert firms in the industry were conducted, facilitating interfirm cooperation.

Conclusions: There were significant differences in interfirm cooperation strategy in two distinguished groups of the frms: hyper-growth, and stable-growth. Managers’ individual approaches to uncertainty, strategy and cooperation might be more important than institutional settings. The ICT firms operate in a constantly changing global environment and local context seems to have only a minor impact on the rules of the game in the industry.

Research limitations: This study was a qualitative explorative approach as an introduction to further empirical research.

Originality: The study presents an interfirm cooperation phenomenon incorporating different perspectives and settings. It contributes to alliance portfolio literature (forming and managing of alliance portfolio in a different context/country/industry), and enhances understanding of firm strategies characterized by different growth rates.

Uncertainty is a state of mind. Around 1930 at the beginning of the big depression crisis, Keynes predicted that during the next 100 years, the standard of living in the most advanced countries will increase from four to eightfold. In spite of World War II, this overly optimistic prediction (as it seemed at that time) was confirmed in the 80 years since Keynes’s prophecy. In spite of the big crisis of the 1930s and the devastation of World War II, the standard of living in the western world increased four to fivefold.

Purpose: Modernity consists of many confl icting aspects: It brings many empty promises, yet has resulted in new institutions that create bridges between the values and interests of millions of people who seek freedom, prosperity, quality of life, strengthened democracy and social justice. In this paper I attempt to a gain and loss account against modernity, because institutional rules are not only conducive to cooperative interactions, but to hostile interactions as well. People are not always guided by moral commitment, but rather more often driven by cold calculation or coercion.

Methodology: Modernity has at least three defi nitions. The fi rst defi nition is based on ideas that took over the imagination of the era. The second defi nition is based on an analysis of the behavior of people who respond to reason as well as emotion and believe that they act more rationally than their ancestors or the traditional “others”. The third defi nition is the one closest to my heart, consisting of the use of institutional categories.
Institutions offer practical ways of connecting ideas and people. The challenge for them is the result of deepening local and national interdependencies, but increasingly often also regional (e.g. European) and global. Interdependencies are the result of the scientifi c and technological revolution, global markets, global governance mechanisms, the emergence of new social forces and cultural confl icts (against the background of reconciling identity and differences).

Conclusions: The most important task is to identify the mechanisms of complex systems so that people know how to act under conditions of uncertainty, risk and crisis. Hence, the expectations toward institutions often exceed their abilities. Even though new institutions are being created and old ones are being fixed, we are witnessing and participating in, institutional paralysis and the decay (e.g. corruption). In this situation, it is imperative not only to improve control methods (e.g. legal), but also to resort to normative systems (values and identity) and knowledge (competence and skills). The source of this paralysis is often man himself, convinced of his own maturity and equipped with all sorts of rights, but manipulated on a scale not yet seen in the past. We are experiencing our own struggle as to what roles are closest to us, e.g. consumer, investor, or citizen?

Research Implications: Modernity is an emblematic, but confusing term. Therefore, the most important task is to identify the activities of complex systems, so that people know how to act under conditions of uncertainty, risk and crisis. People – agencies must operate in structures that defi ne the boundaries of their actions. The main task of social sciences is to identify the conditions for the construction of successful confi gurations of agencies and structures.

Originality: Sometimes the “old” is better than the “new”, but to adopt this as a principle of life would be a mistake. It is better to think that the “new” is a metamorphosis of the “old”, sometimes expected, sometimes not. Based on the example of capitalism – fi rst commercial capitalism, then industrial capitalism, and today financial capitalism – I demonstrate how the mechanisms of institutional morphogenesis work, with emphasis on structured cooperation and organized conflict.