Guest editorial: The futures of management: crisis as a norm

Citation

Guaita Martínez, J.M., Martín Martín, J.M. and Huarng, K.-H. (2024), "Guest editorial: The futures of management: crisis as a norm", Management Decision, Vol. 62 No. 7, pp. 2057-2063. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-07-2024-218

Introduction

Crises are a given in life, however, considering crisis as a norm in organizations increasingly seems warranted given recent events and known long-term negative influences (e.g. Coombs, 2007). From economic crises and political upheaval to natural and public health disasters, organizations of all sizes and sectors seem to face unusually complex and volatile environments. Campello et al. (2010) point out how crisis situations influence organizations to establish measures to reduce investment in areas such as technology, marketing and employment. Thus, the risks derived from the permanence of crises affect the way organizations are managed and how society is impacted by those decisions. Accordingly, consider proactive crisis management planning becomes particularly relevant (Barton, 1990). Dreyer and Schulz (2022) consider management control systems as key elements in mitigating the negative impact of uncertainty arising from crisis. Analyzing an organization in crisis both from micro and macro perspectives, therefore, is important to understand how decisions can affect the capacity and sustainability of organizations. In this special issue, we put forward the title, “The Future of Management: Crisis as a Norm” and seek to explore how crises are shaping the field of management and the role of managers and organizations in today's changing world.

The leaders of organizations are often key in the development and management of action plans in crisis situations. Research has found differences in crisis responses between managers in small and large organizations which speak to the importance of micro factors such as interpersonal relationships in organizations (Mikušová and Horváthová, 2019). As Hinojosa et al. (2014) point out, an authentic leader should be aware of different variables capable of influencing management cognitive models such as self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing and internalized moral perspective. In this sense, the attachment based on the relationships between a leader and the followers is highlighted, considering the security that derives from this relationship in crisis situations (Hinojosa et al., 2020). Nevertheless, it may be necessary to redefine the relationship to act promptly in the face of new crisis situations (e.g. Donelli et al., 2022); for example, considering the existing inequalities in leadership positions, ethics and diversity in the management of an organization in crisis (e.g. Randolph-Seng et al., 2016).

Moreover, in facing a crisis situation, macro elements such as innovation, resilience and strategic management have been shown to help organizations (Messabia et al., 2022). The fast growth of information systems (IS), for example, has generated an identity crisis for many companies (Benbasat and Zmud, 2003). New technologies to process information, therefore, need to be evaluated, considering that information resulting from crisis is influenced by a multitude of sources often outside an organization's control (e.g. Coombs, 2007). In particular, as Dubey et al. (2020) points out, it is essential to consider the scope of information and misinformation flowing through social media. In this way, social networks appear to play a key role in crisis management and may even influence the development of organizational crisis strategies.

Beyond, micro and macro factors, the sustainability of business organizations often positively corresponds to the growth and development of society. Business crisis, for example, often decreases corporate social responsibility efforts of organizations (García-Benau et al., 2013). Therefore, as indicated by Folke et al. (2005), further research needs to explore the experiences of adaptive governance of socio-ecological systems during periods of crises. Such work may help shed additional light on possible strategies for renewal and reorganization of current management models (e.g. Sharma, 2000).

As the above overview indicates, many different theoretical and empirical perspectives exploring a variety of issues related to crisis management and the future of management in crisis are expected in this special issue. Exploring the role of different organizations in crisis situations (e.g. regional/national governments) is also welcome considering the important role these types of organizations often play in recovery efforts (Aldao, 2022). Accordingly, we welcome papers that will provide valuable insights for researchers, business leaders and policymakers interested in exploring the role of crises in shaping the future of management. The articles in this special issue will hopefully stimulate research and debate and contribute to the development of new theories and practices for managing crisis in the future.

This special issue deals with management challenges for companies. The papers were selected from the 2023 Academy of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Conference. The papers selected for publication in this special issue address crises in the analysis making it have a strong impact on the real world. The articles explain the characteristics of crises and the important underlying management behaviors. The originality of this special issue lies in the contributions of researchers, business leaders and policymakers interested in exploring the role of crises in shaping the future of management, as well as motivating, generating and developing new theories and practices to manage crises in the future.

The article by Di Prima, Kotaskova, Yildiz and Ferraris addresses the topic of crisis from a crucial yet often overlooked perspective: the social one. Indeed, the study aims to measure how a data-driven approach, using HR analytics tools, can improve the impact of so-called “social sustainable operations practices” that is, actions aimed at improving the physical and mental health and well-being of employees. They thus argue that these practices can produce a positive impact for employees, by improving their motivation and engagement levels and for the company, by increasing employee retention rates. HR analytics has been shown to further enhance these positive impacts. These takeaways are crucial for the future of management, as it will be increasingly critical for companies to be able to be socially sustainable as well, both for their employees and for society at large.

The paper by IIheanachor, Costa-Climent, Ulrich and Ozegbe investigate the effectiveness of Cross-Cultural Training (CCT) in supporting Nigerian expatriates as they adapt to various African countries amidst the complexities of crisis management in a constantly changing business environment. With the demand for skilled managers and technical experts to navigate both stable and turbulent periods, the dependence on expatriates underscores the need for comprehensive CCT for successful integration and job performance. The paper contends that thorough and context specific CCT is pivotal for expatriates to maneuver the intricate cultural landscapes, particularly during organizational and market crises. Utilizing a mixed-method approach, the research scrutinizes the relationship between the adequacy of CCT and the subsequent adjustment phases of expatriates, encompassing work, interaction and general adaptation, especially under crisis conditions. Quantitative data from surveys of Nigerian bankers on assignment, supplemented with qualitative insights from in-depth interviews, will provide a holistic understanding of CCT's impact. The findings are expected to demonstrate that expatriates receiving extensive CCT, including language and cultural nuances, display heightened levels of professional competence and personal well-being, which are crucial in crisis scenarios. Additionally, the study aims to establish that continuous, bespoke training enhances expatriate adjustment and efficacy throughout their deployment. The implications of this research reach beyond the theoretical advancement of CCT frameworks within international human resource management, offering strategic insights for multinational corporations operating in the African milieu. This study underscores the significance of cultural intelligence in expatriate policies, highlighting the necessity for ongoing learning and adaptation in a business landscape characterized by rapid evolution and unpredictable challenges.

The article of Mosquera and Soares in this special issue presents a broad model for analyzing the effects of work overload on the performance and well-being of IT professionals. Crisis management is crucial in the IT sector in case of disruptive events such as cyberattacks, system failure and data breaches. However, even in the absence of these major threats, other issues also require immediate and effective answers, like customers' changing demands, hardware failures, software bugs and human errors as accidental data deletion or misconfiguration of equipment. IT workers are thus often involved in crisis management situations, attempting to minimize damage, restore operations and maintain the trust of customers and stakeholders. As a result of the constant time pressure to provide answers to problematic and rapidly changing situations, long working hours and work overload have become relevant issues in the IT sector. Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources model, they analyze how three personal resources – conscientiousness, work–life balance and psychological detachment – may compensate for the negative effects of work overload, a pervasive job demand in the IT sector. The results show that work overload indeed has a negative effect on employee's performance and life satisfaction, clearly preventing a sustainable answer to future crisis. Work–life balance appears to be critical for social sustainability in the IT sector, since it mediates between work overload and the life-satisfaction of employees.

The COVID-19 pandemic is considered a gender pandemic because of the impact it has had on women's employment, particularly in stereotypically female occupations and sectors, and the social roles that women have assumed during periods of lockdown, taking on more family and domestic responsibilities. At a global level, various international organizations believe that its impact has been a major setback and that it will take more than 100 years to close the gender gap worldwide.

In this scenario, and given that previous literature has shown that women's access to positions of responsibility continues to be subject to gender bias, as they are more likely to be fired before their male counterparts, the work of Garcia-Sanchez, Uribe Bohorquez, Aibar-Guzmán and Aibar-Guzmán analyses how the uncertainty of COVID-19 has aggravated the glass ceiling or invisible barrier that makes it difficult for women to occupy leadership positions in the most important companies at the international level. Specifically, their study shows that 30% of the companies analyzed have decided to reduce the size of their boards in 2020, resulting in a greater exodus of women than men.

In this sense, and given that achieving parity in the political, economic and social spheres requires public intervention through various initiatives, the authors examine whether the observed effect on gender quotas differs according to the regulatory and normative system in force in the country of origin of the companies. To this end, they classify institutional contexts into three categories: “hard law” regulatory environments, where there is a system of mandatory gender quotas for boards of directors with penalties for the company in case of non-compliance; “soft law” regulatory systems, where there are no penalties for non-compliance with gender quota laws; the remaining institutional environments are considered “laissez-faire”.

Their findings show that in countries with strict quota laws and sanctions, the departure of female directors caused a backlash that affected compliance with balanced boards of 40% or more women. This effect occurred because companies had increased the size of their boards in previous years to include women and meet gender quotas without any real replacement.

The study by Bocoya-Maline Calvo-Mora and Rey Moreno, draws on resource and capability theory to examine the relationship between dynamic capabilities (DC), the knowledge management process (KM) and customer and employee outcomes. It postulates that the KM process and DC contribute to competitive advantage, thereby improving performance, in organizations operating in turbulent, volatile and in crisis environments. Specifically, it explores how the KM process mediates the relationship between KM and the outcomes above. A comparative predictive analysis is also conducted to demonstrate the relevance of the KM process in the proposed model.

The present study sample consists of 118 Spanish organizations that have received recognition for excellent management, awarded by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). Using the partial least squares technique through variance-based structural equation modeling as a methodology to validate the research model, evaluate the established hypotheses and analyze the model's predictive power, it is shown that organizations that enhance CD through CCM improve outcomes for the organization’s customers and staff. Furthermore, the predictive power improves when KMP mediates the relationship between CD and these outcomes.

The study contributes to improving the understanding of the literature on the relationships between CD, KM and management outcomes, which does not establish a clear consensus. Moreover, it does so innovatively through the dimensions that define these constructs or variables. It considers the stages of knowledge creation, storage, transfer and application as components of KM and the capabilities of sensing, learning, integration and coordination as components of CD.

The increased complexity of economic, environmental and social systems leads to crises, uncertainty and risk becoming common issues worldwide. Sustainability, resilience and purpose are concepts that resonate within organizational management and individually explain how organizations can achieve long-term prosperity. However, there is a lack of a framework that presents how these three concepts are related and effectively merged for long-term corporate survival. To close this gap, the paper by Florez-Jimenez, Lleo, Danvila-del-Valle and Sánchez-Marín proposes a framework that relates corporate sustainability, organizational resilience and corporate purpose (SRP). This framework shows that the relationship between SRP is cyclical rather than linear; pairs of concepts have a two-way relationship. Corporations with a shared purpose bring stakeholders together and ensure resilience, but resilience also impacts purpose since it focuses on the ability to shape change and permits an organization to integrate with the systems within which it is embedded and keep its purpose alive. Additionally, organizational resilience impacts organizational sustainability. A resilient organization permits corporations to be ready to face the complexity of social, environmental and economic systems and maintain sustainability. The impact also exists in the opposite way since sustainability implies considering stakeholders' interests, enabling organizations to anticipate challenges and investing in preventing risk and crisis. Furthermore, it was observed that sustainability should be integrated into the corporate purpose, that corporate purpose directly affects organizational sustainability and that sustainability also impacts corporate purpose. When sustainability is part of the organizational purpose, it permits stakeholder identification with the corporate purpose and translates into positive behaviors that support the organization's sustainability. This sustainability yields an abundance of resources, such as financial and human capital, needed for purpose continuity. This framework helps managers, professionals, researchers, consultants and business leaders better understand how SRP are related, prioritize initiatives and devise operative methodologies to help organizations achieve long-term prosperity.

In the rapidly evolving field of management education, it has become critical for business schools to prepare future leaders to deal with crises. The article by Lobre-Lebraty and Heimann studies the effectiveness of integrating moral and economic imperatives in sustainable management education (SME) to teach a generation of leaders capable of responsibly managing crises. Central to the study is the implementation of a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) stock-picking simulation designed for SME contexts and to remind students of the two imperatives necessary for sustainable decision-making.

Through an original experimental design included in the SRI simulation and involving 127 finance graduate students over 12 weeks, the article empirically studies the impact of integrating moral and economic reminders on students' investment decisions, particularly in terms of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria incorporation into their portfolios.

The findings highlight the need to balance between moral and economic considerations, revealing that students have the most sustainable portfolios when they are simultaneously exposed to reminders of both imperatives. The article thus illustrates how confronting students with the inherent tensions between moral and economic imperatives improves their learning of responsible management practices, which is essential to educate managers who can responsibly address the complexities of a crisis.

The article contributes uniquely to the literature by empirically demonstrating the effects of SME practices on students' actual investment behaviors, a novel approach in management decision studies. Drawing on insights from “behavioural sciences and introducing an innovative teaching resource that has moral and economic imperatives, the article provides valuable implications for the design and execution of SME.”

The paper by Martorell Cunill, Otero, Durán Santomil and Gil Lafuente, investigates empirical evidence regarding various expansion strategies and their impact on operational and economic performance within the international hotel industry. It explores questions regarding which expansion strategies yield superior performance, the effects of diversification and how factors such as size, quality, service offerings, location and seasonality interact with performance.

The study analyzes data from 255 individual-level hotels using panel data and quantile regression methods with a particular focus on the management of expansion strategies and crisis situations. Findings suggest that the equity strategy (own hotels) tends to outperform non-equity strategies (hotels under rental, franchise and management contracts) at the operational level. However, the economic return of owned properties is lower due to higher investment requirements. Related diversification in food and beverage services negatively impacts performance, particularly questioning synergies between businesses and, even more, in crisis situations. An exception is observed among hotels offering all-inclusive services, especially in the Caribbean, which achieve better occupancy rates and stability. Limitations include a lack of consideration for hotel property revaluation effects and the absence of information on competition levels and sales seasonality.

The research by Cárdenas-Muñoz, Rubio-Andrada and Segovia-Pérez, aims to determine key behaviors for efficiently identifying and developing employee talent in a crisis context. It addresses the relationship between learning agility and job crafting and how this connection enhances performance and adaptability in talent management. By analyzing behaviors that score highest on both scales, the study enables HR professionals to efficiently identify developmental behaviors necessary for acquiring the versatile talent required by companies and professionals in the future.

Data are collected from business professionals in Spain using a questionnaire that integrates the learning agility scale and the Spanish job crafting scale. Factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analyses are employed with 126 valid responses.

In an ever-changing environment, continuous employee adaptation is critical for business survival. The research identifies learning agility as a key construct that companies must foster to impact job crafting and manage crises. The association between learning agility and job crafting is demonstrated, predicting increased employability during times of crisis.

This study provides a multidimensional instrument for HR departments to recruit and develop talent, preparing employees to face future challenges and ensuring adequate performance and sustainable environmental impact, even in times of crisis.

One limitation is that it is exclusively conducted in Spanish companies, so future research is needed in other countries and industries to explore the findings in different contexts. This study offers valuable guidance for companies and business schools on where to focus learning and training plans, especially in a scenario of uncertainty caused by artificial intelligence and the evolving professional landscape.

The paper by Sánchez-Franco and Rey-Tienda provides an in-depth analysis of how User-Generated Content (UGC) influences the decision-making processes of tourists, signifying a considerable shift driven by the digital revolution in information exchange. They explore the critical role of understanding research questions, essential for enhancing the reputation and competitiveness of hospitality services. The methodology combines innovative analytical techniques, namely Natural Language Processing (NLP), advanced data visualization and machine learning algorithms to address the crisis of an overwhelming volume of unstructured data from guest reviews. They employ tools like Scattertext, Shifterator and Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF). Notably, NMF analysis brings the unique advantages of topic modeling, yielding a more comprehensive understanding that complements the insights provided by ScatterText and Shifterator. NMF allows us to identify prevailing themes and subtopics within guest narratives, thus gaining a deeper insight into customer sentiment and preferences. Moreover, the study conducts a segmentation analysis to assess the varying perceptions of different traveler types, i.e. how diverse tourist groups perceive and interact with hospitality services, offering a multifaceted view of the industry. Such an approach not only adds depth to the study but also informs targeted marketing strategies and service improvements. The implications of these findings are significant for crisis control, management and business continuity in the hospitality sector, as they can inform real-time business decisions, improve the guest experience and enhance competitive advantage.

Beyond its relevance to the tourism and hospitality sector, the study significantly contributes to marketing theory. It highlights consumer behavior and decision-making processes in a tourism context and suggests innovative approaches for improving service quality and standards in the tourism industry, with substantial implications for public policy. In conclusion, the research lays a strong foundation for future exploration in tourism and marketing, representing a notable advancement in these fields.