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Inmate public auto­erotism and hostile work environments: an examination of federal cases. Journal of Crime and Justice, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2020.1795902 Yildiz, B., & Alpkan, L. (2015). A theoretical model on the proposed predictors of destructive deviant workplace behaviors and the mediator role of alienation. Proce­dia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,210, 330-338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.373 Zhang, P., Li, S., Liu, W., Han, Y., & Muhammad, N. A. (2018). Exploring the role of moral disengagement in the link between perceived narcissistic supervision and employees’ organizational deviance: A moderated mediation model. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 21(4), 223-236. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12323 Hussein Hurajah Al Hasnawi: I have a master’s degree from the University of AL-Qadisiyah, College of Administration and Economics in the field of production and operations management in the year 2005. I have also obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Kerbala, College of Administration and Economics in the field of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management in 2015. I currently work at the University of Kerbala, College of Administration and Economics in the Business Administration Department. I have taught many subjects in my specialty, as well as in other specialties. I also have taught Human Resources Management, Knowledge Management, Strategic Information Systems, and Quality Management in postgraduate studies (Masters and Ph.D.). I have numerous research papers published in local and international journals. Ali Abdulhassan Abbas: I have a master’s degree from the University of Karbala College of Administration and Economics in the field of Production Management and Operations in the year 2005. I have also obtained a Ph.D. from Karbala University, College of Administration and Economics in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management in 2014. I currently work at Karbala University, College of Administration and Economics in the Accounting Department. I have taught many subjects in my specific area, as well as in other areas. I have also taught Financial Management for postgraduate studies. I have translated 4 books on business administration into Arabic. I have numerous research papers published in local and international journals. Poštnina placana pri pošti 4102 Kranj Journal of Management, Informatics and Human Resources ISSN 1318-5454 Volume 54, Issue 4, November 2021 Revija za management, informatiko in kadre Organizacija (Journal of Management, Informatics and Human Resources) is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal which is open to contributions of high quality, from any perspective relevant to the organizational phenomena. The journal is designed to encourage interest in all matters relating to organizational sciences and is intended to ap­peal to both the academic and professional community. In particular, journal publishes original articles that advance the empirical, theoretical, and methodological understand­ing of the theories and concepts of management and or­ganization. The journal welcomes contributions from other scientific disciplines that encourage new conceptualiza­tions in organizational theory and management practice. We welcome different perspectives of analysis, including the organizations of various sizes and from various branch­es, units that constitute organizations, and the networks in which organizations are embedded. Topics are drawn, but not limited to the following areas: • organizational theory, management, development, and organizational behaviour; • human resources management (such as organization & employee development, leadership, value creation through HRM, workplace phenomena etc.); • managerial and entrepreneurial aspects of education; • business information systems (such as digital business, decision support systems, business analytics etc.); • enterprise engineering (e.g., organizational design, business process management, enterprise transformation paradigms etc.); • papers that analyse and seek to improve organizational performance. Organizacija (Revija za management, informatiko in cloveške vire) je interdisciplinarna recenzirana revija, ki objavlja visoko kakovostne prispevke z vseh vidikov, ki so pomembni za organizacijske procese in strukture. Revija je zasnovana tako, da spodbuja zanimanje za razlicne vidike v zvezi z organizacijskimi vedami in je namenjena tako akademski kot strokovni skupnosti. Revija objavlja izvirne clanke, ki spodbujajo empiricno, teoreticno in metodološko razumevanje teorij in konceptov managementa in organizacije. Pozdravljamo tudi prispevke iz drugih znanstvenih disciplin, ki spodbujajo nove koncepte v organizacijski teoriji in praksi. Objavljamo clanke, ki analizirajo organiziranost z razlicnih vidikov, so usmerjeni na organizacije razlicnih velikosti in iz razlicnih sektorjev, na enote, ki sestavljajo organizacije, in na mreže, v katere so organizacije vpete. Teme so pokrivajo predvsem naslednja podrocja: • organizacijska teorija, upravljanje, razvoj in organizacijsko vedenje; • management cloveških virov (kot so organizacija in razvoj zaposlenih, vodenje, ustvarjanje vrednosti s pomocjo cloveških virov, organizacijski pojavi na delovnem mestu itd.); • vodstveni in podjetniški vidiki izobraževanja; • poslovni informacijski sistemi (kot so digitalno poslovanje, sistemi za podporo odlocanju, poslovna analitika itd.); • podjetniški inženiring (npr. organizacijsko oblikovanje, upravljanje poslovnih procesov, paradigme preoblikovanja podjetij itd.); • clanki, ki analizirajo organizacijsko uspešnost in prizadevanja za izboljšanje le-te. 255 Iztok PODBREGAR In Memoriam: Dr Jožef Ovsenik Olfat GANJI BIDMESHK, Mohammad MEHRAEEN, Alireza POOYA, Yaghoob MAHARATI Anja ŽNIDARŠIC, Alenka BAGGIA, Antonín PAVLÍCEK, Jakub FISCHER, Maciej ROSTANSKI, Borut WERBER Vasja ROBLEK, Maja MEŠKO, Iztok PODBREGAR Maryam BABAEI AGHBOLAGH, Farzad Sattari ARDABILI, Elena VOITENKO Hebah Suliman ALFARAJAT, Okechukwu Lawrence EMEAGWALI Hussein Hurajah ALHASNAWI, Ali Abdulhassan ABBAS The FunCaps Framework: Reconceptualizing Operational Alignment Are we Ready to Use Microchip Implants? An International Cross-sectional Study Mapping of the Emergence of Society 5.0: A Bibliometric Analysis Content Analysis of Gossip at Different Levels of a Hospital Antecedents of Service Innovative Behavior: The Role of Spiritual Leadership and Workplace Spirituality Narcissistic Leadership and Workplace Deviance: a Moderated Mediation Model of Organizational Aggression and Workplace Hostility 256 275 293 306 320 334 RESEARCH PAPERS EDITOR / UREDNIK Jože Zupancic University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciencies, Slovenia CO-EDITORS / SOUREDNIKI Petr Doucek Prague University of Economics, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, Czech Republic Matjaž Maletic University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciencies, Slovenia Wlodzimierz Sroka WSB University, Department of Management, Dabrowa Górnicza, Poland EDITORIAL BOARD / UREDNIŠKI ODBOR REVIJE Hossein Arsham, University of Baltimore, USA Franc Cuš, University of Maribor, Slovenia Sasha M. Dekleva DePaul University, School of Accountancy and MIS, Chichago, USA Vlado Dimovski, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Daniel C. Ganster, Colorado State University, USA Jože Gricar, University of Maribor, Slovenia Werner Jammernegg Viena University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria Marius Alexander Janson, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA Stefan Klein, University of Münster, Germany Aleksandar Markovic, University of Belgrade, Serbia Hermann Maurer, Technical University Graz, Austria Matjaž Mulej, University of Maribor, Slovenia Valentinas Navickas, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania Ota Novotny, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic Milan Pagon, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), Dhaka, Bangladesh Björn Paape, RWTH-Technical University Aachen, Germany Matjaž Perc University of Maribor, Slovenia Dušan Petrac, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA Nataša Petrovic University of Belgrade, Serbia Tetyana Pimonenko, Sumy State University, Balatsky Academic and Scientific Institute of Finance, Economics and Management, Ukraine Hans Puxbaum, Vienna University of Technology, Austria Vladislav Rajkovic, University of Maribor, Slovenia Gábor Rekettye, University of Pécs, Hungary Henk G. Sol, Faculy of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Netherlands Eugene Semenkin Reshetnev Siberian State University of Science and Technology, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation Velimir Srica, University of Zagreb, Croatia Paula Swatman, University of Tasmania, Australia Brian Timney, The University of Western Ontario, Canada Maurice Yolles, Liverpool John Moores University, UK Douglas R. Vogel, Harbin Institute of Technology-HIT, School of Management, China Gerhard Wilhelm Weber, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Stanislaw Wrycza, University of Gdansk, Poland Anna Lucyna Wziatek-Stasko, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland Yvonne Ziegler, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, Germany Hans-Dieter Zimmermann, FSH St. Gallen University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0017 In Memoriam There recently passed away the esteemed fellow scientist and teacher Dr Jožef Ovsenik. We have lost a distinguished profes­sor, a tireless researcher of organization and management, well known and respected at home and abroad. We knew him as a man who, despite more than forty years of disability, was full of creative spirit. Dr Jožef Ovsenik was born 85 years ago in the village Predoslje near Kranj in Slovenia. After high school in Kranj, he enrolled at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, where he graduated and obtained his master’s degree under the mentorship of Prof Filip Lipovec, and received his PhD from the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor, under the men­torship of Prof Zdravko Kaltnekar. After graduation, he took a job at the Productivity Institute in Ljubljana at the invitation of its then-director. Later, at the invitation of its management, he got a job at the College of Work Organization as a senior lecturer. He participated in the process of transforming the College into the Faculty of Organizational Sciences at the University of Maribor. In 1980, he suffered a stroke, leaving him 100 percent disabled. The stroke, however, did not paralyze him. He actively con­tinued his in-depth pioneering research of the philosophy and theory of organization. Regardless of his disability, his bibliography, mostly scientific articles and monographs, comprises over a hundred published works. His final monograph entitled Planetary Awakening, where he actualizes the issue of organizational thought and suggests the challenges of further evolution of life is about to be published. All his work reflects the belief that organization is a complex system—something he understood at the highest level, while analytically unravelling the importance of small details. Dr. Jožef Ovsenik was a philosopher of organizational theory. He studied human work and organisation, phenomena that, he believed, form an interwoven, coherent whole. He analysed relationships and interpreted the meaning of a relationship-based organisation. He stressed that the Cartesian paradigm has economically and socially disastrous consequences for human life in the ecosystem. He was challenged by the scientific insight into the algorithm of how humans reflect on their action. He defined the concept of human work through seven theses and interpreted it in terms of how humans reflect on their behaviour in the process of action. His philosophical interpretation of the dimension of human action led him to the question of the concept of self-organ­isation. He further reflected on the promotion of creativity by using the sinusoidal model of human action. Thus, he was oriented towards the study of new horizons of human and organisational sciences in the context of a new holistic paradigm, or a new human science. His research affirmed a new understanding of organization in the direction of a tri-valent recognition of awareness with triple points of convergence. These require the modernization of an organization by way of a developing awareness of how it operates as well as a creative and ongoing exploration of this phenomenon, with the aim of preventing the crises brought on by modern times. He pointed out that organizational theory of the second half of the 20th century narrows our understanding of organizations and focuses primarily on the organization as a group of people established to achieve common goals and on the internal organizational structure of positions of power. In the current crisis, which is leading the world to zero economic growth, he drew attention to the problem of awareness, a factor still permeated by 17th-century Cartesian thought. The exploration of mentally active human awareness in relation to the principle of the all-embracing organization present throughout the living world suggests possible growth towards perfecting the organization as a creative subject, supported by Aurobind’s Alternative Hypothesis with Involution. Dr. Ovsenik was constantly engaged by human relationships as exemplifying the basis of an organization that brings holistic success - not only at the level of profit, but also at the level of personal and professional growth. He saw the nature of human work in a whole new way; namely, he claimed that the focus of human activity is obviously far more intense in areas that are intellectual, spiritual and non-material than in those involving the mere physical processing of objects of work. Undoubtedly, Dr Jožef Ovsenik was an in-depth scientist and Slovenia’s first philosopher of organizational theory. The Faculty of Organizational Sciences has more than 60 years of tradition in research in the field of organizational sciences. Outstanding researchers and personalities contributed to the rich development and study, where Dr Jožef Ovsenik occupies a unique and lasting place of honor. Few researchers on the field of organization and management at the University of Maribor had the honour of knowing Dr. Jožef Ovsenik and of personally experiencing his greatness. As for me, I will never forget our personal discussions during breaks at the Conferences of Organizational Sciences in Portorož: he steered me to think about forms of work and the role of man in situations that at the time sounded unimaginable, visionary. Many of these “visionary” solutions have since been verified and are nowadays taken as common coin. But when Dr Ovsenik first presented his reflections, such thinking concerning crises and uncertainties was unprecedented. Now he has bequeathed his thoughts and ideas to other researchers who are working to develop them for the progress and wellbeing of future generations. Prof Dr Iztok Podbregar, Dean DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0018 The FunCaps Framework: Reconceptualizing Operational Alignment Olfat GANJI BIDMESHK1,2, Mohammad MEHRAEEN1,3*, Alireza POOYA1, Yaghoob MAHARATI1 1 Department of Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran, olfat.ganjibidmeshk@mail.um.ac.ir, m-lagzian@um.ac.ir (*corresponding author), alirezapooya@um.ac.ir, maharati@um.ac.ir 2 Department of Management Information Systems, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Van­couver, Canada 3 Department of Information Systems, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada Background and purpose: Operational alignment, the alignment between business processes (BPs) and infor­mation systems (ISs), is a well-acknowledged requirement for improving business efficiency. However, a lack of sound foundation for the practical implementation of operational alignment remains in the existing literature. This is, in part, because previously developed coarse-grained strategic alignment models for operational alignment have overlooked the differences between strategic and operational levels of alignment. Additionally, while some studies have recognized these differences, they remain limited. This is partly due to their negligence of the IS’s socio-tech­nical nature or their focus on identifying the social antecedents and their effect on operational alignment, without considering how ISs meet the business requirements in achieving operational alignment. To overcome this potential lack of applicability, the purpose of this paper is to determine the right level of abstraction for describing BPs and ISs and reconceptualizing operational alignment. Methodology: This paper conducts empirical research using a grounded theory (GT), centering on semi-structured interviews with 28 experts involved in the Iranian top public universities. Data were analyzed by using MAXQDA software. Results: The resulting FunCaps framework specifies the required combinations of BP functions and IS capabilities for operational alignment. Conclusion: FunCaps reconceptualizes operational alignment based on operational planning and reciprocal inte­gration and establishes the broader picture by considering an IS as a socio-technical system. Keywords: Operational alignment, information system, business process, socio-technical system, grounded theory 1 Introduction In the study of information system (IS), it is essential to move from silo to system thinking to achieve ISs and business alignment and improve business efficiency. The IS was considered a separate department of a business, before the 1970s, that did not share the same priorities, goals, or tools with the other departments (Luftman et al. 2017). As a result, the IS department operated as an in­dividual business entity and was viewed solely as a cost for the business (Kappelman et al. 2019). As long as the functions of IS were only maintenance and processing of the records and documents, the silo thinking did not lead to major challenges (Karpovsky and Galliers 2015). Howev­er, challenges emerge when competition increases, and as such, efficiency becomes vital for the business. Businesses must move from silo thinking to systems thinking (Bagheri et al. 2019) to improve business efficiency. Systems think­ing is a holistic approach focused on how the departments in a business and their constituents work together efficient­ly over time. As a result, system thinking necessitates the alignment of business and ISs, as the business constituents, at both strategic and operational levels (Hinkelmann et al. 2016). To achieve business-IS alignment, we need to realize alignment at both strategic and operational levels. Strate­gic alignment refers to aligning IS strategies with business strategies and helps meet future IS needs of the business (Levstek et al. 2018). Operational alignment investigates the alignment of ISs with the business by ensuring the ef­fectiveness and efficiency of ISs in supporting daily busi­ness operations (Zhou et al. 2018). Additionally, while strategic alignment focuses on “What should be done?” (Henderson and Venkatraman 1993), operational align­ment is rooted in answering “How to perform activities?” (Gerow et al. 2016). As such, alignment is not achieved unless it is realized at both strategic and operational levels (Renaud et al. 2016). Business-IS alignment, at both levels (strategic and operational), has been a main concern of the information technology (IT) leaders since 1984 (Kappelman et al. 2018). Similarly, CIOs at top public universities (TPUs) in Iran remain concerned about the alignment of IS and business process (BP) (hereafter operational alignment). TPUs are leading universities in developing IT/IS capabil­ities. Despite CIOs’ desire for the practical implementation of the existing models and frameworks at TPUs, they are limited in efficient and effective achievement of operation­al alignment. Therefore, operational alignment remains an open problem for the CIOs at the TPUs. The concern in achieving operational alignment relates to (1) adaptation of the approaches in strategic alignment for operational alignment and (2) limitations of existing approaches specific for achieving operational alignment. Firstly, while the strategic level is coarse-grained, the op­erational level is fine-grained. Therefore, in the adaptation of alignment approaches at the strategic level, high-level strategic concepts must be converted into precise, well-de­fined, and low-level operational concepts. Secondly, al­though only a handful of the extensive previous studies on business-IS alignment have considered the differenc­es between strategic and operational levels of alignment (Malshe et al. 2017), they remain limited in their appli­cability to operational alignment. The existing approaches that have used modeling languages (MLs) to link models in BPs and software systems (SSs) (e.g., Aversano et al. 2016; Li et al. 2015; Kraiem et al. 2014) should be im­proved for achieving operational alignment. Because these studies do not consider SS as a socio-technical system, and yet IS, not considered by MLs, is a sociotechnical system. The remainder of the handful of approaches that have con­sidered the differences between strategic and operational alignment are limited because they do not consider how ISs meet business requirements in achieving operational alignment. Instead, they are focused on identifying social antecedents (e.g., communication) and their effect on the operational alignment (e.g., Wagner et al. 2014; Zhou et al. 2018; Bagheri et al. 2019). The right abstraction level must be used to identify what to include and what to exclude in achieving operational alignment in order to address the limitations of the existing approaches. Abstraction is the process in which some features are chosen to be presented while some are rejected (Kaul et al. 2017). The right level of abstraction, here, means that abstraction must (1) con­sider the differences between the strategic and operational levels of alignment and translate high-level strategic con­cepts into low-level operational concepts, (2) consider IS as a socio-technical system, and (3) consider how ISs meet business requirements. The issues mentioned above necessitate further re­search to determine: Research Question: What is the right level of abstrac­tion to describe BPs and ISs for achieving operational alignment? Here, we used Grounded theory (GT) as a bottom-up approach to scrutinize operational alignment. GT starts from fine-grained elements and classifies them to form coarse-grained dimensions. As a result, using GT, we will achieve a higher-level abstraction without missing low­er-level details and elicit the socio-technical aspect of op­erational alignment. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the approaches used in the previous research on busi­ness-IS alignment and the research gap. Section 3 explains the use of GT as a research method. Section 4 presents the results of the analysis and coding of the data. Section 5 po­sitions the results of this research in the relevant literature and integrates the results with related model. And, Section 6 discusses the limitations of the study and presents some suggestions for future studies. 2 Literature review Business-IS alignment is an extensively studied topic (Zhou et al. 2018). This section reviews the approaches in the previous literature on business-IS alignment and their research gap. 2.1 Approaches used in the previous research on business-IS alignment The approaches used in the existing studies are cate­gorized into two main categories: (1) approaches that aim to achieve strategic alignment and (2) approaches that aim to achieve operational alignment. We explained selected studies on two main categories in Appendix A. 2.2 Research gap 2.2.1 Approaches at the strategic level Challenges in existing approaches at the strategic level of alignment are rooted in the level of planning and the direction of integration (Grover and Lyytinen 2015). Ex­isting literature at the strategic level is based on strategic planning, while the realization of operational alignment is contingent upon operational planning (Malshe et al. 2017). Strategic planning aims to answer the questions: “Where does the organization want to be in the future?” and “How will organizational vision, mission, and objectives be reached?”. In contrast, operational planning supports stra­tegic planning to meet organizational goals (Schwarz et al. 2010). In terms of the direction of integration, the direc­tion of integration in strategic alignment is sequential or reciprocal, while the direction of integration in operational alignment is reciprocal (Rahimi et al. 2016). Sequential in­tegration is one-way planning of business; in other words, IS focuses primarily on providing business support. Re­ciprocal integration refers to two-way planning with a re­ciprocal and interdependent relationship between business and IS, where IS plays a role in supporting and influenc­ing business (Teo and King 1997). To achieve operational alignment, we must consider the (1) distinctions between the two levels of planning (strategic and operational) and (2) reciprocal integration. Our detailed literature review on business-IS align­ment at the strategic level showed that proposed models and frameworks are influenced by the strategic level of planning and place a low priority on the reciprocal integra­tion between BPs and ISs. Concerning strategic planning, these models demonstrate the required actions to achieve strategic alignment. These actions are based on long-term objectives dependent on fluctuating environmental condi­tions and various internal organizational factors (Bergeron et al. 2004). Therefore, models and frameworks at the stra­tegic level are high-level concepts, and not generalizable to operational alignment, based on operational planning and short-term objectives. In terms of reciprocal integration, the models and frameworks for strategic alignment place a low priority on the interplay between BPs and ISs, which is a higher priority for achieving alignment at the opera­tional level (Renaud et al. 2016). According to Pantazi and Georgopoulos (2006), operational alignment is based on a two-way relationship and reciprocal integration, which means that ISs not only facilitate and support the success­ful implementation of BPs but also increase the agility and flexibility of BPs in conformity with the environmental dynamic. In summary, both the development of ISs based on BPs and the fulfilment of BPs according to ISs, play a crucial role in operational alignment (Trang et al. 2021). However, most of the existing models and frameworks do not take the differences between strategic and operational planning, and the reciprocal integration between BPs and ISs, into account and, therefore, there remains a need for further investigation to realize operational alignment (Ko­tusev, 2020). 2.2.2 Approaches at the operational level Existing literature at the operational level used one of two approaches: (1) using MLs to link models in BPs and SSs, and (2) focusing on identifying social antecedents and their effect on operational alignment. Studies using MLs to link models in BPs and SSs (e.g., Aversano et al. 2016; Li et al. 2015; Kraiem et al. 2014; Frankova et al. 2011) are commonly based on two fundamentally limiting premises: their focus is limited to SS, and they mainly draw from Strategic Alignment Model (SAM). The limited focus of previous studies of operational alignment implementation on SS gives rise to challenges for implementing their outcomes. The majority of exist­ing ML approaches have taken up operational alignment by linking models in BP with SS instead of with ISs. Bo­strom and Heinen (1977) argue that an IS consists of two interactive parts, namely, technical and social subsystems, where the technical subsystem includes technology, arti­facts, processes, tasks, procedures, and physical environ­ment, and the social subsystem comprises elements such as structure and people (with their viewpoints, behaviours, and relationships) (Bostrom and Heinen 1977). According to the socio-technical system (STS) theory, although tech­nical and social subsystems are closely interrelated, they are intrinsically distinct. Technical subsystems aim to at­tain specified performance parameters. Social subsystems, however, are dependent on humans with unpredictable be­haviours. Technical subsystems traditionally dominate the investigation of systems and focus on the technical aspect of SSs without considering the social aspects. Yet, in con­trast to SS, IS is a socio-technical system (Walker et al. 2008). Thus, the emerging approaches using MLs should consider IS as a socio-technical system to improve their applicability in achieving operational alignment. Besides, most ML approaches build on SAM. Accord­ing to Renaud et al. (2016), SAM is grounded in assump­tions that are recognized as no longer valid and hence must be updated by reconceptualizing its dimensions. Others have challenged Henderson and Venkatraman’s (1993) valuable model (i.e., SAM) due to its three possible major shortcomings depending on (1) the true nature of organiza­tional strategy, (2) the performativity of the model, and (3) managerial rationality and redundancy of organizational members (Renaud et al. 2016). The first challenge is that SAM takes a managerial and top-down approach in which IS strategy or business strategy is intended exclusively for an elite group within the organization (Renaud et al. 2016). SAM does not emphasize the importance of the stream of Strategy as Practice (SaP). SaP defines strategy as some­thing for which actors are responsible and is not simply the content or the action plan resulting from a decision. Instead, SaP breaks away from conventional literature on the strategy that focuses primarily on top managers and challenges the notion that only one elite group within an organization can act strategically (Renaud et al. 2016). Secondly, SAM is an abstract “black box” that may not reflect its corresponding environmental complexity. As a result, SAM might overlook the organizational reality, and managers might face difficulty in effectively appropriating its dimensions (Avison et al. 2004). Renaud et al. (2016) later also pinpointed that due to SAM’s high level of ab­straction, it might lack an approximate representation of practical reality. Finally, SAM’s is virtually designed ex­clusively for top managers. This model presumes that if the managers follow the model’s rational prescriptions, or­ganizational performance should improve (but often does not) (Renaud et al. 2016). Moreover, SAM emphasizes the technical aspect and underestimates the importance of the social aspect of the IS because of its theoretical abstrac­tions. Interestingly, at the time of the SAM model’s initial proposal, an IS was hardly considered a socio-technical system (Renaud et al. 2016). Today, however, studies find that ISs, users, and organizations are intrinsically embed­ded and interrelated since each of them shapes the others. Hence, emerging approaches need to consider SaP, low level of abstraction, and, similar to the abovementioned, consider IS as a socio-technical system to address the lim­itations of SAM and improve the applicability of MLs for achieving operational alignment. Finally, the studies of operational alignment that focus on social antecedents overlook the need for a multi-dimen­sional understanding of operational alignment and how the ISs meet business requirements. Firstly, alignment must be assessed with a multi-dimensional model (Hanson et al. 2011). Our assessment of the existing literature, focused on identifying social antecedents and their effect on op­erational alignment (e.g., Wagner et al. 2014; Zhou et al. 2018; Bagheri et al. 2019), shows that these studies are particularly focused on the social antecedents and did not consider the other antecedents (i.e., dimensions) of opera­tional alignment. Additionally, these studies consider how social antecedents affect operational alignment, regardless of how ISs meet business requirements. Therefore, there is a need for approaches that not only consider operational alignment as a multi-dimensional concept but also empha­size how ISs meet the business requirements in achieving operational alignment. Consequently, the discussed shortcomings of the two fundamental premises of ML approaches and approaches considering only the social antecedents result in limita­tions in their applicability for achieving operational align­ment. In this study, we posit that the underlying rationale for these limitations stems from the conceptualization of operational alignment and empirical methodology. Given the research gap mentioned above, we use a bottom-up approach to reconceptualize operational alignment, where elements and dimensions of operational alignment are ex­plored, and the reality and practice at the operational level are different from that of the strategic level. 3 Research methodology 3.1 Grounded Theory and approaches In this study, we used GT to determine the right lev­el of abstraction for describing BPs and ISs in achieving operational alignment. GT is a qualitative research meth­odology, which transcends survey and content analysis techniques by using conceptualization (Lings and Lundell 2005). GT is based on a bottom-up approach and focuses on answering questions like “What is going on in an area of research?” by generating formal or substantive theory (Corbin and Strauss 2008). Although GT has been initially used in social studies, it is also a useful method for a wide range of IS field topics (Wiesche et al. 2017). There are two main reasons for selecting GT as the most appropri­ate research methodology for conducting this study. First­ly, GT has a high capacity for exploring and interpreting complex and multifaceted phenomena (Corbin and Strauss 2008), such as operational alignment with multiple dimen­sions and elements. Secondly, this research considers an IS to be a socio-technical system. GT enables the disentan­glement of the social processes underlying human inter­actions (Glaser and Holton 2007) and, therefore, is best suited for studying issues with a socio-technical nature. We used an emergent approach in this study. The emergent approach is flexible and unstructured. In the case that the previous studies are insufficient, the emergent ap­proach extracts a theory from the data rather than imposing a theory on the data (Glaser and Holton 2007). We used the emergent approach for two main reasons. Firstly, this approach is instrumental in constructing a novel perspec­tive on a well-known area (Stern 1994), which was our research goal. Secondly, the emergent approach is suitable where the work is not driven by a hypothesis up-front and the goal of the study is to establish a conceptual frame­work grounded in data (Glaser and Holton 2004). In this research, we did not predefine assumptions; we investigat­ed participants’ main concerns in operational alignment to discover how they can be resolved. Here, we used the emergent approach to obtain a new perspective on oper­ational alignment and establish a conceptual framework grounded in data. 3.2 The empirical context We conducted this study at top public universities (TPUs) in Iran for the following reasons. First and foremost, TPUs have a long-standing need for operational alignment and CIOs are concerned about operational alignment. Sec­ondly, TPUs meet the foundational requirements for oper­ational alignment investigation and implementation as (1) TPUs are leaders among universities in the Middle East in developing IT/IS capabilities and (2) TPUs widely use ISs at various levels and have effective BP management. De­partments of BPs and ISs at TPUs are separate, with each having independent plans and responsibilities. As a result, TPUs not only have the need for operational alignment but also meet the foundational requirements for the implemen­tation of operational alignment. Therefore, exploration of the elements and dimensions for appropriate actualization of operational alignment is facilitated at TPUs. 3.3 Sampling and data collection To carry out this study, we targeted experts in the field of business-IS alignment. Initially, we contacted a few ex­perts familiar with business-IS alignment via email and phone to seek their consent for participation. To identify more qualified experts, we employed snowball sampling, which is a method of expanding the sample by asking one informant or participant to recommend others for inter­viewing (Stern 1994). Furthermore, due to (1) business-IS alignment being multifaceted (different antecedents related to different fields) and (2) data triangulation being neces­sary in qualitative research (Corbin and Strauss 2008), we selected the experts from different fields (i. e., IS, BP, and operational alignment) and groups. We categorized experts into either academic researchers or managers and senior experts (i.e., policymakers in both IS and BP). The man­agers and senior experts are individuals who have respon­sibilities in five different sectors at the TPUs (1) learning, (2) administrative and financial affairs, (3) planning and development resources, (4) research, and (5) the cultural, social, and student area. The most appropriate data collection method in GT is semi-structured interviewing (Glaser and Holton 2007), which we employed in the present study. Based on theo­retical sampling in GT, we performed 28 semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Theoretical sampling is non-proba­ble, purposive, and subject to the researchers’ judgment (Glaser and Hon 2005). The basic approach of theoretical sampling is to identify the new groups or subgroups that should be chosen for the next stage of data collection (Gla­ser 2008) to fill the emergent gaps in the theory during the coding process (Glaser and Holton 2004). 3.4 Data analysis We analyzed data using the coding process of the emergent approach based on substantive coding (open and selective) and theoretical coding. Substantive and theo­retical coding are not distinct stages in the interpretation process; rather, they are different ways to work with the textual data that the researchers may dislocate or integrate. The interpretation process begins with open coding and uses selective and theoretical coding during the final steps of analysis. In terms of tool support, we used MAXQDA 10, a powerful computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (Schonfelder 2011), to analyze and manage the GT-required steps. 4 Results 4.1 Open coding During the open coding step, we extracted open codes and concepts. At first, we obtained 321 open codes. Then, we categorized open codes by their similarities and differ­ences. We extracted and organized 106 concepts by do­main: 45 concepts in the BP domain and 61 concepts in the IS domain. 4.2 Selective coding We filtered, separated, unified, and regulated the re­sulted concepts from open coding during the selective cod­ing step. This was achieved by reducing the initial number of codes to an explanatory framework of high-level cat­egories (i.e., dimensions). We selected dimension names based on in vivo code matching that uses the interviewees’ statements to ensure close support of the findings by the data. In addition, the name of a dimension was selected to connect the related or similar concepts. The dimensions, therefore, have higher conceptual strength than concepts because they link many of the concepts. Using selective coding, we categorized the 45 concepts identified in the BP domain into 11 dimensions and categorized 61 concepts in the IS domain into four dimensions. We describe each dimension obtained from selective coding in BP and IS do­mains in the following two sections. Hereafter, concepts are referred to as the “elements”, or constituents, of their respective identified dimension. 4.2.1 Dimensions in the BP domain The dimensions in the BP domain consist of the de­velopment of ISs to support each of the BP functions. BP functions are learning management, research manage­ment, strategic management, quality management, student services management, social and cultural management, communication management, assets management, human resource management (HRM), financial resource manage­ment, and information and communication technology (ICT) management. In the interest of conciseness, only one of the dimensions in the BP domain is explained here, described by a selected quotation from the interviewees. Dimension BP1: Development of ISs to support learn­ing management. In response to questions about the com­patibility of ISs with BPs, most respondents argued that it would not be possible to develop ISs without considering ISs in supporting the key learning management processes at the university (e. g., Expert E6). From their perspective, the use of ISs in the admin­istrative and teaching services, learning planning, admis­sion, learning assessment, and termination of study would improve services at the TPUs and provide the TPUs with adequate information for refining the decision outcomes concerning learning management. The development of a comprehensive learning pro­gram is dependent on the presence of activities such as the management of learning units, the planning of learn­ing activities and documentation, and the modification of learning regulations. In addition, ISs are instrumental in providing essential information for the fulfilment of these activities. (Expert E6) 4.2.2 Dimensions in the IS domain Dimensions derived from selective coding in the IS do­main include the development of BPs commensurate with the IS capabilities, namely strategic, management, knowl­edge-based, and operational capabilities. For brevity, only one of the dimensions in the IS domain is explained here and described by a selected quotation from the interview­ees. Dimension IS1: Development of BP commensurate with the strategic capabilities of IS. The majority of ex­perts argue that university processes should be designed by utilizing the IS’s strategic capabilities to create and im­prove strategic benefits (e. g., Expert E4). Strategic capabilities allow environmental assessments and analysis of the business for identifying long-term stra­tegic goals. For instance, collecting and processing various student data could identify a more effective and individ­ualized student learning processes. Strategic capabilities include flexible and diverse internal and external resources that would enable change, as well as timely availability of information to analyze environmental opportunities and threats for the business and the strengths and weaknesses of the business. In my opinion, the sustainable and competitive advan­tage of the university is contingent upon improving the design of the educational services to use the capabilities of the IS for reducing the current service costs and enhanc­ing service provisions. Further, we all know that university processes are continually changing due to environmental changes, and therefore, the flexibility of the ISs supports our ability to respond to these changing processes. (Expert E4) 4.3 Theoretical coding To develop the theoretical framework, we defined the main categories extracted from the coding steps and their relationships based on Glaser’s type family. The type fam­ily presents the main categories and their relationships based on their types, forms, kinds, and styles (Glaser 2008). In this regard, first, based on related literature, we identified the types of BP functions of the extracted dimen­sions in the BP domain (Section 4.3.1) and the types of IS capabilities of obtained dimensions in the IS domain (Sec­tion 4.3.2). Then, we reviewed all the memos generated throughout the study to relate and enrich the main catego­ries in the presented framework (Section 4.3.3). 4.3.1 Types of BP functions We categorized the BP functions in our study based on previous literature (Porter and Millar 1985; Bucher et al. 2009; Boguslauskas and Kvedaraviciene 2009). After we reviewed the open codes, concepts (elements), and catego­ries (dimensions) several times, we grouped BP functions into two main types: primary and support. The primary functions are defined as functions that focus on develop­ing products, distributing them, and offering after-sale ser­vices on products. In contrast, the support functions are defined as functions that provide inputs and infrastructure that enable the primary functions (Porter and Millar 1985). In comparison, management functions, business func­tions, and support functions are value-adding functions de­fined by Bucher et al. (2009) that can be paralleled to the Porter and Millar’s categorization of primary and support functions. In this categorization, management functions comprise all fundamental management activities dealing with an organization’s development, design, leadership, and control. Business functions are defined as functions that represent the actual execution of all market-side op­erations, focused on the immediate creation of consumer value. And finally, support functions are defined as func­tions that involve the infrastructure provision and internal services production, required for efficient and effective execution of the processes. Therefore, the primary func­tions defined by Porter and Miller (1985) are virtually the management and business functions as described by Bu­cher et al. (2009) because both management and business functions are focused on product development directly or indirectly. Specifically, while management functions indi­rectly contribute to consumer value, business functions are directly involved in this process as well as the develop­ment of the product, market-sided activities, and after-sale services. The support functions in the study of Bucher et al. (2009) are, in turn, equivalent to the support functions in the study of Porter and Miller (1985) because by both definitions, these are the functions that provide inputs and support the infrastructures for implementation of other functions. Finally, business functions can be categorized into core and non-core functions. Core business functions relate most directly to the basic business of the organization and represent the key organizational activities (Boguslauskas and Kvedaraviciene 2009). Therefore, core business func­tions are the critical business operation activities that an organization is founded on, and these functions are the main source of organizational profits and success. In com­parison, non-core business functions exist only to facilitate the business (Weerakkody et al. 2003). Thus, based on the discussed categorizations above (Porter and Millar 1985; Bucher et al. 2009; Boguslauskas and Kvedaraviciene 2009), in our study, the types of BP functions are primary and support functions, where prima­ry functions consist of management functions, core busi­ness functions, and non-core business functions. Appendix B shows the different types of BP functions. 4.3.2 Types of IS capabilities We categorized the IS capabilities in our study based on a four-level pyramid of ISs (O’Brien 2000) and STS theory (Bostrom and Heinen 1977). Regarding the four-level pyramid of ISs, this model identifies several ISs and links their capabilities to the four organizational lev­els: strategic, management, knowledge, and operational. In our study, we similarly described IS capabilities based on these four levels. ISs at the strategic level focus on stra­tegic issues and long-term trends. The ISs at the manage­ment level monitor, control, and make decisions to show how the organization is performing. ISs at the knowledge level create, distribute, and share knowledge. And the ISs at the operational level record initial activities and transac­tions of organizations. The STS theory considers an IS as a socio-technical system consisting of social and technical subsystems (Bo­strom and Heinen 1977) with four interacting components: (1) actor, (2) structure, (3) task, and (4) technology (Lyyt­inen and Newman 2008). (1) Actors are the entities (in­dividuals, organizations, consumers, policymakers, etc.) who make decisions and are involved in processes by performing different roles. (2) The structure includes both the normative aspect, that is, values, norms, and general role expectations, and the behavioural aspect, that is, the patterns of behaviour as actors communicate, exercise au­thority, or work. The structure covers one or more of three systems: the authority system, the workflow system, and the communication system. The authority system shows the required regulations, standards, and rules for facili­tating tasks. The workflow system is related to standard­ization for tasks. And the communication system refers to norms and patterns of behaviour in communication. (3) The task component elucidates how the work gets done within the organization. (4) Technology denotes technical infrastructure required, including network, hardware, and software (Lyytinen and Newman 2008). The interaction of the components is the actor doing (creating or performing) tasks associated with (producing or using) technology and connecting to (creating or under) a specific structure. Following the abovementioned studies (O’Brien 2000; Bostrom and Heinen 1977; Lyytinen and Newman 2008), we described types of IS capabilities based on four levels of ISs. We considered ISs at each level as a socio-technical system with its own components. Appendix C shows the different types of IS capabilities. 4.3.3 Relating BP functions and IS capabilities: FunCaps framework We reconceptualized operational alignment based on the main categories and their relationship in a novel “Func­tions and Capabilities (FunCaps) framework” to show the combinations of BP functions and IS capabilities that need to be aligned to achieve operational alignment. We stud­ied the open codes, concepts, dimensions, and types of BP functions and IS capabilities several times to identi­fy the main categories (the types of BP functions and IS capabilities) and their relationships. The main categories and their relationships surfaced to achieve the alignment between BP functions (primary and support) and IS ca­pabilities (strategic, management, knowledge-based, and operational). These main categories detect the conceptual relations that connect all higher-level dimensions and all elements and dimensions derived in the coding process re­fer to them. Finally, based on the main categories and their relationships, we reconceptualized operational alignment as shown in Figure 1. The FunCaps framework provides a visual framework to determine the combinations of BP functions and IS ca­pabilities that need to be aligned to achieve operational alignment (Figure 1). For instance, for alignment of core business functions and IS capabilities, learning manage­ment and research management need to be aligned with all four types of IS capabilities (strategic capabilities, man­agement capabilities, knowledge-based capabilities, and operational capabilities). 5 Discussion and integration with existing frameworks 5.1 Positioning the findings in foundational business-IS alignment terminologies We positioned our findings based on the four funda­mental considerations of business-IS alignment that other researchers have reached a consensus on, despite the dif­ferences in terminology used for business-IS alignment. Alignment has been discussed since 1970s (Renaud et al. 2016), and different researchers have described alignment with terms such as integration, fit, bridge, harmony, and linkage (Avison et al. 2004). The diversity in the termi­nology used for definition and exploration of alignment highlights the time-dependent understanding of alignment in the field. However, most researchers acknowledge busi­ness-IS alignment as a continuous process involving four fundamental considerations: (1) integration level (Hender­son and Venkatraman 1993), (2) integration direction (Teo and King 1997), (3) the perspective of fit (Venkatraman 1989), and (4) categories of misfit (Strong and Volkoff 2010). Table 1 illustrates a summary of the positioning of our findings in the abovementioned foundational consid­erations. In comparison to SAM, the FunCaps framework aims to actualize and reconceptualize operational alignment to overcome the limitations of SAM. The FunCaps frame­work and SAM capture the alignment between processes and infrastructures for business and IS domains. How­ever, the FunCaps framework goes further than SAM by opening up the operational integration boxes and their re­lationships in SAM and addressing three of SAM’s short­comings. Firstly, FunCaps framework, unlike SAM, em­phasizes the importance of Strategy as Practice (SaP) by describing the types of IS capabilities based on a four-level pyramid of ISs (O’Brien 2000). Each level is considered a socio-technical system, where strategy at each level is not considered solely as an action plan developed by the top business management. Instead, in this socio-technical sys­tem, actors at all four levels of the pyramid are responsible for strategy. Secondly, FunCaps is fine-grained and, hence, shows the practical reality of the organization. This framework visualizes and reconceptualizes operational alignment based on low level, precise, and well-defined operation­al concepts. As such, FunCaps provides a useful way for policy makers, managers, and senior IS experts to adopt its dimensions and elements in both BP and IS domains. Thirdly, FunCaps considers an IS as a socio-technical system and describes IS capabilities based on its compo­nents (actor, structure, task, and technology). The mutual interaction between these components, in turn, results in creating and modifying IS capabilities. Figure 3 shows the integration of the FunCaps framework and SAM. 6 Conclusion and future research Achievement of Operational alignment has been a key challenge for organizations in recent decades (Kappelman et al. 2019) due to the limitations of existing models and frameworks. Operational alignment enables organizations to not only make the BPs implementation feasible but also to increase the utilization of ISs. In addition, it helps the ISs to be business-centered and to adjust the requirements for developing BPs (Tallon et al. 2016). Multiple models and frameworks exist in the field of business-IS alignment. In practice, however, they have not been effective for the realization of operational alignment due to three major lim­itations. Firstly, most existing models are coarse-grained as they focus on the strategic level of alignment. These models do not consider the discrepancies between the two levels of alignment (strategic and operational). Secondly, existing studies neglect the socio-technical nature of the IS. Thirdly, previous studies are focused on identifying social antecedents and their effect on operational align­ment without considering how ISs meet business require­ments in achieving operational alignment. This research determined the right level of abstraction to describe BPs and ISs for achieving operational alignment and address the current discussed gaps in the existing studies. We adopted GT as a bottom-up approach to reconceptualize operational alignment and used an adaptive approach in the description of BPs and ISs instead of confirming or imposing a theory on business-IS alignment. The result was the FunCaps framework. This framework considers differences between strategic and operational alignment and reconceptualizes operational alignment based on oper­ational planning and reciprocal integration. Thus, FunCaps is a fine-grained framework that translates high-level, stra­tegic concepts into low level, precise, and well-defined operational concepts. (i.e., BP functions and IS capabili­ties). FunCaps, in addition, establishes the broader picture of the operational alignment by considering an IS to be a socio-technical system. This study has three main limitations that can offer op­portunities for future studies in this area. The first is the focus of TPUs in Iran. Broader research at educational in­stitutions in other countries can add to the number of ex­perts and enhance the results of the research. The second limitation is the neglect of the other two levels of align­ment (strategic and tactical). Future studies might identify the dimensions and elements of alignment at all levels and provide a model for achieving business-IS alignment at all three levels. The third limitation arises from the focus on STS theory. To describe the types of IS capabilities and situate them in STS theory, we did not explicitly assess the interaction of components (actor, structure, task, and technology) in this study. Future studies can further ex­plore this socio-technical approach toward operational alignment for both BP and IS domains and consider the interaction between the components. Literature 1Received: 28th May 2021; revised: 23rd August 2021; accepted: 20th September 2021 Legend: lines betweeen dimensions mean alignment Figure 1: The FunCaps framework for operational alignment Table 1: Positioning the findings in foundational considerations of business-IS alignment Reference Foundational considerations Description This paper Henderson and Ven­katraman (1993) Integration level Strategic The link between the business strategies and IS strategies, reflecting the external components of the business Operational The link between business infrastructures and processes, and IS infrastructures and processes, dealing with internal components of the business * Teo and King (1997) Integration direction Administrative Development of business and IS, based on separate planning Sequential One-way planning process and IS, focused primarily on pro­viding support for business Reciprocal Two-way planning process and IS, playing a role in both sup­porting and influencing business * Full integration Concurrent development of business and IS in the same inte­gration planning process Venka­traman (1989) Perspective of fit Moderation Conceptualizing alignment as the interaction between two variables (e.g., strategic orientation and strategic IS manage­ment), and studying their interactional effect on firm perfor­mance Mediation Considering alignment as an intervening variable between antecedent variables such as strategic orientation and con­sequent variables such as firm performance Matching Defining alignment as a match between the two variables * Covariation Adopting a conceptualization based on the internal consis­tency among a set of underlying related variables Profile deviation Assuming an ideal profile exists, i.e., ideal values of variables are the values of high performers Gestalt Conceptualizing alignment as frequently recurring clusters of attributes Strong Volkoff (2010) Categories of misfit Functionality Occurring when BP executions, using the enterprise system (ES), lead to reduced efficiency or effectiveness * Data Resulting from data quality issues (such as inaccuracy) caused by data or data characteristics stored in, or needed by, the ES Usability Occurring when the required interactions with the ES for task execution are cumbersome or confusing Role Arising from inconsistencies between the roles in the ES and the available skills Control Stemming from excessive or insufficient controls within the ES-embedded controls Culture Resulting from contradictions between ES requirements and organizational norms Figure 2: SAM (From Henderson and Venkatraman 1993) Legend: lines betweeen dimensions mean alignment Figure 3: The integration of FunCaps framework and SAM Alavi, M., & Yoo, Y. 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Information & Management, 55, 695-708, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2018.02.002 Olfat Ganji Bidmeshk is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Technology Management at the Department of Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. Her research interests include Business-IT alignment, systems analysis and design, and Business Informatics. She is currently working as a visiting Ph.D. student at the Sauder School of Business, Management Information Systems Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Mohammad Mehraeen is a Professor of Information Systems at the Department of Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester, UK. His current research interests include electronic government, digital transfor­mation, business Informatics, Big data and IoT. He is currently working as a visiting professor at the DeGroote School of Business, Information Systems Department, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. Alireza Pooya is a Professor of Industrial Management at the Department of Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Tarbiat Modares University, Iran. His current research interests include systems thinking, dynamic systems, optimal control, operations management, production planning, manufacturing strategy, and business process management. Currently, he is a Manager of Human Resource and Organizational Change at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Yaghoob Maharati is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship Management at the Department of Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University Putra Malaysia (UPM). His current research interests include entrepreneurship, research method, management theory, critical review of management theory, and business plan. Currently, he is a Manager of Planning and Budgeting at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. We categorize approaches on business-IS alignment into two main categories: (1) approaches that aim to achieve stra­tegic alignment and (2) approaches that aim to achieve operational alignment. A.1. Approaches focusing on strategic alignment Studies that aim to achieve strategic alignment can be categorized into studies that emphasize three main aspects: (1) social and structural, (2) technical, and (3) socio-technical (Table A.1). Ogrodje FunCaps: rekonceptualizacija operativne uskladitve Ozadje in namen: Operativna uskladitev, uskladitev poslovnih procesov (BP) in informacijskih sistemov (IS), je dobro znana zahteva za izboljšanje poslovne ucinkovitosti. Vendar se v obstojeci literaturi kaže pomanjkanje trdnih temeljev za prakticno izvajanje operativne uskladitve. Deloma zato, ker so predhodno razviti grobozrnati modeli strateške uskladitve za operativno usklajevanje spregledali razlike med strateško in operativno ravnjo usklajenosti. Nekatere študije so ugotovile te razlike, vendar jih niso poglobljeno proucile. To je lahko deloma posledica zanemar­janja družbeno-tehnicne narave IS, kot tudi njihove osredotocenosti na prepoznavanje socialnega ozadja in njegove­ga ucinka na operativno usklajenost, ne da bi upoštevali, kako IS izpolnjujejo poslovne zahteve pri doseganju ope­rativne usklajenosti. Da bi premagali to morebitno pomanjkanje uporabnosti, je namen tega prispevka dolociti pravo raven abstrakcije za predstavitev poslovnih procesov in IS ter ponovno konceptualizacijo operativne uskladitve. Metodologija: Izvedli smo empiricno raziskavo z uporabo utemeljene teorije (Grounded theory – GT)T). Izvedli smo polstrukturirane intervjuje z 28 strokovnjaki z vrhunskih iranskih javnih univerz. Podatke smo analizirali s program­sko opremo MAXQDA. Rezultati: Predlagano- ogrodje FunCaps doloca zahtevane kombinacije funkcij BP in zmogljivosti IS za operativno uskladitev. Zakljucki: FunCaps rekonceptualizira operativne usklajenosti na podlagi operativnega nacrtovanja in vzajemne integracije, katere prednost je, da vzpostavi širšo sliko z obravnavanjem IS kot socio-tehnicnega sistema. Kljucne besede: Operativna uskladitev, Informacijski sistem, Poslovni proces, Družbeno-tehnicni sistem, Utemelje­na teorija Appendix A: Literature review on business-IS alignment Table 2: A.1. Selected studies on strategic alignment Aspect Key concept Reference Social Flexibility of organizational structure (data processing procedures, delegation of authority, and segregation of departments) to manage organizational changes Lester & Parnell (2002) Top management team’s (TMT) trust in chief information officer (CIO), CIO’s trust in TMT, shared language, and shared understanding of the role of IT. Preston & Karahanna (2009) Management styles, culture of innovation and risk-taking among staff, beliefs and shared values among staff, partnership, cooperation and trustworthiness among them Cram (2012) Communication, senior management support, the participation of research and development managers in the development of strategies, and interdisciplinary support by IS and business during the development of IS Alsudiri et al. (2013) Technical Standards available in the field of IT to create a common language among the de­partments and provide interdisciplinary information sharing. Henderson & Venkatraman (1993) Integration of IT architecture and infrastructure Sledgianowski et al. (2006) Socio-technical Decision style of senior management, fluctuations of management tenure, the way the applications are developed, the complexity of management tasks, and the physical location of IS managers Pyburn (1983) Transparency and perception of the mission, objectives and priorities of the or­ganization, effective communication, IS managers’ involvement in the process of planning, and their realistic expectations of IS Lederer & Mendelow (1989) Communication, governance, skill, sourcing, IT professionals, and project. Tarafdar & Qrunfleh (2009) Strategic alignment maturity based on six dimensions: communication, competen­cy and value measurements, governance, participation, scope and architecture, and skill. Luftman (2003) Intellectual and social alignment Reich & Benbasat (2000) A.2. Approaches focusing on operational alignment Existing literature focused on the operational level of alignment either have used modeling languages (MLs) to link models in BPs and software systems (SSs) or have focused on identifying the social antecedents and their effect on opera­tional alignment (Table A.2). Table 3: A.2. Selected studies on modeling langauges Category Focus Reference Modeling Languages Aligning BR (Business Requirements) and BP (Business Processes) BR BP SS GRL BPMN - Li et al. (2015) MAP BPMN - Kraiem et al. (2014) i* BPMN - Sousa and Julio (2014) Tropos BPEL - Frankova et al. (2011) Aligning BR and SS (Software Systems) BMM - SoaML Han et al. (2009) Tropos - Tropos Gehlert et al. (2008) UML - UML Wan-Kadir and Loucopoulos (2004) Aligning BP and SS UML UML Aversano et al. (2016) - BPMN & e3 value UML DeCastro et al. (2011 - BPMN SoaML Elvesater et al. (2010) - BPMN UML Cibran (2009), Aligning BR, BP and SS i* UML UML Doumi et al. (2013) Social antecedents Social capital (cognitive linkage, structural linkage, and relational linkage) Wagner et al. (2014) Shared competence between business and IS departments Zhou et al. (2018) Shared understanding between business and IS by overcoming seven user-related elici­tations problems: (1) communication flaws between the project team and customer, (2) terminological problems, (3) weak knowledge of application domain, (4) stakeholders with difficulties in separating requirements from previously known solution design, (5) in­complete and hidden requirements, (6) missing traceability, and (7) inconsistent require­ments. Bagheri et al. (2019) Appendix B: Types of BP functions Table 4: B.1. Types of BP functions BP function Element of BP function Type of BP Function Strategic management . Strategy compilation . Strategy implementation . Strategy assessment Management functions Primary functions Quality management . Process management . Project management . Performance measurement Learning management . Learning planning . Planning for admissions . Planning administrative and teaching services . Learning assessment . Admitting a study Core business functions Research management . Research policy . Research services . Research achievements . Technology transfer Student services management . Plan student services . Provide student services . Monitor and evaluate student services . Terminate student services Non-core busi­ness functions Social and cultural manage­ment . Provide cultural and social planning . Provide cultural and social services & products . Provide cultural and social facilities . Monitor cultural and social services Communication management . Public relations . Interactions with community . International university interactions . Provide out-of-school services Assets management . Physical resources management . Goods and services management Support functions Financial resource manage­ment . Resource and financial expenses planning . Collection and distribution of financial credits . Payment of expenses . Financial monitoring HRM . Providing human resources planning . Hiring, supplying and selecting human resourc­es . Developing HR’s skills . Providing facilities and benefits for human re­sources . Providing safety and health of human resources . Transferring and retiring human resources ICT management . ICT planning . Communication and networks management . Information and data management . Information and communication security man­agement . Software and systems management . Software and hardware support Appendix C: Types of IS capabilities Table 5: C.1. Types of IS capabilities based on Socio-Technical System (STS) theory IS capability Element of IS capability Type of IS capability Strategic level of ISs . Strategic capa­bilities . Top business management . IS management Actor Social subsystem . Commitment to the strategic use of IS should be considered by the top business management. . Expectation of IS capabilities by top business management should be realistic. . The top business management awareness of the contribution of IS to business goals should be raised. . The top business management awareness of the quality and quantity of IS-based service should be raised. . Business missions and objectives should be reflected in the IS plan. . The horizon of the planning in business and IS should be similar. . Allocating IS resources should be delegated to IS management. . The culture of the organization should be built on innovation and change-readiness. Authority system Structure Setting up proper standards for ISs to enable the following: . Adaptation of diversified internal and external IS resources (network, hardware, software, data, and people), which are adjusted according to the business goals . Flexibility of ISs . Integration of ISs Workflow system . Creating common norms and patterns of behavior among IS strategic committee members Commu­nication system . Analyzing the environmental opportunities and threats and the busi­ness strengths and weaknesses . Creating sustainable competitive advantage Task Technical subsystem . Expert System (ES) . Executive Support System (ESS) Technology Management level of ISs . Management capabilities . BP management . IS management Actor Social subsystem . Knowledge of IS-based services should be acquired by BP manage­ment. . Support of IS activities should be considered by BP management. . Logical decision-making style should be adopted by BP and IS man­agement. . Participatory management should be adopted by BP and IS manage­ment. . Perspective of BP and IS management should be compatible with BP requirements. Authority system Structure . Setting up proper standards for IS projects investment based on the business projects Workflow system . Defining common language between BP and IS managements Commu­nication system . Planning IS projects/resources based on BP requirements . Organizing IS projects/resources based on BP requirements . Coordinating IS projects/resources based on BP requirements . Decision making in IS projects/resources based on BP requirements . Measuring the performance of IS projects/resources based on BP re­quirements Task Technical subsystem . Decision Support System (DSS) . Management Information System (MIS) Technology IS capability Element of IS capability Type of IS capability Knowledge level of ISs . Knowl­edge-based capabilities . Knowledge workers Actor Social subsystem . Close bilateral cooperation should be in place for knowledge workers in BP and IS departments. . Mutual trust and common values should be perceived between knowledge workers in BP and IS departments. . Participatory programs should be frequently and formally held be­tween knowledge workers in BP and IS departments. . Job rotation should be available between BP and IS departments. Authority system Structure Setting up proper standards for . Interdepartmental interactions between BP and IS departments . Interdepartmental reporting between BP and IS departments Workflow system . Establishing an informal communications network between IS and BP departments. Commu­nication system . Knowledge creation and gathering . Knowledge assessment . Knowledge sharing and dissemination . Knowledge contextualization . Knowledge application Task Technical subsystem . Knowledge Work System (KWS) . Group Collaboration System (GCS)s . Office System (OS) Technology Operational level of IS . Operational capabilities . Organizational workers Actor Social subsystem Information in the IS infrastructure should be: . Transparent . Accessible . Accurate . Reliable . Up-to-date Authority system Structure . Recording of daily activities and transactions . Using historical data on activities in organization . Monitoring the performance of internal processes and relations with the external environment Task Technical subsystem . Office Automation System (OAS) . Transaction Processing System (TPS) Technology Table 5: C.1. Types of IS capabilities based on Socio-Technical System (STS) theory (coninues) DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0019 Are we Ready to Use Microchip Implants? An International Cross-sectional Study Anja ŽNIDARŠIC1, Alenka BAGGIA1, Antonín PAVLÍCEK2, Jakub FISCHER2, Maciej ROSTANSKI3, Borut WERBER1 1 Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor, Kranj, Slovenia, anja.znidarsic@um.si (AZ), alenka.baggia@um.si (AB), borut.werber@um.si (BW) (corresponding author) 2 Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, Prague University of Economics and Business, Prague, Czech Republic, antonin.pavlicek@vse.cz (AP), fischerj@vse.cz (JF) 3 Faculty of Computer Science, Academy of Business in Dabrowa Gornicza, Dabrowa Górnicza, Poland, mrostanski@gmail.com (MR) Background and purpose: Despite their clear relevance to human life, microchip implants are still widely viewed as negative, threatening our privacy and raising growing concerns about our health. This paper aims to investigate the important factors influencing people’s perception of microchip implants and their willingness to use them for different purposes. Methodology: The cross-sectional study was conducted in three European countries and the data were analysed using the group Structural Equation Modeling approach. Only complete answers to the online survey questionnaire items were used representing a convenience sample of 804 respondents. Results: The results show that perceived ease of use, usefulness and perceived trust are significant predictors of intention to use microchip implants. Perceived trust is influenced by privacy and technology safety. Concerns about painful procedures and other health concerns reduce the perceived usefulness of microchip implants. Apart from the predictor health concerns, the results were similar in all countries. Conclusion: Based on the presented results, researchers interested in investigating the actual use of microchip implants can establish a solid foundation for their research. The results may assist policy makers in developing the regulations to ensure the safe use of microchip implants and allow for a higher level of security. As a follow-up, in­vestigation of changes in the acceptance of microchip implants following the threat of a global pandemic is proposed. Keywords: Microchip implant, Near field communication, Behavioural intentions, Structural equation model, Tech­nology acceptance model 1 Introduction Changes in industry opened the door to a variety of emerging technologies, such as wearable Internet, coop­erating to coordinating machines (Internet of Things), technologies implanted in the human body, and others. These innovative technologies are capable of helping in unpredictable critical situations that occur anywhere in the world, for example digital tracking of patients and identi­fying their contacts. Another successful example are mobile or wearable de­vices based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that use electromagnetic fields to transmit data. Although these devices are revolutionizing healthcare and medicine (Virk­ki et al., 2017), they are still vulnerable to loss and theft. RFID microchip implants (MI) do not have these short­comings. MIs are widely used for healthcare applications such as monitoring (Basham, 2014), enhancement medi­cal devices, and other therapeutic purposes (K. Michael & Michael, 2013). In addition to healthcare applications, MIs have also been shown to be effective in minimizing errors and personally identifiable medical information (Mohamed, 2020). These novel approaches could make a positive contribution by enhancing the security and safety of people in extreme situations (Sarwar et al., 2019). On the other hand, MI could pose some health risks (e.g., re­jection, allergic reaction) or threats to privacy and security (Rodriguez, 2019). The research on MI adoption found in the literature fo­cuses on either students (Smith, 2008), specific age groups (Achille et al., 2012), small business owners (K. Michael et al., 2017), or even a population with various disabilities (Mohamed, 2020). In this paper, we aim to identify and explore the factors that influence the population’s inten­tions to use MIs. The MI under consideration is a passive NFC RFID device which does not require power supply and can be read only from a short distance. To the best of our knowledge, research on the adoption of MIs from the users’ perspective has not been performed on a wider basis and reported in the literature. Based on a prior pilot study (Werber et al., 2018), an international cross-section­al study was conducted in four European countries. The main contribution of this paper is a model of the factors that influence end-user’s behavioural intention to use MIs, followed by the analysis of the relationships be­tween the constructs of the research model and the analysis of national differences in behavioural intention to use MIs. 2 Literature review The general use of RFID has been researched for al­most two decades. In recent years, we have witnessed a breakthrough in the use of RFID in healthcare and med­icine (Virkki et al., 2017). Whereas active RFID tags re­quire a power source, passive tags draw their energy from the radio wave of an RFID reader, so no power is need­ed (Gaffney & Gopini, 2020). One of the applications of RFID technology is Near Field Communication (NFC) mi­crochips that can be implanted in the human body. These MIs come inside a glass tube and can be read only from a short distance. MIs have also been used in healthcare for prosthetic, monitoring, and enhancement medical devices, to combat diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and severe depression (K. Michael & Michael, 2013), and to impair cancer cells (Lai et al., 2016). The use of MIs helps to min­imize errors in the collection of important medical infor­mation (Mohamed, 2020). In addition to use in health care, there are reports of actual cases where MIs have been used to support intervention in natural disasters (Sarwar et al., 2019). 2.1 Technology acceptance Various methods have been used to research the ac­ceptance of RFID technology and MIs in particular. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is widely used to determine the level of technology acceptance. TAM model anticipates two basic factors that influence the behavioural intention to use technology: perceived usefulness and per­ceived ease of use (Davis, 1989). Researchers have used other approaches to determine the intention for use new technologies. Katz & Rice (2009) defined their own scales to determine the potential for RFID use in healthcare, whereas some authors also identified age as an important predictor of technology use (Gauttier, 2019). 2.2 Microchip implant acceptance Due to their specifics, the willingness to use MIs de­pends not only on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, but also on other factors mainly related to health and privacy issues. When implanting a foreign object in the human body, health is always the first consideration. Despite the increasing popularity of MI, the potential health risks have not been adequately researched to ensure the safety of its use. Various problems have been cited in the literature, ranging from the risks of movement in the body, possible effect on emotional behaviour, allergies, ef­fect on the nervous system, and pain during the insertion of the MI (Fram et al., 2020). According to Albrecht (2010), MIs could potentially lead to malignancies, whereas Lai et al. (2016) have found the possibility of treating cancer cells with MIs. However, most of this research is based on microchips for animals, while there is limited evidence on the safety of MI in humans (Fram et al., 2020). The first specific study of RFID adoption in healthcare from an end-user perspective found that physical place­ment (without actual insertion into the body) did not ap­pear to raise public concern, with the exception of a small minority (Katz & Rice, 2009). Public interest in RFID was strongest for emergency intervention services. Research on the acceptance of MIs showed that they were treated positively (Smith, 2008), and the acceptance of MIs for life-saving purposes was highest (Rotter et al., 2008). In addition, studies have found that the willingness to adopt MIs is slowly increasing (Perakslis et al., 2014), al­though the perception of MIs as secure technology varies according by country of residence and generational fac­tors (Perakslis & Michael, 2012). Carr (2020) believes that MIs can be a solution to reduce contacts and risks af­ter pandemic outbreaks. MIs have been used for various non-therapeutic purposes, initially for personal interest only (K. Michael & Michael, 2013), but more recently in the workplace, for example to access a secured worksta­tion (Fram et al., 2020). According to K. Michael et al. (2017), there are numerous reasons for rejecting MIs for employee identification, where data protection and securi­ty reasons certainly cannot be ignored (Rodriguez, 2019). Chipping employees in the workplace raises even more ethical issues and challenges (Gauttier, 2019). The situ­ation during pandemics has shown, how quickly privacy rights can disappear when confronted with health and safe­ty concerns and therefore it is crucial to draft the employee microchipping legislation (Turner, 2020). 2.3 Structural equation modelling Structural equation modelling approach is mainly used to test the hypotheses in the technology acceptance mod­el (Beaujean, 2014). The minimum sample size for per­forming SEM has been discussed several times. Proposals range from 150 to 400 when there are three or more meas­ured items per latent variable (Hair et al., 2019) or 250 to avoid rejection of the model due to the combination of rules for fit indices (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Schumacker & Lomax (2010) propose the analysis performed according to the standard two-stage approach at SEM, the first step being the validation of the meas­urement model. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) is performed to determine how well the measured items reflect the theoretical latent variables and to examine the construct validity of the measurement model, which is examined through convergent validity and discriminant validity. When examining convergent validity, one needs to examine that the estimates of standardized factor load­ings do not exceed 0.5 (or even 0.7), Composite Reliabil­ity (CR) for each latent variable exceeds 0.7, and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each latent variable exceeds 0.5 (Koufteros, 1999). In a second step, SEM is used to test the structural re­lationships between the latent variables. The unstandard­ized B and standardized path coefficients ß (relationships between the latent variables), z-values (ratio of ß to its standard error), and the significance level are calculated. For each endogenous latent variable, a coefficient of deter­mination (R^2) is calculated, representing the percentage of the explained variance of the variable by the set of its predictors. The overall fit of the measurement and structural mod­el are assessed based on a set of fit indices: • The value of the comparative fit index (CFI) should be at least 0.9 to indicate adequate model fit (Koufteros, 1999). • The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value should be below 0.06 (Teo & Zhou, 2014), or between 0.06 and 0.08 to be in­terpreted as mediocre (MacCallum et al., 1996). • The standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) should be less than 0.05, however val­ues as high as 0.08 are deemed acceptable (Hu & Bentler, 1999). • Some goodness-of-fit (GFI) indices are affected by the complexity of the model (e.g., CFI, but not RMSEA) (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002). Therefore, generally accepted criterion (e.g., CFI = 0.90) in complex models should be judged with caution. Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MG-CFA) and multigroup Structural Equation Modelling (MG-SEM) is then used to complement the general two-step procedure when we have multiple groups. Using MG-CFA and MG-SEM we can assess the measurement invariance (MInv), concerning the comparison of the same measurement model in different groups, and compare the effects or con­structs’ means across groups, which concerns the analysis of the moderating role of a categorical variable that forms groups in a specified SEM (Miceli & Brabaranelli, 2016). Before making meaningful comparisons of survey results across groups, researchers should ensure that re­spondents from different groups have ascribed similar meaning to survey items (Cheung & Lau, 2011). MInv as­sesses the psychometric equivalence of a construct across groups or over time (Putnick & Bornstein, 2016), while measurement noninvariance suggests that a construct has a different structure and/or meaning to different groups. MInv is usually tested using configural invariance, weak invariance, and strong invariance, sometimes these are fol­lowed by strict invariance (Beaujean, 2014). The configural invariance tests whether the model configuration (all constructs have the same pattern of free and fixed parameters) is the same among all groups in a multigroup context (Putnick & Bornstein, 2016). For weak invariance, the item loadings must be the same across groups, for strong invariance the intercepts of indicators must be the same across groups, while for strict invariance also error variances must be constrained to be equal across groups. The results for each invariance test are explained by the change of several alternative fit indices (AFI) since .^2 tends to be oversensitive to small, unimportant devia­tions from a perfect model in large samples (Chen, 2007). Change in CFI (.CFI), SRMR (.SRMR), and RMSEA (.RMSEA) were used to assess model fit. Cheung & Rensvold (2002) proposed the use of a criterion of -0.01 change in CFI of two nested models. Whereas Chen (2007) suggested that a criterion of a -0.01 for .CFI is paired with .RMSEA of 0.015 and SRMR of 0.030 (for metric invari­ance) or 0.015 (for scalar or residual invariance). The rules of thumb for AFI and .AFI might not gener­alize to the wide range of SEMs encountered in practice, models with only negligible mis-specifications should not be rejected, and researchers should not rely on a single rule-of-thumb cut-off for any (.)AFI (Jorgensen et al., 2018). Traditionally, configural invariance is assessed by evaluating the overall fit of the configural model, whereas (Jorgensen et al., 2018) proposed a permutation test, espe­cially when evaluating configural invariance with small to moderate sample sizes. As pointed out by Jorgensen et al. (2018) configural models frequently do not fit the data per­fectly, but the use of the permutation test of configural in­variance can prevent inflated type I errors when the model fits only approximately well. The idea of the permutation test is that the variable of group membership is randomly shuffled (several times) and the model is fitted to that data. In the permutation test, the proportion of the statistics (e.g. .^2, CFI, RMSEA) that are more extreme than the ob­served statistics (of the original model), is calculated. This is a one-tailed p-value that approximates the probability of obtaining statistics under investigation (e.g. .^2), as poor as the observed one, if the invariance across all groups holds true. If p PR (SM1) 2432.87 (6.76) 852 (2) 0.0340 0.854 (0.000) 0.127 (0.000) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM1b: PR -> PT (SM1) 2427.69 (1.56) 852 (2) 0.4589 0.853 (-0.001) 0.129 (0.002) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM1c: TS -> PT (SM1) 2426.60 (0.49) 852 (2) 0.7815 0.854 (0.000) 0.127 (0.000) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM1d: PP -> HC (SM1) 2435.13 (9.02) 852 (2) 0.0110 0.853 (-0.001) 0.128 (0.001) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM1e: HC -> PU (SM1) 2439.56 (13.45) 852 (2) 0.0012 0.853 (-0.001) 0.128 (0.001) 0.083 (0.000) 0.080; 0.087 SM1f: PEU -> PU (SM1) 2426.13 (0.02) 852 (2) 0.9890 0.854 (0.000) 0.127 (0.000) 0.084 (0.001) 0.079; 0.087 SM1g: PEU -> BIU (SM1) 2426.23 (13.45) 852 (2) 0.9413 0.854 (0.000) 0.127 (0.000) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM1h: PT -> PU (SM1) 2439.66 (13.55) 852 (2) 0.0011 0.853 (-0.001) 0.129 (0.002) 0.083 (0.000) 0.080; 0.087 SM1i: PT -> BIU (SM1) 2431.96 (5.85) 852 (2) 0.0536 0.854 (0.000) 0.129 (0.002) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM1j: PU -> BIU (SM1) 2427.39 (1.28) 852 (2) 0.5276 0.854 (0.000) 0.129 (0.002) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM1k: Age -> BIU (SM1) 2431.09 (4.98) 852 (2) 0.0830 0.854 (0.000) 0.127 (0.000) 0.083 (0.000) 0.079; 0.087 SM3 – final model (SM1) 2441.77 (15.66) 864 (14) 0.3349 0.854 (0.000) 0.128 (0.001) 0.084 (0.000) 0.079; 0.086 Table 11: Summary of hypotheses testing for the structural model across countries Hypothesis & Path Expected Sign (Constrained across groups) Country B ß z p Adjusted p Confirmed? H1 PTh.PR + (No) SI 0.769 0.568 7.631*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ 0.441 0.394 5.670*** 0.000 0.000 Yes PO 0.583 0.463 6.257*** 0.000 0.000 Yes H2 PR.PT - (Yes) SI -0.139 -0.086 -2.719** 0.007 0.008 Yes CZ -0.103 Yes PO -0.113 Yes H3 TS.PT + (Yes) SI 0.390 0.387 11.183*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ 0.422 Yes PO 0.375 Yes H4 PP.HC + (No) SI 0.377 0.489 8.030*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ 0.260 0.347 6.048*** 0.000 0.000 Yes PO 0.505 0.596 9.480*** 0.000 0.000 Yes H5 HC.PU - (No) SI -0.226 -0.239 -4.053*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ -0.038 -0.036 -0.713 0.476 0.476 No PO -0.295 -0.264 -4.052*** 0.000 0.000 Yes H6a PEU.PU + (Yes) SI 0.480 0.383 8.744*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ 0.332 Yes PO 0.374 Yes H6b PEU.BIU + (Yes) SI 0.253 0.094 2.208* 0.027 0.030 Yes CZ 0.074 Yes PO 0.098 Yes H7a PT.PU + (Yes) SI 0.308 0.396 6.723*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ 0.509 0.599 11.020*** 0.000 0.000 Yes PO 0.264 0.308 4.803*** 0.000 0.000 Yes H7b PT.BIU + (Yes) SI 0.755 0.455 10.908*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ 0.378 Yes PO 0.436 Yes H8 PU.BIU + (Yes) SI 0.385 0.181 4.351*** 0.000 0.000 Yes CZ 0.163 Yes PO 0.191 Yes H9 Age.BIU - (Yes) SI -0.007 -0.060 -1.845 0.065 0.069 No CZ -0.057 No PO 0.046 No Table 12: Coefficients of determination (R2) Construct SI CZ PO PR 0.323 0.155 0.214 HC 0.239 0.120 0.355 PT 0.157 0.189 0.153 PU 0.368 0.470 0.314 BI 0.335 0.260 0.306 Figure 2: The final acceptance model for behavioural intention to use microchip implant Achille, R., Perakslis, C., & Michael, K. 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Costa (Eds.), Intelligent Technolo­gies and Applications (pp. 560–570). Springer Singa­pore. https://doi.org//10.1007/978-981-13-6052-7_48 Schumacker, R. E., & Lomax, R. G. (2010). A beginner’s guide to structural equation modeling, 3rd ed. In A be­ginner’s guide to structural equation modeling, 3rd ed. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Smith, C. (2008). Human microchip implantation. Journal of Technology Management and Innova­tion, 3(3), 151–156. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-27242008000100015 Teo, T., & Zhou, M. (2014). Explaining the intention to use technology among university students: a structur­al equation modeling approach. Journal of Comput­ing in Higher Education, 26(2), 124–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-014-9080-3 Turner, W. (2020). Chipping Away at Workplace Privacy: The Implantation of RFID Microchips and Erosion of Employee Privacy. Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, 61, 275–298. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol61/iss1/18/ Virkki, J., Wei, Z., Liu, A., Ukkonen, L., & Björninen, T.(2017). Wearable passive E-textile UHF RFID tagbased on a slotted patch antenna with sewn ground and microchip interconnections. International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, 2017, 27–29. https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/3476017 Werber, B., Baggia, A., & Žnidaršic, A. (2018). Factors Affecting the Intentions to Use RFID Subcutaneous Microchip Implants for Healthcare Purposes. Organi­zacija, 51(2), 121–133. https://doi.org/10.2478/orga-2018-0010 Anja Žnidaršic is an Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor, Slovenia. Her main research interests are social network analysis, micro-enterprises, information-communication technology, students’ performance in methodological courses, and technology adoption. Alenka Baggia is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor. Her main research interests are digital literacy, technology acceptance, green information systems, and software quality. Antonín Pavlícek is Senior Assistant at Department of Informatics and Analytical Methods at University College of Business in Prague. His main research interests include new media, social media, information management and information security. Jakub Fischer is the Dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Statistics of the Prague University of Economics and Business. He focuses his research on the field of social and economic statistics and national accounting. Maciej Rostanski is an Assistant Professor at the Computer Science Faculty of WSB Academy in Dabrowa Górnicza, Poland. His main research interests include cloud computing, cyber security and Internet of Things. Borut Werber is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor, Slovenia. His main research interests are micro-enterprises, information-communication technology, and novel technologies. Smo pripravljeni uporabiti podkožni mikrocip? Mednarodna presecna raziskava Ozadje in namen: Kljub ocitni pomembnosti podkožnih mikrocipov za naše življenje, jih v vecini primerov ljudje še vedno obravnavamo kot negativne. Prevladuje mnenje, da ogrožajo našo zasebnost in lahko vplivajo na naše zdrav­je. V prispevku preucujemo pomembne dejavnike, ki vplivajo na dojemanje podkožnih mikrocipov in pripravljenost posameznika, da bi podkožni mikrocip uporabil za razlicne namene. Metodologija: Presecno študijo smo izvedli v treh evropskih državah, podatke pa smo analizirali s pomocjo mode­liranja strukturnih enacb. V analizo smo vkljucili priložnostni vzorec 804 anketirancev, ki so v celoti izpolnili spletni vprašalnik. Rezultati: Rezultati kažejo, da lahko na osnovi konstruktov zaznana enostavnost uporabe, uporabnost in zaznano zaupanje napovemo pripravljenost za uporabo podkožnega mikrocipa. Na zaznano zaupanje vplivata zasebnost in varnost tehnologije. Zaznano uporabnost podkožnega mikrocipa zmanjšuje zaskrbljenost zaradi bolecih postopkov vstavljanja in skrbi glede zdravja. Razen vpliva konstrukta skrb za zdravje, so rezultati podobni v vseh državah. Zakljucki: Prikazani rezultati lahko služijo kot dobra osnova za nadaljnje raziskave glede dejanske uporabe pod­kožnih mikrocipov. Rezultati lahko snovalcem zakonodaje pomagajo pri oblikovanju usmeritev in predpisov, ki bodo zagotovili varno uporabo podkožnih mikrocipov in zagotovili višjo stopnjo varnosti. V nadaljevanju bi bilo smiselno raziskati ali se je pripravljenost za uporabo podkožnih mikrocipov spremenila po izkušnji z globalno pandemijo. Kljucne besede: Podkožni mikrocip, Komunikacija kratkega dosega, Vedenjske namere, Model strukturne enacbe, Model sprejetja tehnologije DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0020 Mapping of the Emergence of Society 5.0: A Bibliometric Analysis Vasja ROBLEK1, Maja MEŠKO2, Iztok PODBREGAR2 1 Faculty of Organisation Studies, Novo mesto, vasja.roblek@gmx.com 2 University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Kranj, Slovenia, maja.mesko@um.si, Iztok.podbregar@um.si Background and purpose: The study aims to answer a research question: With which essential cornerstones technological innovations the transformation from Society 4.0 and Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0 is enabled? The study is important for practitioners and researchers to understand the meaning of Society 5.0 and to familiarise themselves with the drivers that will help shape Society 5.0 policies and play an important role in its further development. Therefore, the authors conducted a quantitative bibliometric study that provides insights into the importance of the topic and incorporates current characteristics and future research trends. Methodology: The study used algorithmic co-occurrence of keywords to gain a different insight into the evolution of Society 5.0. Thirty-six selected articles from the Web of Science database were analysed with the bibliometric analysis and overlay visualisation. Results: The co-occurrence analysis shows that terms artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, big data, In­dustry 4.0, Industry 5.0, open innovation, Society 5.0, super-smart society have been widely used in researches in the last three years. Conclusion: The study presents a bibliometric analysis to analyse the current and future development drivers of a Society 5.0. According to the results, the transition from Society 4.0 to Society 5.0 can be achieved by implementing knowledge and technologies in the IoT, robotics, and Big Data to transform society into a smart society (Society 5.0). In particular, the concept would enable the adaptation of services and industrial activities to individuals’ real needs. Further­more, these technologies allow advanced digital service platforms that will eventually be integrated into all areas of life. Keywords: Society 5.0, Industry 5.0, Information society, Smart society, Data-driven innovations 1 Introduction After 2016 Society 5.0 has become a new research phenomenon, which has been introduced in the Japanese government policies to establish a better, super-smart, and more prosperous human-centred society to help overcome chronic social changes. The strategy represents the Jap­anese response to other socio-technological strategies as Industry 4.0 in Europe, Industrial Internet in the US and Chinese Made in China 2025 (Harayama, 2017). According to Harayama (2017), Society 5.0 is directly related to the appearance of the 5th Industrial Revolution (Industry 5.0), and they will both occur when artificial in­telligence (AI) is managed to think and lead the organisa­tional processes independently, which is expected that will emerge in 2030. It is expected that Society 5.0 will continue with the evolution of human and technology relations through a cyber-physical system (CPS; Shiroishi, Uchiyama, & Su­zuki, 2018) which began in the current Industry 4.0. In the last few years, therefore, investment has accelerated in research & development (R&D) of cognitive computing based on AI, and it is expected that it would shortly enable complete self-managed organisation (Roblek, Erenda, & Meško, 2020) and humans to machine communication and cooperation (Guzman & Lewis, 2020). Thus, the relations between people and technology can improve the quality of life and ensure sustainable development in all areas (ed­ucation, health, democracy, economy) (Ferreira & Serpa, 2018). However, on the other hand, the issue opens to the question of the negative impact of AI on human society (e.g., errors in algorithms that can cause the death of peo­ple because of wrong decisions of the computer system, loss of jobs, ethical and economic issues regarding the transfer of responsibility from humans to machines, social control) (Makridakis, 2017). Based on social changes because of the technology development and known theoretical background about the Society 5.0, the following research question has been set: With which essential cornerstones technological innova­tions the transformation from Society 4.0 and Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0 is enabled? The paper includes a scientometric analysis of the co-occurrence keywords and a systematic literature re­view of existing theoretical explanations of Society 5.0, research on and its development mechanisms that can im­pact the further transition from Industry and Society 4.0 to Industry and Society 5.0. 2 Theoretical background 2.1 Historical evolution of information society The emergence of the third industrial revolution (which began around 1960) was based on the invention of the transistor and the microprocessor. These innova­tions enabled the accelerated development of telecommu­nications and computer technology. Automation of pro­cesses began, followed by the penetration of computing with computers such as the IBM 370. Thus, society be­gan to move from producing goods and making profits to a post-industrial society based on knowledge production and the growth of service activities (Hughes, 2004). In the 1980s, a shift occurred with digitalisation, which contrib­uted to the post-industrial or information society, which focuses on the organisation of knowledge and serves as social control, guiding innovation and change (Peters, 2020). Table 1 shows the crucial technological factors for a successful transformation process, and Table 2 shows the key economic factors. The emergence of the Internet led to an exposure of a global information society that aims to provide access to the Internet, better education, busi­ness support, and networking. All this leads to Castells’ opinion that post-industrial society needs to be replaced by information society (Castells, 1996). Since the existing information societies are based on a capitalist system, it is also necessary to emphasise information systems institu­tional and cultural diversity (e.g. the differences between individual nations and countries) (Salehan, Kim, & Lee, 2018). The modern information society is based on inno­vative technological solutions for knowledge creation and data processing. The information society has focused on collecting and processing data at several stages (Abubakar et al., 2019). We can conclude that we understand society as a spe­cial form of social organisation in which information, its collection, processing and transmission become the prima­ry source of power and productivity. 2.2 Industry 4.0 and emergence of Society 5.0 Industry 4.0 represents a completely new way of in­tegrating technology into society. New technologies are being researched and developed that connect the physical, digital and biological worlds, which affect all disciplines, economies and industries (Caruso, 2018). Industry 4.0 ap­pears as a continuation of the third industrial revolution. It enables the digital interconnection of products, machines, tools and more. It brings 3D printers, self-driving vehicles, AI, and nanotechnology, but unlike the second and third industrial revolutions based on raw materials and energy, Industry 4.0 emphasises knowledge as an essential re­source (Roblek et al., 2016). One of the most important innovations in Industry 4.0 is robotics. Robots have been around for several decades, but the question arises as to why today’s robots are differ­ent from those of the past? The difference is that robots and humans are now equal partners, meaning robots today have a higher level of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they can communicate with machines and humans through smart devices. Therefore, it is important to compare and list the special human abilities concerning robots’ unique abil­ities. It becomes clear where robots can help us and what human characteristics they can replace with their unique abilities. With the emergence of robots in everyday human life, the question of taxing not only internet companies but also robots increased, as some scholars suggest that “who­ever owns the robots rules the world” (Freeman, 2015). Holder et al. (2016) discuss the identification of the main legal and regulatory implications of robotics. According to the authors, it is time to start a dialogue in society about “how our existing legal framework may need to be adapted and changed to meet the demands of the robotics era.” The negative connotations of Industry 4.0 are seen in reducing the number of employees, and the entire industri­al revolution is accompanied by the abolition and creation of new jobs. There are also three crucial areas of concern: inequality, cybersecurity and identity (Schwab & Davis, 2018). In addition to creating inequalities between people, it can also lead to an even more significant gap between the countries’ economies. Less developed economies that are just beginning to industrialise would lag even further be­hind developed ones (Hughes & Southern, 2019). When it is going for the security in Industry 4.0, the digital world’s combination with new technologies creates new battle­fields, especially in the cyber world, increases access to lethal technologies, and makes administration and nego­tiations between countries to secure peace more difficult (Horowitz, 2019). The Industry 4.0 technologies also offer expanded possibilities for warfare, which are increasingly available to state and non-state actors, such as autonomous weapons, nanomaterials, biological and biochemical weap­ons, portable devices and distributed energy sources (Yoo, 2017). New AI-based autonomous weapons also pose a potential threat to humanity. Without legal restrictions on these technologies’ operation and development, there may be unauthorised use for terrorist purposes and likely AI dominance over humans in the fifth industrial revolution (Russel et al., 2015). In addition to concerns about grow­ing inequality and security threats, this fourth industrial revolution also affects us as individuals and community members, i.e., our identity. Digital media are already be­coming the main driver of our individual and collective shaping of society and community. They connect people to individuals and groups in new ways, fostering friendships and creating new interest groups. Moreover, such connec­tions transcend many traditional boundaries of interaction (Davis, 2016). Industry 4.0 has led to a digital transformation of the information society (in business and private life) and the future of Society 5.0. The future society members who will benefit from living and working in smart urban areas will enjoy their advantages enhanced by technological, social and cultural aspects that enable the concept of smart living. The Japanese government introduced Society 5.0 in 2016 as the 5th Science and Technology Master Plan (Cabinet Office, 2016). The concept was described as a vision of a future society characterised by scientific and technological innovation. It aims to create a society centred on human beings that, by merging the physical world with cyber­space, will facilitate economic development and ensure a high quality of life for all citizens (Fukuda, 2020; Potocan, Mulej and Nedeljko, 2020). 3 Research methodology The study aims to provide an interpretive overview of the emergence of Society 5.0, and it is prepared using a mixed research methodology. The study was designed with the software Vosviewer version 1.6.16 and includes scientometric research used to construct density visualis­ation and identify the topic clusters based on the keywords co-occurrence (van Eck & Waltman, 2020). In selecting the literature, was followed the three-step protocol ap­proach used in previous studies such as Chandra and Walk­er (2020), Dabic et al. (2020), and Palumbo et al. (2021). A three-step protocol (Figure 1) includes i) data collection: selecting articles published in scientific journals indexed in the Web of Science database; ii) data cleaning: a manual review of article titles and abstracts. Based on their con­tent, we excluded articles that were inappropriate in terms of content; and 3) basic analysis: in-depth review of the articles covered. The search itself is divided into two parts. The first part includes the articles’ classification according to scientometric research, and the second part is followed by an interpretation of the articles’ content. Table 3 pre­sents papers from the journals used in analyses. The first phase includes the data collection process. The search for articles was done in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The Boolean keyword combination was used to search for the relevant papers (TS = (Society 5.0) AND LANGUAGE: (English) AND DOCUMENT TYPES: (Article, Review) Indexes = SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI and ESCI). It was no temporal restrictions. The search results were limited to the research and review articles published in the refereed journals only. The peer review was limited to scientific journals written in Eng­lish and was not intended to provide a comprehensive as­sessment of the state’s totality. In the second phase (data cleaning), only the important papers whose content fits the research area were included along with their topics. The papers’ content (titles, abstracts, keywords and conclu­sion) was manually reviewed, and those whose content did not match the research phenomenon were eliminated. In the third phase (core analyses), the information from 36 papers was exported from the WOS, all selected papers’ data were chosen and then exported in text format. The data were then imported into Vosviewer version 1.6.16. The search was performed on April 14 2021. The WOS database was used as a literature source be­cause it is the most reliable and comprehensive source of data and is frequently used in bibliometric research on the progress and evaluation of various scientific fields (Berna­tovic et al. 2021). 4 Results and discussion 4.1 The visualisation of the topic clusters Figure 2 is a visual representation of the cluster anal­ysis results based on the co-occurrence of keywords. In table 4 are presented the clusters with their most impor­tant keywords. First, in the analysing process, a minimum number of occurrences of keyword one was determined. Of the 136 keywords, 102 keywords meet the threshold. Next, the authors manually removed seven keywords relat­ed to the choice of research methods in the articles and are not associated with the topic’s content (e.g., content analy­sis, methodology, case study). Then, for the remaining 95 keywords, the overall strength of the co-correlation links with other keywords was calculated. A total of nine clusters were found. Some of the clus­ters were interwoven with each other. However, as shown in Figure 2, the clusters are mostly relatively far apart from each other. Therefore, it can be concluded that most of the topics covered in this literature review do not overlap. Each cluster offers a different topic. Thus, all nine clus­ters provide a comprehensive overview of what is already known about Society 5.0. We did not need to reduce the number of clusters because we wanted to discover the broadest knowledge from homogeneous pieces to present a new social phenomenon. This approach allowed us to give a comprehensive view of research and theory in the field of Society 5.0. On average, the clusters contained nine articles, rang­ing from a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 12. According to the topics, the clusters can be divided into a part relat­ed to the consideration of Society 5.0 itself and a second part associated with Industry 5.0. The naming of clusters is based on the authors’ personal views and experiences of the research topic. According to the co-occurrence analy­sis, up to the present day, it can be concluded that terms artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, big data, Industry 4.0, Industry 5.0, open innovation, Society 5.0, super-smart society have been widely used in researches in the last three years. 4.2 Systematic literature review As part of the systematic analysis of the articles, ac­cording to the content of each cluster, authors have de­cided to group clusters 2- Industry 4.0 and transformation processes for Society 5.0, 3- Technological development and 9- Industry 4.0 as well as 5- Society 5.0 and the en­vironment, 7- Society 5.0 and innovations and 8- Society 5.0 and medicine, into subchapters that are rounded off in terms of content due to their semantic similarity. 4.2.1 Society 5.0 and social changes In the modern world, the process of digitalisation is strongly embedded in social processes. It thus influences changes in the contexts of reference for human action and increasingly shapes human-machine relations. The impor­tance of the technological approach for the future trans­formation of societal processes is already evident in the Japanese concept of Society 5.0, which has emerged as a strategic national policy initiative. The concept goal is to transform the science, technology and innovation system toward Society 5.0 (Fukuda, 2020). The actual purpose of this strategy is defined by Hayashi et al. (2017, 264) as follows: »… create new values by collaborating and cooper­ating with several different systems, and plans standard­isation of data formats, models, system architecture, etc. and development of necessary human resources. Besides, it is expected that enhancements of intellectual properties development, international standardisation, IoT system construction technologies, big data analysis technologies, artificial intelligence technologies, and it is encouraging Japans competitiveness in a»super-smart society. « According to the authors, it is a serious concept of so­cial development that will affect all levels of society. The concept elements are based on the role of individual tech­nology relationship by promoting the quality of life in a sustainable world and the emergence of a superintelligent society. Yousfikhahb (2017) has highlighted that if society 5.0 is to be a successful concept, it must integrate inno­vation policies (from the government), entrepreneurship (from the society) and entrepreneurial skills (from the civil society and institutions). The author also warns that “the social aspects of technology are usually underestimated in the policy-making process which may impact limiting the policy intentions underlying the implementation of Soci­ety 5.0”. It can be concluded that self-organisation in smart tech­nologies has an important influence on the future societal impact of smart technologies. Human self-organisation will depend on the availability of smart technologies in the future, especially in education, business and personal life. The use of smart technologies also opens ethical dilemmas about communication in CPS connexion with personal pri­vacy. These implications can be found in a more dynamic social system in terms of socialisation, but it can also lead to negative consequences, such as losing personal contact with friends and family (Roblek, Meško, Dimovski, and Peterlin, 2019; Shiroishi et al., 2018). 4.2.2 Society 4.0 and transformation to Society 5.0 Society 4.0 was created based on a German econom­ic program called Industry 4.0. To this program, Germany aimed to boost the economy in Germany and all of Europe. The Japanese responded with the concept of Society 5.0. If European countries rely on the gradual integration of artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies to further develop an innovatively designed economy, the Japanese have decided to go beyond this concept and take the next step in data-driven social development to establish Society 5.0 (Onday, 2019). The main goal of Society 5.0 is to enable the wellbeing of citizens provided by available system services that also enable value creation for society (e.g., economic develop­ment, social transformation, and economic growth). There­fore, the program implementation introduced next-gener­ation technologies, governance reform, and value-creating strategies developed for urban centres (Fukuda, 2020). The aim of Society 5.0 is to further combine inno­vative knowledge with the use of AI, which is only in the concept or development phase, and to offer new hu­man-centred technological solutions in all areas of human activity. It should be noted that Society 4.0 focuses more on technological solutions in the field of digitalisation of businesses and local government processes, intending to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the operational and financial processes of private and public organisations and public administration (Pereira, Lima, & Charrua-San­tos, 2020). On the other side, Society 5.0 is expected to be more involved in all population groups’ general social development. Thus, there would be a commercial focus on using new technologies and what is called social robotics. Therefore, AI, IoT, virtual reality, algorithms, cyber-phys­ical systems (CPS) would lead to positive social effects that can be incorporated under this technology (Serpanos, 2018; Song, Song, Timakum, Ryu, & Lee, 2018): • Home automation for independent living (home security and safety systems, motion sensors, remote mon­itoring, indoor air quality control, smart lighting, safe bed, smart sofa, domestic/service robots), • health and wellbeing for functional ability (safe­ty bracelets, activity wristbands, personal health monitor, smart medicine disappearances, exercise and memory games, smart rollator, daily medical testing) and active participation and social inclusion (entertainment and news, smart governance, online work, video chat, remote medi­cal consultation). CPS presents the urban governance system and ena­bles the emergence of the so-called smart community that thrives in the data economy (Kuru & Ansell, 2020). Com­munities also began with the research about the modes of preparation for transforming the local community into a smart community, including fintech solutions. The city’s urbanisation has to enable urban solutions to become suit­able for implementing and integrating the information technologies (Alawadhi et al., 2012). The Canadian Gov­ernance Center at The Ottawa University was criticised for its research approach, which they felt was too technically oriented. They suggested that research concepts should be more governance-oriented, emphasising the importance of social relations and social capital in urban development (Albino, Berardi, & Dangelico, 2015). The lack of gener­ally accepted definitions that would clearly explain these terms is partly due to the different scientific fields from which they originate and partly due to changing trends. 4.2.3 Emergence of the Industry 5.0 If Industry 4.0 has been introduced, the concepts such as CPS, IoT, blockchain, smart factory, big data, cloud storage and cybersecurity, which all have an important function for manufacturing efficiency and lower costs of production (Nahavandi, 2019; Jerman et al., 2020), Indus­try 5.0 is going beyond Industry 4.0. The focus of Industry 5.0 is on the interaction between machines and semi-fin­ished products, individual machine parts, robots and peo­ple. For this process to succeed, the use of big data is es­sential. Therefore, it is going for a technology that enables the collection and processing of large amounts of data in real-time (Büchi, Cugno, & Castagnoli, 2020). Further­more, for the transition to Industry 5.0 itself, it is important to make rapid progress in the areas of AI, machine learning (ML), robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous ve­hicles and cars, 3D and 4D printing, virtual and augmented reality, wearable materials, additive manufacturing, nano­technology, biotechnology, energy storage and quantum computing (European Commission, 2021). According to the European Commission, in January 2021, it adopted the document Industry 5.0: Towards a more sustainable, resilient and human-centric industry. It follows that Industry 5.0 complements and expands Industry 4.0. Thus, Industry 5.0 focuses on aspects that will shape economic and technological development and determine the direction of industrial policies in the future European society. These factors also have environmental, social and fundamental rights dimensions. The document emphasises that Industry 5.0 should not be compared as a chronological continuation of the Industry 4.0 paradigm, nor should it be understood as an alternative. The docu­ment is thus defined as (European Commission, 2021). “The result of a forward-looking exercise to help frame how European industry and emerging societal trends and needs can co-exist”. 4.2.4 Corporate social responsibilities According to Keidanren (2016, 3), Society 5.0 presents a new vision of society: »that incorporates several new technologies in all in­dustries and social activities and achieves both economic development–primarily based on Sustainable Develop­ment Goals established by the United Nations, and solu­tions to key social problems in the present society«. As part of the implementation of the concept of Soci­ety 5.0 in Japan, Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) amended the Charter of Corporate Behavior, also added the section on “Achieving a Sustainable Society” as part of the amendments, with the primary goal of proactively achiev­ing the Sustainable Development Goals. SDGs) by creat­ing a Society 5.0 (Fukuyama, 2018). According to these changes, Society 5.0 enabled a responsible human-centred society and offered a promising integral framework for the potential development of CSR in organisations (Potocan et al., 2020). 4.2.5 Society 5.0 and social innovations Within the societal innovations associated with Society 5.0, we focus on the impact of innovative technologies in healthcare, climate change, and disaster management. It is expected that new technologies in the medical field will also become one of the capillaries of Society 5.0. Thus, smart tools adapted to medical needs include material in­novations, nano-devices, and smart technology (sensors, controls) (Lewis, Gandomkar, & Brennar, 2019), making their way into medicine. Artificial intelligence is also play­ing an increasingly important role in medicine. For exam­ple, AI-based medical image analysis has already been established in some Covid ten centres. In addition, AI is becoming increasingly customer-centric and impacting the quality of medical services (Vaishya et al., 2020). In climate change and disaster management, a trans­formation of disaster and climate change management is expected in the context of innovative solutions brought by Society 5.0. Environmental and climate change requires the development of technologies that enable the early de­tection and adaptation of hazards. The goal is to provide faster and more effective information. Increased use of technology in Society 5.0 is also expected to improve en­vironmental and public health protection (Mavrodieva & Show, 2020). 5 Discussion and conclusion According to the co-occurrence analyse of the papers key words were the most discussed topics careers, Society 5.0 in connection with Covid-19, data-driven innovation, cities, analytics, enterprise systems, big data, knowledge, Society 5.0 in relationship with digitised society, open data, performance expectations, Industry 5.0, blockchain, critical juncture. The paper discusses a series of activities necessary to transfer modern knowledge and new technologies, typical of the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0, from re­search institutes and economic entities to the broader so­ciety, Society 5.0. The process can be achieved by imple­menting knowledge and technologies in the IoT, robotics and Big Data to transform the existing society into a smart society (Society 5.0). In particular, the concept would en­able the adaptation of services and industrial activities to individuals’ real needs, as these technologies allow ad­vanced digital service platforms that will eventually be integrated into all areas of life. Our study indicates that the more intensive the tran­sition to Society 5.0 will be, the more services and daily tasks can be provided via the cloud, e.g., on the Internet. Therefore, this data processing would send information or enable services related to applications on the telephone, the computer and robots, among others. This will allow in­dividuals to have more free time and the free allocation of other activities because artificial intelligence will replace manual data processing, typical of traditional digital algo­rithms. Therefore, it will save much time and increase the productivity of the individual. As a result, it will positively affect increasing the value-added in the economy and en­hance all generations. Authors expect that with the emerging Society 5.0, developed economies will solve many social problems through innovation in technology and science. According to some estimates, the share of Japan’s working population will shrink from 77 million to about 54 million people by 2050 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research: IPSS 2017). Economists estimate that it is pre­cisely the demographic problem that will cause fewer and fewer young people to opt for family and children, which means that the number of older people in need of social care will increase. This applies to Japanese society, which faces a similar, equally pressing demographic problem and many European countries (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research: IPSS 2017). In addition, the developed economies face environmental degradation problems, logistical problems (transport of people and goods within cities, between cities and rural areas, and en­vironmental protection or reduction of greenhouse gases - climate change). The limitations of the research can be divided into content and methodological limitations. Among the con­tent limitations, the presentation of only some aspects of Society 5.0 applies because we used to analyse only the research papers from the WOS database. As methodolog­ical limitations, we refer to the boundary associated with the research paradigm. This paper’s limitation is that it is based on scientific paper reviews and not on primary re­search. It is based on a topic whose development for the future capabilities of artificial intelligence depends on a parallel development of cyberspace and its importance for everyday human life. Our study should be taken as inher­ently biased from an analytical perspective, but at the same time, it enriches us with data that quantitative methods cannot produce. For future research, we suggest examining and iden­tifying a set of good practices of Society 5.0. in Japan (Pereira et al., 2020) to assess the possibility of their im­plementation in other countries (especially in developing countries). We also propose future research to consider the risks that may arise in a digital society, e.g., cybersecuri­ty, including possible cyber terrorism, relations between humans and robotics and ethical questions related to AI implementation and enabling of decision-making instead of a human. Literature 1Received: 12th April 2021; revised: 11th September 2021; accepted: 25th October 2021 Table 1: Technology-based society and transformation processes – technological factors Factor Main topics Author Computerisation (1960-) The invention of the transistor and the microprocessor had an important impact on the rise of telecommunications and computer technology. Ensmenger, 2012; Frey & Osborne, 2017; Jorgenson, 2001 Digitalisation (1980-) Word digitalisation cannot be used as a synonym for com­puterisation. In business administration, digitalisation often means the adoption and increased use of informa­tion and communications technologies. Other meanings of the word digitalisation are connected with the process of converting something to digital form (e.g., digitalisation of payments, digitalisation of the printed documents and books, the transformation of the analogue signals in a dig­ital representation) Jedynak et al., 2021 ; Katsikas & Gritzalis, 2017, Valenduc & Vendramin, 2017 Informatisation (2011-) The word informatisation is used to introduce and adopt information systems, technologies, for instance, informa­tisation of the company (self-management organisation, public apparatus, business). Paulin, 2019; Schuetz & Venkatesh, 2020; Sony and Naik, 2020 Table 2: Technology-based society and transformation processes – economic factors New economy (1980-2006) Within the information society, the so-called new econo­my has been established. During this period, the contri­bution of information companies and service activities (e.g., trade, publishing, entertainment, consulting) in the developed countries expanded to such an extent that it exceeded production agriculture measured by the contri­bution to the gross national product. Thus, in general, an­alysts use the term information economy or new economy to describe a situation where the gross national product dominates the information industry. Cant, 2020; Daveri, 2002; Farell, 2003 Innovative economy or knowledge-based economy (2003-2030) The new economy is passed into an innovative econo­my based on the thesis that capital accumulation is the main vehicle for economic growth. The rate of economic growth in the innovative economy depends on the prod­ucts and services resulting from knowledge (R&D) Chen (2008); Drucker (2002); Tocan (2012) Data Economy (2011-) Industry 4.0 enable that humanity is generating more information than an individual can implement. It is also coming to the situation that more interdependencies emerging than an individual can handle, and rapid chang­es have been observed that are difficult to track. ICT and big data analytics have given rise to the “data economy”. Society is coming to data accumulation instead of capital. Data’s key features become: data present a by-product of economic activity; data is the information used for prediction and uncertainty reduction enhances organi­sations profit. Implementing data-driven solutions in the human ecosystem enables the flow of services, opera­tions and functions and the design and implementation of strategies and policies. The government policies allow the emergence of open data (freely available) Farboodi & Veldkamo, 2021; Teece, 2018: Wamba et al., 2019 Table 3: Journals used for the scientometric analysis and systemic literature review Journals Annals of the American Association of Geographers Applied Science Computer Data Engineering IEEE Communications Magazine Information International Journal of Production Economics Inzinerine ekonomika-engineering economics Journal of Asian Public Policy Journal of Clinical Medicine Journal of Industrial Integration and Management-Innovation and Entrepreneurship Journal of the Knowledge Economy Journal of the Manufacturing Systems Kybernetes Libri-International Journal of Libraries and Information Studies Nature Omics-A Journal of Integrative Biology Pakistan journal of medical sciences Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya Sustainability Technology Analysis & Strategic Management  Wireless Personal Communications Zeitschrift fur Wirtschaftsgeographie    Figure 1: The three steps study protocol Figure 2: Co-occurrences of keyword network (min. 1). Data source: WOS. Visualisation: VOSviewer Table 4: Topic clusters of Society 5.0 research from 2017- March, 31 2021 (n = 36) Clusters Cluster colour in Figure 2 Topic community cluster Top items Total numbers of terms 1 red New approaches in HRM generation, work values, personal innovativeness, career 14 2 green Industry 4.0 and trans­formation processes for Society 5.0 Industry 4.0, cities, culture, smart society, human-cen­tred management systems 13 3 blue Technological develop­ment Artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, big data, open innovation, Internet 13 4 yellow Industry 5.0 Industry 5.0, blockchain, decentralised web, innova­tion ecosystems, knowledge circulation 13 5 purple Society 5.0 and the envi­ronment Super-smart society, innova­tion policy, climate change, disaster management, Japan 10 6 light blue Corporate social respon­sibility CSR, financial performance, ISO 26000, organisational innovations, sociotechnical systems, social responsible economic 9 7 orange Society 5.0 and innova­tions data-driven innovation, technology and innovation, system resilience, productiv­ity and growth, science 9 8 brown Society 5.0 and medicine Covid-19, AI, emerging tech­nology, medicine 4.0, the industrial revolution 8 9 light purple Industry 4.0 Industry 4.0, digitalised soci­ety, open data performance, SDGs, super-smart society 6 Albino, V., Berardi, U., & Dangelico, R. 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His main areas of expertise are digital transformation, information society, knowledge management, smart technologies and systemic approaches. He conducts research and consulting for various international organisations. His work includes about 110 bibliographic records. He is also associated editor of the World Complexity Science Academy Science Journal. ORCID: 0000-0003-1182-3400 Maja Meško, PhD, is a Full Professor of Management at the Faculty of Management, University of Primorska and full professor of Human Research Management at the Faculty of Organization Science, University of Maribor. She received PhD in kinesiology, the title of her doctoral dissertation is Defining certain motor abilities and psychological characteristics of the Slovenian military pilots. Her research interests include the areas of management, psychology in management, occupational health and management. She has also participated in various projects. She authored or co-authored various scientific papers published in professional and academic journals. ORCID: 0000-0002-3124-3094. Iztok Podbregar is a Dean and a Full Professor at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor. His main research interests concern crisis management, critical infrastructure and human resource management. He is author of several monographs, scientific articles published in Slovenia and abroad. Mapiranje nastanka družbe 5.0: bibliometricna analiza Ozadje in namen prispevka: Cilj študije je odgovoriti na raziskovalno vprašanje: Kateri bistveni elementi tehnolo­ških inovacij omogocajo preobrazbo družbe 4.0 in industrije 4.0 v družbo 5.0 in industrijo 5.0? Študija je pomembna za praktike in raziskovalce, ker jih seznanja tako s samim pomenom družbe 5.0 kot z gonilniki, ki bodo pomagali oblikovati politike družbe 5.0 in igrali pomembno vlogo pri njenem nadaljnjem razvoju. Avtorji so tako izvedli kvantita­tivno bibliometricno študijo, ki daje vpogled v pomen teme ter vkljucuje aktualne znacilnosti in prihodnje raziskovalne trende. Metodologija: Z namenu, da se pridobi vpogled v razvoj družbe 5.0, je bilo v študiji uporabljeno algoritemsko soca­sno pojavljanje kljucnih besed. Z bibliometricno analizo smo analizirali 36 izbranih clankov iz baze Web of Science. Rezultati: Analiza sopojavnosti je pokazala, da se v zadnjih treh letih v raziskavah pogosto uporabljajo pojmi ume­tna inteligenca, kiber-fizicni sistemi, veliki podatki, Industrija 4.0, Industrija 5.0, odprta inovacija, Družba 5.0, super­-pametna družba. Zakljucek: Študija predstavlja bibliometricno analizo v okviru katere je bila izvedena analiza trenutnih in prihodnjih razvojnih gonilnih sil družbe 5.0. Glede na rezultate je prehod iz družbe 4.0 v družbo 5.0 mogoce doseci z implemen­tacijo znanja in tehnologij v IoT, robotiko in Big Data. Koncept bi zlasti omogocil prilagajanje storitev in industrijskih dejavnosti dejanskim potrebam posameznikov. Poleg tega te tehnologije omogocajo napredne platforme digitalnih storitev, ki bodo scasoma integrirane v vsa podrocja življenja. Kljucne besede: Družba 5.0, Industrija 5.0, Informacijska družba, Pametna družba, Podatkovno vodene inovacije DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0021 Content Analysis of Gossip at Different Levels of a Hospital Maryam BABAEI AGHBOLAGH1, Farzad Sattari ARDABILI1,*, Elena VOITENKO2 1 Department of Management, Ardabil Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil, Iran, f.sattari@iauardabil.ac.ir (*corre­sponding author) 2 Department of Psychology, Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, Kyiv, Ukraine Background: Most societies have a negative attitude toward gossip and managers are concerned about the impact of gossips on the communication in an organizational environment. Our study examined the perception of gossip, and the context of gossip at different levels of a hospital, a case of organization with high communicational relation among staff. Also, the differences between the gossip context within the organizational context and within the social environment have been considered. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 informants, 9 in each of three groups: nurses, supervisors and managers of the Hospital. Recorded interviews were analyzed using content analysis, and results for each group of respondents were compared. Finally, the main gossiping issues for each group were categorized. Results: The study revealed that the topics of gossip in a hospital can be divided into eight main categories, and 34 sub-categories all identifiable by special topics. These main topics included confidentiality issues, merits, finan­cial status/standing, personal characteristics, position, communications, biography, and job conditions. In terms of organizational gossip, a person’s merit in the workplace and financial standing were of particular interest to the participants of this study. Also, the gossip topics at different levels among nurses, administrators, and managers had significant differences. Conclusion: Managers should acknowledge different gossip contents among people at different organizational levels, and that employees do not have the same motives for communication at different organizational levels. Additionally, the distances between contents in the Tendency to Gossip Questionnaire and categories in the orga­nizational environment need more studies, to explore precedents and outputs. Managers may use these findings to facilitate organizational change and communication. Keywords: Gossip in organizations, Construct of gossip, Content analysis, Informal communication 1 Introduction Gossip is an “evaluative informal discussion about the social environment member who is absent” (Dores Cruz, Nieper, Testori, Martinescu, & Beersma, 2021; Lee & Workman, 2013). People are, with a significant frequen­cy, volunteers of gossiping (Beersma & Van Kleef, 2011) and gossiping is effective on pro-social behavior and on the intention to volunteer (Eckhaus & Ben-Hador, 2020). However, most societies have a negative attitude toward gossip, but on the other hand, view gossip as a form of ver­bal communication to praise or denigrate people (Ceylan & Çetinkaya, 2020), or as a player in employees task-relat­ed behavior (Tan, Yam, Zhang, & Brown, 2021). From the perspective of organizational managers, because gossip can cause problems in the organization, managers should be concerned with the content of gossip in the organiza­tional environment (Wittek, Hangyi, Van Duijn, & Carroll, 2000). In fact, a one-dimensional (negative) view of peo­ple on gossip has led managers to have the opinion that it should be eradicated from organizations, claiming that employees “steal” money from the organization by getting involved in gossiping, not working hard, and wasting their time (Noon & Delbridge, 1993). However, some studies indicate that gossip can play both positive and negative roles in organizations and have various effects on organ­izations’ management and staffing (Chang & Kuo, 2020; Ellwardt, Labianca, & Wittek, 2012). In general, research­ers remain ambivalent about gossiping with some claim­ing it can positively help managers make better decisions, yet others considering it to be detrimental (Clegg & van Iterson, 2009). Gossip is naturally consistent with infor­mal organizational networks and informal structures of organizations have a mutual relationship with their formal structures so that similar functions might be expected for gossiping in both networks (Mills, 2010). Researchers have categorized gossip into two types: positive and negative (Grosser, Kidwell, & Labianca, 2012), with each type having different functions and re­sults. In a study in an organizational environment, Geor­ganta, Panagopoulou, and Montgomery (2014) found that negative gossip in a hospital is positively correlated with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and subopti­mal care, and is negatively correlated with patient safety culture and job commitment. Another study showed that gossips turned out to be an important determinant regard­ing women’s motivation for and ability to participate in health-promoting activities. Moreover, gossip was identi­fied as a factor strongly undermining their health and sense of wellbeing (Aambř, 2017) and that, employees who are exposed to gossip feel sad and angry and distrust the or­ganization in which they are working (Santas, Ugurluoglu, Özer, & Demir, 2018). A review of a significant number of studies shows that people participate in positive and negative gossiping for many reasons and may have different aims (Foster, 2004; Liff & Wikström, 2021; Michelson, Van Iterson, & Wad­dington, 2010). In this regard, Foster (2004) argues that in a social structure, people participate in gossiping for four reasons: information, entertainment, influence, and friendship. Furthermore, studies indicate that employees’ level of neuroticism moderates the positive effect of the workplace, negative gossip, and work-family conflict. It also moderates the mediating effect of workplace negative gossip on employees’ work-family conflict by psychologi­cal distress (Liu, Wu, Yang, & Jia, 2020). However, the re­searchers found that people with higher perceived insider status in the organization are more likely to be interested in positive gossip because of their more desirable treat­ment and the motivations offered by their organization and supervisor. Hence, in order to foster positive gossip and detract negative gossip in an organization, it is necessary to make people feel as though they are insiders and de­pend on their organization (Kim, Moon, & Shin, 2019). Additionally, recent studies show that a tendency to gossip through different levels may result in different outcomes. For example, positive gossip among managers affects commitment and recognition in subordinates (Chang & Kuo, 2020) which are clues to reconsidering gossiping in organizations at different organizational levels and in a top-down manner. To or best knowledge, the only available model in the field of gossip content is the study by Nevo, Nevo, and Derech-Zehavi (1993) who defined gossip according to its four aspects of physical appearance, social information, achievement, and sublimation. Their proposed model Ten­dency to Gossip Questionnaire (TGQ) was based on the study conducted on students in a learning environment and has adopted a social perspective. Some factors cause organizational environments to differ from each other, including purposes, strategies, dif­ferent operational, management levels, and the nature of the job a person has. Some official rules and regulations in organizations make these differences more pronounced. A simple example of such laws and regulations is the uniforms worn by employees of an organization, which makes their clothes more unified and reduces variety (Lee & Workman, 2013), consequently reducing the curiosity of people, causing them not to use gossip on clothing as a means of comparison. Physical appearance in TGQ model is the first priority and has the most prominence and fre­quency; people speak and show curiosity about the chang­es and diversity of dresses, appearances, and behaviors. In addition, gossip has its roots in interaction and com­munication, and its amount may vary at different organi­zational levels. Subordinates may use negative gossip to put the supervision under motional and cognitional threats (Ye, He, & Sun, 2021). Moreover, organizational factors that can contribute to gossip may have different effects at various levels. For instance, nurses, as frontline employ­ees of the hospital, work under stressful conditions and are more likely to spread gossip. Gossips among nurses can improve their social ties regardless of the generated positive or negative gossip (Thomas & Rozell, 2007). The findings revealed that gossip helps nurses express their feelings and overcome their difficult and stressful working conditions (Waddington, 2005; Waddington & Michelson, 2007). The change in speaking topic from working to per­sonal releases employees’ minds from the stressful condi­tions of patients and the hospital and provides them a way of coping with strategy (Georganta et al., 2014). Considering the role of gossip in the organization, its role in hospitals is valuable to study in hospitals where communication is very important in the healthcare system performance and nurses’ job outcomes (Ardabili, 2020). At a first glance, the outcomes of the hospitals have been affected positively by information technology (Arfara, Tsivos, Samanta, & Kyriazopoulos, 2017) and gossip is the way to boost the ability of informal communication and transference of information. In the wake of such in­fluence, it stands to reason that the causes and consequenc­es of gossip may be different in organizational environ­ments compared to non-organizational ones. To determine whether such differences exist, the basic structures of or­ganizational gossip should be identified to facilitate the distinction between social and organizational gossip. The present study aimed to investigate the contents of the organizational gossip and answer the following ques­tions: • Which types of gossip exist in an organizational environment? • What do employees say about others? • Do these topics have distinct constructs and groupings? • Does the gossip content change according to the organizational levels? 2 Literature Review The role of gossip in organizations has been considered recently and gossip is of critical importance in manage­ment, due to its role in reinforcing social bonds and formal work structures (Liff & Wikström, 2021) and also because of its effects on informal communication. However, many researchers have analyzed the role of organizational gos­sip in a limited form (Hallett, Harger, & Eder, 2009), pay­ing little attention to its positive impact on organizations (Eckhaus & Ben-Hador, 2020) and different organizational groups in achieving organizational goals. Fan and Dawson (2021) explained that social interactions are often viewed as activities beyond the edges of organizational life so less value has been attributed to gossip in organizations by managers, even though gossip is “at the core of human social relationships” (Michelson et al., 2010). Enhancing employees’ performance levels in health­care systems, especially nurses, is important for both health institutions and patients who are in direct contact with patients (Durmus, Kirilmaz, & Sahin, 2020). Cov­id-19 pandemic showed that the healthcare professionals’ job performances and effective services are important in the face of busy, long, and stressful working conditions. But high stress in the work environment and increasing pressure and concern, affect the amount of gossip shared (Bulduk, Özel, & Dinçer, 2016). 2.1 Gossip, Culture, and Organizations Gossip has been identified as a tool that helps people to know and understand their social environment better. As social interaction, some people do gossip for various reasons such as group protection, self-interest, or evolu­tionary needs (Bechtoldt, Beersma, & Dijkstra, 2020). But there is no evidence for specific motives for gossiping in an organizational context. In the organizational view, man­agers try to enhance productivity through developing the quality of work-life, well-being, and motivating employ­ees (Abdi, Chaib, & Verzea, 2020) which may be mediat­ed or affected by gossiping in various ways, e.g., through positive gossip about mangers to increase commitment to the managers (Chang & Kuo, 2020) . In instances where information transfer cannot be done through official chan­nels, gossip can help people understand the environmental conditions better, and cause environmental recognition in organizations through which people gain the ability to compete for organizational bonuses and promotions (Kniffin & Wilson, 2010). From the perspective of cultural learning, gossip can teach people how to be successful in an environment and how to learn from others’ mistakes (Grosser, Lopez-Kidwell, & Labianca, 2010). Moreover, when assessing their performance and determining ways to improve it, employees can be assisted by gossip to collect information and compare themselves with others (Waddington & Michelson, 2007). The exchange of information through gossip can also reduce stress and anxiety in situations, such as or­ganizational changes, by implementing group norms and strengthening social bonds in the organization (Kniffin & Wilson, 2005). People motivated to protect the group may spread negative gossip on members whose behaviors vi­olate the norms of the group and spread positive gossip on behaviors that conform to group norms and strengthen them (Ellwardt et al., 2012), because as defined earlier, gossip is an informal discussion in the social environment on an absent member (Babaei Aghbolagh & Ardabili, 2016; Lee & Workman, 2013). This gossiping occurs in such a way that people may not show the same reaction to strangers (Beersma & Van Kleef, 2012). Thus, this process can be helpful in educating members on organizational culture (Michelson et al., 2010). Accordingly, it is argued that gossip, through cultural education and social compari­son by which people take actions to improve their position and performance, can lead to improvements in organiza­tional performance. 2.2 Gossip and Organizational Changes Gossip is also used to express concerns and feelings on threats to an organization’s internal policies and may cause some resistance to the implementation of change programs (Ybema, 2004). Based on this viewpoint, gossip can act as a process through which administrative privi­leges are put to challenge and questioned and the powers of management to control the organization is diminished. Employees have various forms of interpersonal relations among employees, such as competition, and gossip can erode the unity and continuity of organizations as well as negatively influence the efficiency of organizations’ goals and programs (Noon & Delbridge, 1993). Stated differently, the positive or negative effects of gossip in organizations depend on the conditions, atmos­phere, and manner of management in organizations. Com­mon examples of organizational changes that create gossip are appointment and dismissal of directors of organiza­tions (Gholipour, Fakheri Kozekanan, & Zehtabi, 2011). Such changes, similar to other changes, cause untrustwor­thiness and hesitation in people’s organizational life and have the potential to engage all employees in the process of spreading gossip. Following changes, some information of varying accuracy has been released on people, such as candidates for management positions, a dismissed manag­er, and people involved in the manager selection (Mills, 2010). However, such gossip can have both positive and negative functions (Rosnow & Foster, 2005) in a way that people remove ambiguities, create a common sense, and relieve produced stress and anxiety by speaking on that area. Despite the importance of gossip content, specific studies on the extraction of subjects and content of gossip in an organization at different levels have not been con­ducted. Hence, whether the content of the gossip at all levels is the same or the dimensions of gossip and their importance are subject to change as the organizational lev­el rises remains unknown. To this end, the present study aimed to study the content of gossip and its dimensions in a reputable and reliable manner through which the tools to measure the gossip and differences in various groups and organizations with different cultures can be developed. 3 Methodology 3.1 Participants To analyze gossip in an organizational context and to show its differences with gossip in the non-organizational environments (e.g., a school in TGQ model), participants of the study should have been selected from an organiza­tion where employees have high social interactions. The need for teamwork should also be evident in the organ­ization and it should not merely focus on individual ad­ministrative activities to identify content and themes of gossips. For this purpose, 27 nurses, experienced hospital supervisors, and managers were selected randomly from Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ardabil from December 2019 to February 2020 to specify important involved issues from different perspectives. The selected participants were the most experienced persons in their group based on the Hospital management report. Among selected participants 44% were men, and 39% aged between 30-40, 52% aged higher than 41 years. 3.2 Interview Procedure Semi-structured interviews were conducted so as to fa­cilitate a free flow of ideas with the respondents and gen­erate information-rich data based on the clinical method of interviewing (Dapkus, 1985) to understand the meanings conveyed in communication contents between people in organizations. All participants ensured about Anonymity, Privacy, & Confidentiality of the interviews. One main area was covered in the interview: What do employees say about each other? The responses were allo­cated three subcategories: 1) People’s favorite subjects in daily life (e.g., what issues would employees like most to talk about with others in their interpersonal interactions?), 2) People’s conversations on others’ issues in the time of organizational changes (e.g., which gossips are ex­changed among employees in the shift-change time of staff and management, etc.?), and 3) The subjects of staff or conversations in the time of change in the quality of interpersonal relations (e.g., if the employees have personal disputes, how they speak about each other?). These contents (Clegg & van Iterson, 2009; Grosser et al., 2010) are based on a comparison with the social gossip content to present the definition of organizational gossip (limited social structure). The interviews were conducted over the course of 10 days through tape recording and in different places at the request of the respondents. The interviews had no time lim­it to allow the respondents to express their opinions easily and to avoid limiting the range of topics and codes in the analyses. This strategy was adopted to obtain a wide range of possible answers. Following the interviews, data anal­ysis was carried out in three stages. First, the transcription of the recorded voices carried out as conversation analysis method (CA). The researchers aimed at identifying the po­tential themes and developing a formal codebook in the first stage. In the second stage, the research team used a sample text to ensure intercoder reliability for each of the themes in the codebook. When the researchers were able to make sure that they had established acceptable and appro­priate intercoder reliability levels, they moved to the final stage and applied the codebook, in a systematic form, to the entire corpus of text (Kurasaki, 2000). Step 1: Codebook Development In this article, the grounded theory approach (Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Martin & Turner, 1986) was used to de­tect potential themes and develop a formal codebook. The grounded theory style of qualitative research has been used extensively, from psychology to information science to education to many communities of practice within health care and to management and organization studies. Indeed, in the domain of qualitative research, the original text has assumed canonical status (Locke, 2001). Step 2: Intercoder Reliability At this point, four people were trained for coding, in­cluding the two interviewers. When the team completed the code definitions, the four coders were then tasked with coding the same sample of text independently to examine the consistency of text segmentation and code application. In order to test their understanding of each code, each of the four coders read the same portions of six interviews that were selected randomly and the text was marked for all of the thirty-four code categories. The marking behav­iors of the coders were compared in order to calculate the measures of coder reliability. Based on Kurasaki’s work (2000), the researchers calibrated the four coders to an agreed level of .70, according to the data presented during the training phase. The researchers also instructed each coder in order to delineate text units and assign numeric code(s) to each text unit independently. A text unit is a unit of conversa­tion representing a single message (McFadden, Seidman, & Rappaport, 1992), a distinguishing feature (Pennartz, 1986), or a change of subject (Dapkus, 1985). During the open coding step, 191 open codes have been extracted. Then, regarding the similarities and dif­ferences of the codes, categorization has been done and summarized to 123 codes in 9 themes. Each themes en­compasses sub-codes which totally reached to 16 concepts and 37 codebooks. Finally one theme has been deleted or combined to other themes after agreement calculation step, and resulted to eight final constructs. A sample, part of in­terview with one of nurses is as bellow: …. all co-workers talk about how much others earn. But the payment details and how exactly we are measured were not clear. As colleagues say, some managers or even nurses receive more than others. I think it is different for everyone and those who have a friend among managers receive more. Mr… was after me. But he bought a new car soon, and I even heard that he wants to change his house. Does he deserve being promoted so fast? How much he earns? I am not sure about managers and supervisors’ in­comes, but I heard they have various advantages besides salary. So, it is not their concern how we live with such low wages. They are not worry about our problems be­cause they earn well enough…I am not sure how I can get promoted. I have more than 10 years experiences and some of my colleagues, with less experience, are now my man­ger. It is clear that we should join the managers’ team to get promoted. There are no obvious indexes to find a higher position and income….. 4 Results We annotated the text by examining all initial six tran­scripts and performing the ‘annotation’ step. Annotations refer to the notes that are written in the margins with re­gard to the interview’s contents. For the following excerpt, for instance, the title “Salary” would constitute a typical annotation: “Have you heard that the salaries of operating room staff are supposed to increase?” A verbatim list of all of the annotations was compiled. The annotations in this list were sorted into similar catego­ries and subcategories by the two members of the research team. The redundancies were removed and an initial hier­archy of thematic categories was created. In light of the above consolidation step, forty thematic categories were identified. The research team developed descriptive labels for each of the forty thematic categories in order to offer the intended meaning of each category. In the next step, they operationalized them and individual reports were generated for each of the themes in order to examine the taxonomy for possible redundancies that were missed dur­ing the earlier sorting step (Kurasaki, 2000). A number of redundancies were observed and, after additional sorting, thirty-seven themes were selected for further consideration (Table 1). The research team applied a decimal numbering sys­tem to ensure that the numerical digits represent the differ­ent levels of the themes. For example, all themes assigned with a 1.x numeric code were related to finances. The digit following the decimal further distinguishes different types of finances, in no specific order. Numeric codes assigned to individual themes are presented in Table 1. The codebook was further refined when training the two research assistants as coders. In the training session, the coders acquainted themselves with definitions, appli­cations of the themes, and coding procedures (Kurasaki, 2000). At the coders’ request, two amendments were made to the codebook. They unanimously chose to eliminate categories 7.2 (chances, destiny) and 7.3 (helping others’ claims, the claim of advice, and solutions to others). They also decided to combine categories 7.1 and 6.4, and agreed that it better reflects its intended meaning. As a conse­quence of such amendments, the final codebook contained thirty-four categories and their corresponding numeric codes (Table 1). To calculate agreement, we selected five interviews randomly. The five interviews were divided between cod­ers who read and coded all five interviews individually. Then, to check the coders’ agreement, we scored one on the parts of the interview agreed on in a group and scored zero on the parts no agreement was reached between the coders. This step can highlight the lack of compatibility and application of codes in each segment (MacQueen, McLellan, Kay, & Milstein, 1998). Coder agreement results of the themes are provided in Table 2. Inter-coder agreement on the thirty-four themes ranged from .69 to 1.00 with a mean of .89. The highest agreements were on the supplemental received (1.2), fi­nancial situation (1.3), demeanor (5.1), dress (5.5), and personal appearance (5.6). The lowest agreement was on capabilities (3.3). These results are summarized in Table 1. Step 3: Applying the Codebook Systematically to the Data Descriptive labels were developed in order to display the intended meaning of codes as shown in the Table 2, perform thematic searches of all data, and count the num­ber of occurrences for each one of the eight constructs. We calculated the frequency of thematic categories as an indi­cation of the prominence of each thematic code (Table 3). To investigate the importance of issues for staff, the frequency and average of the codes and constructs were calculated based on which the constructs were prioritized. Table 3 shows the frequency and average for each code with separated groups of employees. As Table 3 shows, the highest frequencies in each of the three groups are different. For managers’ empower­ment (F=27), performance (F=17) and appointment and promotions (F=14) were the most frequent contents of gossip respectively. Among supervisors, however, perfor­mance got the highest rank with 23 frequencies and was followed by speak about personality and supplementary whose frequency was13. Among nurses the topics frequen­cies were much different with supplemental receiving the first rank (F=25), personality the second rank (F=15) and empowerment the third rank (F=14). Table 4 shows the frequency, frequency percentage, and average of constructs. As represented in Table 5, the construct of “merit” with total weighted average of 5.85, and frequency percentage of 27.52, was the first priority among the answers and Persons’ biography with an av­erage of 1.18 and 5.57 frequency percentage was the last priority (Table 4). In executives’ group, punishment code and personal appearance were not presented in the answers and thus has zero repetition score. Empowerment is the most repeated theme. Among the group of supervisors, the code was not mentioned in the replies and the most frequent repetition was code performance. Among the nurses, the highest fre­quency (F=24) was related to supplementary received and the lowest frequency (F=0) was related to economic activ­ities, capabilities, achievements, clothes, personal appear­ance, and illegal activities. The difference test shows the average difference of an­swers among three groups of samples. Meaningfulness of a code’s differences indicates that the corresponding code does not have the same importance in the viewpoints of all three groups, and could represent a potential difference among the respondents. Analysis of variance among the eight constructs shows agreement/disagreement among respondents’ comments on the defined codes, which suggests gossips in organi­zations, from the perspective of supervisors, nurses, and managers, are identical in some areas but differ in other areas. The difference between tasks, types of works and individuals’ responsibilities at different organizational lev­els makes some factors significant for the staff to discuss among themselves. According to these three groups, one-way ANOVA test was applied to each variable. The tests for normality and homogeneity were done for these groups and the results verified for the ANOVA analysis. Table 5 shows the results of one-way ANOVA along with Leven test results for each constructs. According to the coefficient of analysis of variance for constructs of personal characteristics (0.78) and job con­ditions (1.26), which are not at significant levels, no dif­ference was observed among the different groups on these constructs. The variance coefficients of constructs of merit (26.06), finance (17.02), confidentiality issues (5.14), per­sons’ positions (4.0) persons’ communications (22.85), and persons’ biography (10:45) were significant, thereby suggesting the topics of organizational gossip have differ­ent importance among different groups, and organizational staff do not necessarily use common themes in gossiping. According to these variables, due to the differences are statistically significant, post hoc analysis should be carried out for the reason behind the significant result. The results for Tukey’s HSD test is shown in the Table 6. For each height differences between points (Table 6), sub groups were shown in pairwise comparison. The re­sults showed that all three groups are significantly different in Merit, and Persons’ communications. Whereas gossip­ing about personal characteristics, and job conditions in­clude all three groups in one subset. Therefore, there are no differences between these three groups regards to gossip­ing contents about personal characteristics and job condi­tions. Interestingly, nurses and supervisors are same subset in finance and persons’ biography and in both constructs managers stands alone in one separate subset. However, supervisors showed similarities with nurses and managers in constructs of persons’ positions, and confidentiality is­sues. 5 Discussion and Conclusion The first aim of this study was to identify gossiping contents in hospitals where employees are under huge work pressure and stress, especially during this Covid-19 period. The second aim of the study was to explore gossip­ing differences at organizational levels to show that em­ployees at the various levels of a hospital, as an example of organization, do gossip significantly and the topics of their gossips vary. The third goal was to categorize the contents of gossip in hospitals. The results showed that the content of gossips in hos­pitals has some differences with the content of gossips in a social structure (Nevo et al., 1993) and is in line with the results of (Foster, 2004). This means that the context of the work provides or affects the content of gossip. Also, the aims of gossiping in hospitals are far different from the aims of gossiping in social environments. It was shown that the merit and financial issues got the first and sec­ond highest ranks between other constructs, respectively. Therefore, we can conclude that gossiping contents are various based on social or organizational milieu. The second result of this study indicates that employ­ees at organizational levels have different aims for gos­siping. In line with Durmus et al. (2020), we also found differences between employees at different levels of hos­pitals. These diversities may be rooted in the work atti­tudes and behaviors which are affected by work and need to adjustment. At the managerial levels, it may be for ac­cessing relevant information in their decision-making (Liff & Wikström, 2021). But at the lower levels in hospitals, work stress and responsibility pressure make a stronger de­mand for group protection, coping strategies, and reducing stress. These findings are in contradiction to Wu, Birtch, Chiang, and Zhang (2018) findings. On the one hand, the themes of gossip, at the practical level of a hospital, are mostly individual oriented while on the other, at the higher level of a hospital, contents tend to be organizationally ori­ented and includes issues such as performance. More to the point is that, the employees may use gossiping in response to their superiors’ misbehaviors and to put them under pressure (Ye et al., 2021). This response helps them feel better and cope with situation, or acts as the conjunction between these levels (Michelson et al., 2010). Addition­ally, a transition in the organizational level (from nurses to managers) shows that the discussion topics on gossips shift from individual issues such as financial matters and receiving side benefits to human characteristics, such as performance and character leading to organizational is­sues including empowerment. This diversity may be root­ed in the concerns in the hospital or due to the different situations of each group that affects their motivations for gossiping (Dores Cruz, Beersma, Dijkstra, & Bechtoldt, 2019). Nurses have the same concerns about the financial issues. Thus, the strategy for coping motivates them to speak about shared needs and situations. The same conclu­sion is generalizable for supervisors and managers. Their situations are varying, too. However, the rules would provide a context for the growth of gossiping. Some official rules and regulations in organizations make differences more pronounced e.g., laws and regulations on uniforms (Lee & Workman, 2013). The results also showed that gossip topics can be di­vided into eight groups involving main issues and their sub-codes involving 34 more minor issues. The main top­ics of gossip include confidentiality issues, merits, finan­cial issues, personal characteristics, individuals’ positions, individuals’ communications, individuals’ biography, and job conditions. The category of merits and financial affairs are the first two priorities that hospital personnel talk about. Personnel always seek to compare the ability and competence of oth­ers with their own abilities and competence and thereby make comparisons about revenues and supplements re­ceived from organizations or outside sources. However, among managers and supervisors, merit is the first priority in comparison with other issues of gossip. This is while, among nurses, financial issues are of great­est importance. Compared with head nurses and hospital administrators, staff nurses do not benefit from suitable payments. Likewise, no acceptable payment transparency exists among nurses, making them attempt to spread gos­sip while their superiors mainly try to advance and succeed in their positions. Furthermore, the analysis of the results between groups showed that however all three groups have similarities about gossiping, but the as person’s position changed to managerial levels in the hospital, the gossiping constructs are going to more related to the job conditions. Also, peo­ple in organization have same gossip constructs based on their job situation. For example, all staff in all levels do gossip about job conditions. Therefore, the employee tries to find same issues for gossiping which means that even the positions in the organizations are in close relation with colleagues’ concern. Identifying the quality of relationships among mem­bers of organizations and gossiping activities can be a tool for managers to understand and better manage the condi­tions of their organizations and human resources. 5.1 Implications for Managers Managers should know that the consequences of gos­sip can be both positive and negative (Michelson & Mou­ly, 2002), but its main function is to provide information related to the organization. The employees in an organiza­tion are likely to use gossip in response to organizational situations. Because of this, the contents of the gossip are different at different organizational levels. It can also be ar­gued that within an organization, topics can be of varying importance based on job levels and hierarchies, such that the average frequency groups differ in all constructs except for private issues and personal characteristics. The authors hope this study contributes to improving knowledge in the field of gossip and in examining the im­pact of organizational variables regarding the content of gossip. It is also hoped that managers take benefit of gos­sip to reduce organizational resistance to change through sharing information. The results of the study may be of practical use for checking organizational variables and situations. The contents of the gossips would be helpful to find employees’ concerns and viewpoints, even about appointments and evaluating the performance of the hos­pitals. Limitations of this study, such as the number of peo­ple participating in the research and the qualitative method used should be considered in future studies. Also, due to the pandemic of Covid-19, employees in the hospitals are under a huge workload and stress, and therefore, the re­sults may be different in normal time. Future studies on different organizations are recom­mended. In particular, checking the gossip in virtual spac­es and in different communities can contribute significant­ly to better identify the communication issues in virtual organizations and the formation of gossip in them. We also suggest studying employee roles in gossiping and their personality in and out of the job. Literature 1Received: 2nd February 2021; revised: 21th September 2021; accepted: 6th October 2021 Table 1: Reliability of Encoding Theme List Numeric code Agreement Theme List Numeric code Agreement Salary 1.1 0.99 Personality 5.3 0.96 Supplemental receive 1.2 1.00 Morality 5.4 0.85 Financial situation 1.3 1.00 Clothes 5.5 1.00 Economic activities 1.4 0.98 Personal appearance 5.6 1.00 Appointment and promotion 2.1 0.95 influence 6.1 0.82 Job displacements 2.2 0.87 Relations 6.2 0.78 Persons’ brand 2.3 0.90 Association with power bases 6.3 0.83 Punishment and leaving jobs 2.4 0.79 Political Relations 6.4 0.88 Education 3.1 0.98 Combined with 6.4 7.1 - Backgrounds 3.2 0.97 Deleted 7.2 - Capabilities 3.3 0.69 Deleted 7.3 - Achievements 4.1 0.88 Familial Culture 8.1 0.82 The effort 4.2 0.94 Aspects of life 8.2 0.87 Empowerment 4.3 0.80 Ethical issues 8.3 0.98 Performance 4.4 0.84 Family matters 8.4 0.85 Illegal activities 4.5 0.92 Security and comfort 9.1 0.86 Failure 4.6 0.85 Difficulty work 9.2 0.88 Demeanor 5.1 1.00 Business issues 9.3 0.90 Motivation 5.2 0.78 Table 2: Descriptive labels of Constructs and Codes Code Construct Code Construct Influence Persons’ commu­nications Salary Finance Relations Supplemental receive Association with power bases Financial situation Political Relations Economic activities Familial Culture Confidentiality issues Appointment and promotion Persons’ Positions Aspects of life Job displacements Ethical issues Persons’ brand Family matters Punishment and leaving jobs Security and comfort Job conditions Education Persons’ Biography Difficulty work backgrounds Business issues Capabilities Demeanor Personal characte­ristics Achievements Merit Motivation The effort Personality Empowerment Morality Performance Clothes Illegal activities Personal appearance Failure Table 3: Frequency and Prioritization of Groups Codes Groups Managers Supervisors Nurses Groups codes F P F P F P Total F P Salary 6 2.8 9 4.2 15 8.1 30 4.9 Supplemental receive 3 1.4 13 6.1 25 13.5 41 6.7 Financial situation 8 3.8 6 2.8 11 5.9 25 4.1 Economic activities 5 2.4 2 0.9 0 0 7 1.6 Appointment and promotion 14 6.73 8 3.8 5 2.7 27 4.4 Job displacements 5 2.4 8 3.8 6 3.2 19 3.5 Persons’ brand 2 0.9 3 1.4 3 1.6 8 1.3 Punishment and leaving jobs 0 0 6 2.9 2 1.1 8 1.3 Education 6 2.8 4 1.9 1 0.5 11 1.8 Backgrounds 10 4.8 4 1.9 2 1.1 16 2.6 Capabilities 4 1.9 4 1.9 0 0 8 1.3 Achievements 7 3.3 5 2.4 0 0 12 1.9 The effort 4 1.9 5 2.4 8 4.3 17 2.8 Empowerment 27 12.9 12 5.7 14 7.6 53 8.7 Performance 17 8.1 23 11 9 4.9 49 8.1 Illegal activities 7 3.3 4 2 0 0 11 1.8 Failure 7 3.3 10 4.8 5 2.7 22 3.6 Demeanor 5 2.4 7 3.3 6 3.2 18 2.9 Motivation 8 3.8 2 1 5 2.7 15 2.4 Personality 6 2.9 13 6.2 15 8.1 34 5.6 Morality 3 1.4 7 3.3 3 1.6 13 2.1 Clothes 2 1 5 2.4 3 0 7 1.2 Personal appearance 0 0 2 0.9 0 0 2 0.3 Influence 4 1.9 0 0 3 1.6 7 1.2 Relations 2 1 2 0.9 6 3.2 10 1.6 Association with power bases 9 4.3 8 3.8 8 4.3 25 4.1 Political Relations 8 3.8 1 0.5 3 1.6 12 2.0 Familial Culture 4 1.9 3 1.4 1 0.5 8 1.3 Aspects of life 6 2.9 9 4.3 5 2.7 20 3.3 Ethical issues 3 1.4 3 1.4 3 1.6 9 1.5 Family matters 10 4.8 7 3.3 7 3.8 24 4.0 Security and comfort 0 0 2 0.9 2 1.1 4 0.7 Difficulty work 2 1 6 2.9 6 3.2 14 2.3 Business issues 4 1.9 7 3.3 6 3.2 17 2.8 Total 208 100 210 100 185 100 603 100 F=Frequency, P= Percent of Answers for Each Group Table 4: Frequency and Prioritization of Construct Merit (R=1) Finance (R=2) personal character­istics (R=3) Confidentiali­ty issues (R=4) Persons’ Positions (R=5) persons’ Communica­tions (R=6) Job con­ditions (R=7) Persons’ Biography (R=8) Total Total frequen­cy 158 92 87 61 55 54 35 32 603 Percent 27.52 16.02 15.15 10.62 9.58 9.40 6.09 5.57 100 Average of managers 9.00 2.58 3.14 3.28 2.57 3.28 0.85 2.42 -- Average of supervisors 5.90 2.60 3.60 2.20 2.40 1.10 1.50 1.20 -- Average of nurses 3.60 4.80 2.90 1.60 1.30 2.00 1.40 0.30 -- Total average 5.85 3.40 3.22 2.25 2.03 2.00 1.29 1.18 -- R= Rank based on average score Table 5: Results of ANOVA between constructs SS df MS F Sig. Merit (Levene= .926; Sig.= .410) Between Groups 120.107 2 60.054 26.063 .000 Within Groups 55.300 24 2.304 Total 175.407 26 Finance (Levene= .247; Sig.= .783) Between Groups 30.804 2 15.402 17.023 .000 Within Groups 21.714 24 .905 Total 52.519 26 Personal characteristics (Levene= .162; Sig.= .852) Between Groups 2.510 2 1.255 .789 .466 Within Groups 38.157 24 1.590 Total 40.667 26 Confidentiality Issues (Levene= .027; Sig.= .974) Between Groups 11.757 2 5.878 5.144 .014 Within Groups 27.429 24 1.143 Total 39.185 26 Persons’ Positions (Levene= 1.187; Sig.= .323) Between Groups 8.749 2 4.374 4.005 .032 Within Groups 26.214 24 1.092 Total 34.963 26 Persons’ Communications (Levene= .304; Sig.= .740) Between Groups 19.671 2 9.836 22.855 .000 Within Groups 10.329 24 .430 Total 30.000 26 Job conditions (Levene= .622; Sig.= .545) Between Groups 1.872 2 .936 1.265 .300 Within Groups 17.757 24 .740 Total 19.630 26 Persons’ Biography (Levene= 2.143; Sig.= .139) Between Groups 18.660 2 9.330 10.456 .001 Within Groups 21.414 24 .892 Total 40.074 26 SS = the sum of squares, DF = the degrees of freedom, MS = the mean sum of squares, F = the F-statistic, Sig. = the P-value. 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Subordinates’ negative workplace gossip leads to supervisor abuse: based on the conservation of resources theory. Chinese Manage­ment Studies, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-09-2020-0387 Maryam Babaei Aghbolagh holds an MSc in Management and is a lecturer at the Department of Management, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil Branch, Ardabil, Iran. Her research focuses on organizational behavior, organizational psychology and leadership. Farzad Sattari Ardabili is Assistant Professor at the Department of Management, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil Branch, Ardabil, Iran. His research focuses on leadershirp and organizational behavior, especially on managerial wisdom, career adaptability, ambidextrous behavior, and self-efficacy. Elena Voitenko is PhD in Psychology and is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, Ukraine. Her research interests include: professional well-being, organizational psychology, professional maladjustment and emotional burnout. Vsebinska analiza tracev na razlicnih ravneh bolnišnice Ozadje in namen prispevka: Vecina organizacij ima negativen odnos do opravljanja ali tracev. Menedžerji so zaskrbljeni zaradi vpliva tracev na komunikacijo v organizacijskem okolju. Naša študija je proucevala dojemanje opravljanja in kontekst tracev na razlicnih ravneh bolnišnice, kot primeru organizacije z intenzivno komunikacijo med zaposlenimi. Proucili smo tudi razlike med kontekstom tracev znotraj organizacijskega konteksta in znotraj social­nega okolja. Metodologija: Izvedli smo polstrukturirane intervjuje s 27 respondenti, po 9 v vsaki od treh skupin: medicinske sestrami, administrativnimi zaposlenimi in vodilnimi bolnišnice. Posnete intervjuje smo proucili z metodo analize vsebine in primerjali rezultate za vsako skupino respondentov. Na koncu smo kategorizirali glavna opravljanja oz. trace za vsako skupino. Rezultati: Teme opravljanja v bolnišnici lahko razvrstimo v osem glavnih kategorij in 34 podkategorij, ki jih je mogo­ce prepoznati po njihovi specifiki. Te glavne teme so vkljucevale vprašanja zaupnosti, zasluge, financni status/polo­žaj, osebne lastnosti, delovno mesto, komunikacije, biografijo in delovne pogoje. Z vidika organizacijskih tracev so udeležence te študije še posebej zanimale zasluge in napredovanje osebe na delovnem mestu in financni položaj. Tudi pri temah tracev na razlicnih ravneh med medicinskimi sestrami, administratorji in menedžerji so se pokazale pomembne razlike. Zakljucek: Vodje bi morali priznati razlicne vsebine tracev med ljudmi na razlicnih organizacijskih ravneh, saj za­posleni nimajo enakih motivov za komunikacijo na razlicnih organizacijskih ravneh. V razdaljah med vsebinami v vprašalniku nagnjenosti k opravljanju in kategorijami v organizacijskem okolju potrebujejo ugotavljamo potrebo po nadaljnjih študijah, da bi raziskale precedence in rezultate. Vodje lahko uporabijo te ugotovitve za olajšanje organi­zacijskih sprememb in izboljšanje komunikacije. Kljucne besede: Opravljanje v organizacijah, Traci, ANALIZA vsebine, Neformalna komunikacija DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0022 Antecedents of Service Innovative Behavior: The Role of Spiritual Leadership and Workplace Spirituality Hebah Suliman ALFARAJAT*, Okechukwu Lawrence EMEAGWALI Girne American University, Faculty of Business and Economics, Girne, Cyprus, hbsat@yandex.com (*corresponding author) Background: Managers in labor-intensive industries are facing challenges on how to encourage innovation, as services are mostly offered by employees and not machines. Intense competition in the service and hospitality industry calls for more innovative work behavior exhibition among employees, and the question on how enterprises can nurture innovative behavior remains unanswered. The objective of the research is to clarify the inter-relationship between spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality and how their collective effect can nurture employee service innovative behavior in the hospitality industry by drawing on relational energy theory. Methodology: Data were obtained using a survey quantitative research method based on a convenience sampling technique from (n = 867) employees working in four- and five-star Jordanian hotels. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was applied to assess the proposed research model and hypotheses. Results: Findings from PLS-SEM show that spiritual leadership impacts and increases the level of workplace spir­ituality and service innovative behavior among employees. Workplace spirituality increases the level of service innovative behavior and mediates the relationship between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior. Conclusion: Spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality initiatives and practices can be beneficial for hospitality enterprises in terms of service innovative behavior. Moreover, the key point is that hospitality HR practitioners should not only focus on selecting, training, and appointing leaders with spiritual characteristics, but also on creating a spir­itual work atmosphere to enable employees to exhibit service innovative behaviors. The results did not only advance our knowledge concerning the nexus and importance of spirituality in the workplace, but also validates and reveals the importance of spirituality on innovative behavior in the Arabian context. Keywords: Behavior, Innovation, Jordan, Service, Spiritual leadership, Workplace spirituality 1 Introduction The present-day business environment is characterized as having intense competition and uncertainties, which increases work pressure and anxiety among employees. Work pressure, stress, and anxiety have been associated with negative work outcomes (Abubakar, 2018; Tabor et al., 2019). Hence, the need for leaders who can motivate, share, and energize employees to deal with these problems has never been this great before (Ghaedi et al., 2020; Ta­bor et al., 2019). Unlike other traditional leadership traits, spiritual leadership is a value-based and spirit-centered style to leadership that stresses workers’ perception of meaningful work by fulfilling their need for otherworldly survival (Fry, 2003). Many studies have linked spiritual leadership to increased workplace spirituality (Afsar et al., 2016; Fry & Slocum, 2008). Spirituality in the work­place is distinct from spirituality in general, as it relates with individual spiritual well-being within the context of employment. Workplace spirituality has been defined as “a frame­work of organizational values evidenced in the culture that promote employees’ experience of transcendence through the work process, facilitating their sense of being connect­ed to others in a way that provides feelings of complete­ness and joy” (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2003). At work, employees are typically insecure and fearful, which is why they rely on workplaces and peers for social support and courage and identity (Jurkiewicz & Giacalone, 2004). Spe­cifically, workplace spirituality aims to empower workers to discover the purpose of life, develop bonds with peers, and enhance work atmosphere (Fry & Slocum, 2008). Tentatively, spirituality in the workplace is not limited to practices such as cultural diversity, fairness, ethics, sup­port, and development programs, but also covers facets of innovation, as individuals work in harmony, have shared goals, are encouraged to share knowledge and allowed to express their opinions. Innovative behavior is seen as employees’ response and generation of solutions to ongoing business problems (Cozzarin, 2017; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Because of the tremendous rivalry among businesses in today’s econom­ic climate, exhibition of innovative behavior is extremely important. Basically, spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality have many beneficial effects on employees, such as high levels of life satisfaction, organizational cit­izenship behavior, and in-role performance (Houghton et al., 2016; Krishnakumar et al., 2015), organizational com­mitments (Fry & Slocum, 2008), and group innovativeness (Ghaedi et al., 2020). Existing works on spiritual leader­ship are mainly focused on employee well-being and out­comes, the question as to the benefit of how spiritual lead­ership affects performance remains elusive as shown in a meta-analytical study (Oh & Wang, 2020). To this end, this study aims to make pivotal contributions to spiritual lead­ership and workplace spirituality research streams. Since only a few studies have linked the concepts to innovative outcomes in the hospitality industry (Oh & Wang, 2020), our work will add to the body of knowledge. Second, by incorporating service innovative behavior, we unveil the mechanism by which spiritual leadership practices result in desired organizational outcomes. Specif­ically, this paper draws on the theory of relational energy (McDaniel, 2011) to investigate the relationship between spiritual leadership, workplace spirituality, and service innovative behavior. Third, although, it is acknowledged that spiritual care does not equate only to religious care (Weathers, 2018), there is almost an inseparable link be­tween spiritual and religious practices in a Middle Eastern and Muslim context. Because most practices and teachings such as connection, peace, transcendence are drawn from the Holy Quran and Hadiths (Cruz et al., 2017). Thus, the hospitality and Arabian context of this study provides a relevant domain for additional invetsigation, as past works were mostly in advanced nations such as the US and Far East context such as China. This study expands on the Af­sar et al. (2016) theoretical model of spirituality in terms of organization and leadership by adopting an innovative perspective and investigating the associations in a differ­ent contextual setting, specifically, the hospitality industry. Similar calls for additional studies in the hospitality indus­try context were issued by Milliman et al. (2018). 2 Literature review and hypotheses development A positive sensation and sense of enhanced resource­fulness due direct psycho-social interaction with others is known as relational energy. According to relational energy theory, some individuals appear to boost our en­ergy, optimism, and wit, while others appear to have no effect or drain such vitality or energy. More specifically, energy emanating from colleagues can impact the work motivations of individuals as a result of ‘contagious ef­fects’ (McDaniel, 2011; Owens et al., 2016). Research also found that the level of relational energy among members of a team equates to their performance (Borgatti & Cross, 2003). Employee service innovative behavior denotes “the production or adoption of useful ideas and idea im­plementation and begins with problem recognition and the generation of ideas or solutions” (Scott & Bruce, 1994, p. 581). These behaviors have been shown to boost organi­zational growth, agility, productivity, and competitiveness (Hu et al., 2009; Shih & Susanto, 2016). Work behaviors are essential inputs for value creation, due to their role in how businesses innovate. Several studies have linked lead­ership style (Ghaedi et al., 2020; Afsar et al., 2016) and organizational culture (Kaya et al., 2020; Likoum et al., 2020) to enhanced firm innovation. Spiritual leadership is defined as “the values, attitudes, and behaviors that one must adopt in intrinsically moti­vating oneself and others so that both have a positive in­crease in the sense of spiritual well-being through calling and membership, that is, they experience meaning in their lives, have a sense of making a difference, and feel un­derstood and appreciated” (Fry et al., 2005, p. 836). This leadership style is tripartite where the (1) vision dimension reflects a picture of the future with implicit or explicit out­comes on why people should try to make that picture come to reality; (2) hope and faith dimension reflects the belief that the goals/mission/vision of the hiring firm can be at­tained; and (3) altruistic love dimension reflects a sense of completeness, harmony, and well-being achieved via self-care, love, and appreciation by others (Fry et al., 2005; Yang et al., 2019). The employee’s experience of spirituality in the workplace is called workplace spirituality (Pawar, 2009). Workplace spirituality is comprised of three dimensions, namely: at employee level – meaningful work; at team level or group level – sense of community; and alignment to organizational values at organizational level. Workplace spirituality embodies a sensation of belongingness and em­ployee interconnectedness. Such experiences and feelings strengthen the social bond and compassion toward others, which foster community and/or group harmony (Milliman et al., 2003). This sense of community encourages work­ers to help and exhibit good Samaritan attitudes through work support, citizenship, and innovative behaviors that align with the organization’s goals and values. Spirituality supports the spirit of the employees by enhancing work meaning and employee engagement (Gotsis & Grimani, 2017; Helmy et al., 2020). Managers and leaders “have a responsibility for nurtur­ing the spirit by helping their subordinates be open to their inner lives, by helping them find meaning in their work, and by strengthening a sense of community in the work­place” (Duchon & Plowman, 2005, p. 828). Spiritual lead­ers are known and portrayed as having humility; research shows that such traits can foster creativity in workplaces (Wang et al., 2017). All in all, spirituality can be viewed as a facilitator and life-giving energy that encourage employ­ees to take part in helping others as well as generation of creative work ideas. Previous findings show that spiritual leadership is an antecedent for workplace spirituality (Af­sar et al., 2016). Spiritual leadership together with work­place spirituality are antecedents for greater levels of life satisfaction and in-role performance (Houghton et al., 2016; Krishnakumar et al., 2015), organizational com­mitment (Fry & Slocum, 2008), and group innovativeness (Ghaedi et al., 2020). In a nutshell, spiritual leaders are able to lead with calmness and strength, show some level of mindfulness, and also maintain person-centered rela­tionships with subordinates. Accordingly, research noted that spirituality can foster higher levels of prosocial attitudes and behavior among individuals (Rezapouraghdam et al., 2018; Wierzbicki & Zawadzka, 2016). Some scholars have linked spiritual leadership to higher job performance (Yang et al., 2019) and group innovativeness (Ghaedi et al., 2020). Workplace spirituality has to do with the conception of connectedness and amalgamation of self-values with those of the hiring firms; when there is a fit between these two, service inno­vative behavior is likely to emerge. Past findings have also linked workplace spirituality with innovative and creative outcomes (Afsar & Badir, 2017). Building on past litera­ture, we draw on relational energy theory to suggest that spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality can spread contagious energy that could spur innovation within the hotel context. The following hypotheses are proposed: H1: Spiritual leadership has a positive and significant impact on workplace spirituality. H2: Spiritual leadership has a positive and significant impact on service innovative behavior. H3: Workplace spirituality has a positive and signifi­cant impact on service innovative behavior. H4: Workplace spirituality will mediate the relation­ship between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior. 3 Methodology 3.1 Research data collection procedures The study variables were used in past studies and mostly in non-Arabic speaking countries. The authors used back-translation approach with two translators to translate the survey items. Additionally, the survey was tested with five people and few changes were conducted to reduce ambiguities and enhance communication. The data of the study was collected from cities, namely: Amman and Aqa­ba, and tourist regions, namely: Petra and the Dead Sea. Based on the report from MoTA, Statistics Department (2019), there are 42 five-star hotels and 44 four-star hotels in the mentioned cities and regions with more than 14,000 employees. We contacted the top management of the ho­tels for permission to conduct the study. Using a conveni­ence sampling technique, data was obtained from employ­ees working in a total of thirty (30) four- and five-star rated hotels who agreed to take part in the current investigation. This sampling technique was utilized to encourage partic­ipation due to the long working days and anti-social hours in the industry. We asked the employees to fill out the sur­vey voluntarily, and we also told them they can choose to stop at any time; consequently, we assured them that the responses they gave will be used only for research pur­poses and will not be disclosed to third parties or the hotel management to mitigate the tendency of social desirability bias and alteration of responses (MacKenzie & Podsakoff, 2012). 3.2 Variables and measurements Spiritual Leadership has been abstracted as a tri­chotomic construct with the following subsets: (1) vision – which “describes the organization’s journey and why we are taking it; defines who we are and what we do”; (2) hope/faith – which describes “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction that the organization’s vision/purpose/mission will be fulfilled”; and (3) altruistic love – which describes “a sense of wholeness, harmony, and well-being produced through care, concern, and appreci­ation for both self and others” (Fry et al., 2005). In this study, the dimensions of spiritual leadership were meas­ured using borrowed 5-items for vision, 5-items for hope/faith, and 7-items for altruistic love, totaling 17 items (Fry et al., 2005). Sample of items include: “My organization’s vision is clear and compelling to me” (vision dimension), “I demonstrate my faith in my organization and its mis­sion by doing everything I can to help us succeed” (hope/faith dimension), “The leaders in my organization have the courage to stand up for their people” (altruistic love di­mension). This scale has been shown to work well in the hospitality context (Afsar et al., 2016) and also fits in with the conceptualization in this study. Workplace Spirituality has been abstracted as a tri­chotomic construct with the following subsets: (1) mean­ingful work – at individual level, has to do with employ­ee’s perception of joy, energy, and personal meaning in carrying out assigned duties; (2) sense of community – at group level, is interested in employee’s sense of connect­edness with peers and superiors, supportive atmosphere, and having a shared goal; and (3) alignment of values – at organizational level, is interested in how employee’s goals, norms, and values align with those of the hiring organiza­tion (Milliman et al., 2003). In this study, the dimensions of workplace spirituality were measured using borrowed 6-items for meaningful work, 7-items for sense of commu­nity, and 8-items for alignment of values, totaling 21 items (Milliman et al., 2003). Sample of items include: “I see a connection between work and social good” (meaningful work dimension), “Working cooperatively with others is valued” (sense of community dimension), and “Our organ­ization cares about all its employees” (alignment of values dimension). This scale has been shown to work well in the hospitality context (Milliman et al., 2018) and also fits in with the conceptualization in this study. Service Innovative Behavior was measured with a first-order construct consisting of 6-items adapted from past studies in the hospitality industry (Hu et al., 2009; Scott & Bruce, 1994). The items were designed to capture employee’s inclination to innovative and creative work be­haviors. The research measures were docked on a 5-point Likert scale such that strongly disagree was represented by (1) upward to strongly agree represented by (5). Sample of items include: “At work, I seek new service techniques, methods, or techniques.” This scale has been shown to work well in the hospitality context (Hu et al., 2009) and also fits in with the conceptualization in this study. Demographic features of the employees and the hir­ing hospitality enterprises under investigation were ob­tained to help provide a general industrial outlook and the representativeness of the sample. Captured information in­cludes employee educational level, age, gender, hotel clas­sification (e.g., four- or five-star), and yearly revenue of the enterprises. A complete list of the scale items alongside descriptive statistics is presented in the Appendix section. 4 Results 4.1 Participant’s profile Out of the 1,000 questionnaires distributed, in total, 867 complete answers were retrieved. To compare and comprehend the profile of the research participants, we ran frequency analysis in SPSS software, and the demographic characteristics of the respondents is presented in Table 1. Briefly, information about participating employees’ educa­tional level, age groups, gender, type of hiring organiza­tion (four- or five-star hotel), and monthly income level. Although a number of hotels did not take part in the study, population ecology theory argues that hotels operating in a common marketplace begin to resemble one another over time. The resemblance is associated with the demograph­ics and/or classification of organizational species (Hannan & Freeman, 1977). Such that the hotels operating in a com­mon marketplace tend to have employees with similar de­mographical features, such as education, age, income, etc. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MOTA), there are approximately 13,770 employees work­ing in five- and four-star hotels out of the entire 16,780 employees in the industry (MOTA, 2019), suggesting that 82% of the employees in the industry are working in four and five-star hotels (See Table 1 for details). Consequently, in comparison to the hospitality industrial reality, the in­dustry’s actual employees’ structure and distributions are reflected in the study demographic makeup. Building on the breakdown in Table 2, we concluded that the obtained sample appears to be representable. 4.2 Measurement model This research expended a structural equation mod­eling technique by drawing on the partial least squares (PLS-SEM) algorithm. The main aspiration of PLS-SEM algorithms and techniques are to maximize the explained variance in the response variable and also to diminish the presence of estimation errors in the response varia­ble (Khaddam et al., 2021; Mert et al., 2021). PLS-SEM operates on composite-grounds and is causal-predictive in terms of estimations (Hair et al., 2019; Yakubu et al., 2020). PLS-SEM is superior especially when addressing models with multiple direct, indirect, and moderating as­sociations. These features make PLS-SEM superior over the traditional covariance-based SEM. Research varia­bles spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality are operationalized as higher-order constructs. According to Sarstedt et al. (2016), the two-stage approach is useful when a research model has a combination of first-order (e.g., service innovative behavior) and second-order con­structs (e.g., spiritual leadership and workplace spiritual­ity) in terms of normalizing the relationships. Specifically, the two-stage approach shows a “better parameter recov­ery of paths pointing (1) from exogenous constructs to the higher-order construct, and (2) from the higher-order construct to an endogenous construct in the path model” (Sarstedt et al., 2019, p. 199). Following expert recom­mendations (Sarstedt et al., 2016; 2019), we employed the two-stage approach where the latent scores of the first-or­der constructs (vision, hope/faith, and altruistic love) were calculated and utilized as indicators for the second-order construct (spiritual leadership). The same approach was applied to workplace spirituality first-order constructs (meaningful work, sense of community, and alignment of values). Although, model fit indices are not necessary in PLS-SEM analysis, we perused the results, which all appear to be sufficient, suggesting a fit between the data and the model. Indicators and their respective values for model fit are reported in Table 3. We therefore expend­ed SmartPLS software version 3 to operationalize the measurement model. In doing so, we perused the values of Cronbach’s alpha (Ca), composite reliability (CR), and Rho to establish construct reliability. In Table 3, all the values were above the 0.70 thresholds (Hair et al., 2019; Henseler et al., 2009). Consequently, we perused the re­search indicators using each construct’s average variance extracted (AVE), each item’s standardized factor loadings, and t-values to establish convergent validity. In Tables 3, the AVE values were above the 0.50 threshold; In Tables 4 the factor loadings and t-values were also above the 0.70 and 1.96 thresholds. Finally, we establish discriminant validity by perus­ing the square root of each construct’s AVE based on the Fornell-Larcker Criterion. All the square roots of the AVE values are above any other inter-construct correlations es­tablishing discriminant validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio of Correlations (HTMT) appears to be below the 0.90 threshold with one excep­tion (Henseler et al., 2015). Nevertheless, by combining the results from the Fornell-Larcker Criterion and HTMT in Table 5, we conclude that discriminant validity of the constructs has been established. 4.3 Structural model We tested the study hypotheses through a structural model based on a biased-corrected bootstrapping approach that ran with 5,000 sub-samples. The hypotheses were as­sessed using the traditional beta, t- and p-values. To evalu­ate whether a statistically significant effect also has a prac­tical relevance, we perused the f-squared (f2) values, also known as effect size, following expert guidelines (Cohen, 2013) where (large effect = 0.35), (moderate effect = 0.15), and (small effect = 0.02). The structural model presented in Figure 1 generated four distinct outcomes as follows: First, the results show that spiritual leadership has a sig­nificant and positive effect on workplace spirituality (ß = 0.828, . < 0.01). This suggests that a 100% increase in spiritual leadership can result in an 82.8% increase in the level of workplace spirituality. Furthermore, spiritual lead­ership also explained 68.6% of the variance in workplace spirituality (R-squared = 0.686), and effect size is deemed to be very large (f-squared = 2.180). Based on these re­sults, hypothesis 1 received empirical support. Details are available in Table 6. Second, the results show that spiritual leadership has a significant and positive effect on service innovative be­havior (ß = 0.114, . < 0.01). This suggests that a 100% increase in spiritual leadership can result in an 11.4% in­crease in the level of service innovative behavior. The ef­fect size is deemed to be very small (f-squared = 0.008). Based on these results, hypothesis 2 received empirical support. Details are available in Table 6. Third, the results show that workplace spirituality has a significant and positive effect on service innovative be­havior (ß = 0.615, . < 0.01). This suggests that a 100% increase in workplace spirituality can result in a 61.5% increase in the level of service innovative behavior. The effect size is deemed to be moderate (f-squared = 0.24). Based on these results, hypothesis 3 received empirical support. Details are available in Table 6. Fourth, spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality jointly explained 50.7% of the variance in service innova­tive behavior (R-squared = 0.507). Finally, the mediating role of workplace spirituality on the relationship between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior holds (ß = 0.509, . < 0.01). Based on these results, hypothesis 4 received empirical support. Details are available in Table 6. 5 Discussion 5.1 Findings Drawing on relational energy theory, we examined the association among spiritual leadership, workplace spirit­uality, and service innovative behavior. Results show that spiritual leadership increases the level of workplace spirit­uality, which makes sense as spiritual leaders have a spe­cific desire and focus to energize the connection between the leaders, the organization, and their employees (Afsar et al., 2016). We also show that spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality can enact higher levels of service innovative behavior among employees (Afsar & Badir, 2017). Employees see spiritual experience as a personal bond to work activities and other entities who are touched by it, which goes beyond self-interest. We extend past work by unveiling the potentials of spiritual leadership to foster service innovative behavior and also show that spiritual work cultures are vital for innovative outcomes. In other words, workplace spirituality mediates the relationship be­tween spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior. Employees are mostly under stress, and sometimes even alienated from their organizations. Spiritual leader­ships create a work atmosphere and culture of support, meaningful work life, community of support and achiev­ing goals, which may reduce employees’ fear and insecuri­ty; these, we show, can enhance their confidence and sense of sharing that could further result in innovative ideas and ways of dealing with business problems. Although, spirit­uality in the Middle East has religious roots (Abu-El-Noor & Abu-El-Noor, 2019), the mainstream attributes such as connection, peace, transcendence, and seeking meaning and purpose are like those of the Western context (Weath­ers, 2018). There is a fine line between spirituality and re­ligion in the Jordanian society because individuals live in a way that religious beliefs are reflected in all aspects of their lives, including work life. In lieu of this, this study denotes that spiritual beliefs and practices are excellent sources of support, comfort, and coping mechanisms that can be built upon to create positive a work atmosphere for innovative activities in the Jordanian tourism and hospitality context. Past research noted that in Muslim perspectives, spirituality practices were mainly derived from the Holy Quran and the Hadiths (Cruz et al., 2017). Given that the Jordanian population is predominantly from the Sunni sect, the applicability of the current findings in other Arabian or Middle Eastern contexts is contingent upon the Islamic sect. In sum, the findings are in congruence with existing assertions in the literature on the effects of spiritual leadership and work­place spirituality on work outcomes such as performance (Duchon & Plowman, 2005; Yang et al., 2019), innova­tiveness (Afsar et al., 2016; Ghaedi et al., 2020), positive attitudes, and prosocial behaviors (Rezapouraghdam et al., 2018; Wierzbicki & Zawadzka, 2016). Although four- and five-star hotels employs a large portion of approximately 82% of the hotel industry workforce in Jordan (MOTA, 2019). It is also important to caution readers about the generalizability and interpretations of the current findings. The fact that the study sample was drawn from four- and five-star hotels limits our ability to generalize and draw inference on the applicability of the findings in other hotel settings such as one-, two- and three-star hotels that are mainly family owned and managed. 5.2 Theoretical and practical implications The results of the current study delineate that spiritual leadership impacts and increases the level of workplace spirituality and service innovative behavior. Consequent­ly, workplace spirituality increases the level of service in­novative behavior and mediates the relationship between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior. This paper’s theoretical contributions and originality does not only lie in uncovering how and when spiritual leadership influences service innovative behavior, but also on the mediating mechanisms of workplace spirituality. Under­standing how spiritual leadership and workplace spirit­uality predict service innovative behavior theoretically enriches the hospitality management literature. Logically, this is a viable way to understand a spectrum of leader actions and environmental forces that are productive and beneficial. Afsar et al. (2016) and Milliman et al. (2018) previously suggested more empirical evidence on these interdependences. This paper addresses this research call by showing the mediating role of workplace spirituality on the relationship between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior in the tourism and hospitality context. The current study also extends the scope by drawing on relational energy as a theoretical framework. By taking this lens, this work unveils the black box between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior. Specifically, spiritual leaders are social innovators of good and positive energy that reinforces a sense of community membership, transcendence, meaning, and shared values among em­ployees, which reflected and/or reciprocated in their work behavior in form increased service innovative behavior. Besides theoretical contributions, the findings in this paper have a few industrial implications. We recommend that hospitality enterprises in Jordan should take spiritual­ity into consideration when selecting and training supervi­sors or unit chiefs. In other words, HR professionals should promote spirituality to ensure that potential managers or supervisors fully recognize the benefits of spirituality lead­ership and its outcomes. For instance, organizing social ac­tivities and counseling sessions to help both leaders and employees build a positive understanding of workplace spirituality. Hospitality enterprises often place emphasis on technical training and compensations as predictors of innovation, this work suggests that hospitality enterprises in Jordan should include the soft side of management, in terms of creating a workplace culture with spirituality and placing individuals with spiritual awareness in supervisory positions. The findings assert that having spiritual leaders and working in a spiritual environment where individuals are cared for, loved, appreciated, and supported by leaders and co-workers can encourage employees to carry out ser­vice innovative behavior and/or activities. 5.3 Limitations and future research This research has several clampdowns that should be mentioned, starting with the design; the cross-sectional design may affect causational claims. Although, the study utilized a large sample size, the exclusion of one-, two- and three-star hotels reduce the generalizability of the findings in the Jordanian hotel industry. The observed variables data were obtained through self-assessment and as such may be susceptible to social desirability bias. Future works are encouraged to use multi-source or secondary data sources and longitudinal design to mitigate these prob­lems. Consequently, the usage of non-probability sampling technique: convenience has the tendency to omit certain species in the population, thus, upcoming works are en­couraged to utilize random sampling techniques for a more representable sample. Also, this paper did not consider the role of mindfulness, justice, organizational, and co-worker support on the scrutinized associations. Spiritual leader­ship and workplace spirituality have been shown to play a moderating role on the association between antecedents of burnout; what remains unclear is the role spiritual lead­ership and workplace spirituality play in the link between antecedents and boreout, the opposite of burnout. Another fruitful research avenue could be knowledge-related out­comes, such as individual sharing, hiding, sabotage, and the like. Finally, the model could be tested in other indus­tries and countries as spirituality varies across countries and cultures. 5.4 Conclusion The present research provides a new direction for un­derexplored spirituality and service innovative outcomes. Building on the relational energy theoretical framework, this study explores the influence of spiritual leadership on workplace spirituality and service innovative behavior, and the mediating role of workplace spirituality on the re­lationship between spiritual leadership and service innova­tive behavior. We contribute to literature theoretically and empirically by proving the presence of the path between spirituality and innovative work outcomes in a non-West­ern context. We found that spiritual leadership enhances workplace spirituality and service innovative behavior; workplace spirituality enhances service innovative behav­ior and also mediated the relationship between spiritual leadership and service innovative behavior. Literature 1Received: 12th July 2021; revised: 4th November 2021; accepted: 11th November 2021 Table 1: Hotel classification according to employee numbers Hotel type 1-stars 2-stars 3-stars 4-stars 5-stars Total Number of employees 343 787 1,880 3,127 10,643 16,780 Source (MOTA, 2019), Table 2: Demographic breakdown Educational Level Frequency Percentage High school 399 46.0% Diploma 162 18.7% Bachelor’s degree 277 31.9% Graduate degree 29 3.3% Total 867 100% Age Less than 20 years 101 11.6% 21-30 years 369 42.6% 31-40 years 244 28.1% 41-50 years 122 14.1% Above 51 years 31 3.6% Total 867 100% Gender Female 152 17.5% Male 715 82.5% Total 867 100% Hotel classification Four stars 333 38.4% Five stars 534 61.6% Total 867 100% Income Less than 499 Dinars1 549 63.3% Between 500 and 999 Dinars 223 25.7% Between 1,000 and 1,499 Dinars 61 7.0% Between 1,500 and 1,999 Dinars 18 2.1% Above 2,000 Dinars 16 1.8% Total 867 100% 11 Current exchange rate: 1 Dinar equals 1,23 Euro Table 3: Reliability of constructs Variables Ca Rho CR AVE 1 Spiritual leadership 0.906 0.906 0.941 0.841 2 Workplace spirituality 0.907 0.907 0.941 0.843 3 Service innovative behavior 0.927 0.929 0.943 0.735 Model fit: NFI = 0.908; SRMR = 0.042; d_ULS = 0.138; d_G = 0.162; Chi-Square = 844.519 Table 4: Factor loadings, t- and p-statistics for the scale items  Measures Original Sample Sample Mean Standard Deviation T-Statistics (|O/STDEV|) P-Values Spiritual leadership Vision 0.924 0.924 0.007 126.313 0.000 Altruistic love 0.908 0.908 0.008 118.388 0.000 Hope/faith 0.919 0.919 0.007 134.541 0.000 Workplace spirituality Sense of community 0.928 0.928 0.006 142.771 0.000 Alignment of values 0.925 0.925 0.006 158.178 0.000 Meaningful work 0.901 0.901 0.009 102.304 0.000 Service innovative behavior SIB item1 0.860 0.860 0.011 81.032 0.000 SIB item2 0.888 0.888 0.010 87.510 0.000 SIB item3 0.884 0.884 0.010 87.052 0.000 SIB item4 0.866 0.866 0.011 76.635 0.000 SIB item5 0.796 0.796 0.017 46.636 0.000 SIB item6 0.845 0.844 0.013 63.485 0.000 Notes: Original Sample = standardized factor loadings; SIB = service innovative behavior Table 5: Discriminant validity Variables 1 2 3 1 Spiritual leadership 0.917 .912 0.679 2 Workplace spirituality 0.828 0.918 0.773 3 Service innovative behavior 0.623 0.709 0.857 Figure 1: Structural model Table 6: Direct and indirect effects Panels Endogenous variables Panel A – Direct effects Exogeneous variables Workplace spirituality Service innovative behavior Spiritual leadership 0.828** 0.114* Workplace spirituality - 0.615* Panel B – Effect sizes (F-squared) Spiritual leadership 2.180 0.008 Workplace spirituality NA 0.241 Panel C – Specific indirect effect (Mediation) Exogeneous variables Mediator variables Service innovative behavior Spiritual leadership Workplace spirituality - 0.509** Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; NA= Not Applicable Abu-El-Noor, M.K., & Abu-El-Noor, N.I. 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Understanding how leader humility enhances employee creativity: The roles of perspective taking and cognitive reapprais­al. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 53(1), 5-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886316678907 Weathers, E. (2018). Spirituality and health: A Middle Eastern perspective. Religions, 9(2), 33. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9020033 Wierzbicki, J., & Zawadzka, A. M. (2016). The effects of the activation of money and credit card vs. that of ac­tivation of spirituality–Which one prompts pro-social behaviors? Current Psychology, 35(3), 344-353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-014-9299-1 Hebah Suliman ALFARAJAT is a PhD candidate at Faculty of Business and Economics, Girne American University, Girne, Cyprus. Her research interests span into human resource management domain, leadership, organizational behavior and workplace spirituality. Okechukwu Lawrence EMEAGWALI, PhD, is Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the Girne American University, Cyprus. He is also the head of the Department of Business Management and the director of the Center for Management Research (CMR), housed in the Faculty of Business and Economics. He lectures, speaks, advises and researches on topics bordering around business strategy and general business management. His research interests lie within the strategic management field, particularly the action-based competitive interaction sub-stream of the competitive dynamics research area. He links his research, practice and teaching experiences to provide practical recommendations and unique insights to the various academic and corporate stakeholder groups he is currently involved with. Predhodniki inovativnega vedenja v storitveni dejavnosti: vloga poduhovljenega vodenja in duhovnosti na delovnem mestu Ozadje/namen: Vodje v delovno intenzivnih panogah se soocajo z izzivi, kako spodbujati inovacije, saj storitve veci­noma opravljajo zaposleni in ne stroji. Mocna konkurenca na podrocju storitev in gostinstva zahteva bolj inovativno delovno vedenje zaposlenih; vprašanje, kako lahko podjetja negujejo inovativno vedenje, pa ostaja neodgovorjeno. Cilj raziskave je z uporabo teorije relacijske energije pojasniti medsebojno razmerje med poduhovljenim vodenjem in duhovnostjo na delovnem mestu ter kako lahko njun skupni ucinek vpliva na inovativno vedenje zaposlenih v gostinstvu. Metodologija: Podatke smo zbrali z anketiranjem n = 867 zaposlenih v jordanskih hotelih s štirimi ali petimi zvezdi­cami. Za oceno predlaganega raziskovalnega modela in preverjanje hipotez je bila uporabljena tehnika modeliranja strukturnih enacb z delnimi najmanjšimi kvadrati (PLS-SEM). Rezultati: Poduhovljeno vodenje vpliva na in povecuje raven duhovnosti na delovnem mestu in služi inovativnemu vedenju med zaposlenimi. Duhovnost na delovnem mestu povecuje raven storitvenega inovativnega vedenja in po­sredno vpliva na povezavo med poduhovljenim vodenjem in inovativnim vedenjem na delovnem mestu. Zakljucek: Pobude in prakse poduhovljenega vodenje in duhovnosti na delovnem mestu so lahko koristne za gostin­ska podjetja v smislu inovativnega obnašanja storitev. Poleg tega je kljucna tocka, da se strokovnjaki za kadrovske zadeve v gostinstvu ne osredotocajo le na izbiro, usposabljanje in imenovanje voditeljev z duhovnimi lastnostmi, temvec tudi na ustvarjanje duhovnega delovnega ozracja, ki zaposlenim omogoca, da pokažejo inovativno vedenje pri storitvah. Rezultati niso samo dopolnili našega znanja o povezanosti in pomenu duhovnosti na delovnem mestu, ampak tudi potrjujejo in razkrivajo pomen duhovnosti za inovativno vedenje v arabskem kontekstu. Kljucne besede: Vedenje, Inovativnost, Jordan, Služba, Duhovno vodstvo, Duhovnost na delovnem mestu Appendix I: Measurement Items Spiritual Leadership Mean SD Vision 1. “I understand and am committed to my organization’s vision”. 3.84 1.14 2. “My workgroup has a vision statement that brings out the best in me”. 3.96 1.06 3. “My organization’s vision inspires my best performance”. 3.84 1.09 4. “I have faith in my organization’s vision for its employees”. 3.83 1.06 5. “My organization’s vision is clear and compelling to me”. 3.88 1.10 Hope/faith 1. “I have faith in my organization, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that it accomplishes its mission” 3.96 1.09 2. “I persevere and exert extra effort to help my organization succeed because I have faith in what it stands for” 4.02 1.03 3. “I always do my best in my work because I have faith in my organization and its leaders” 4.00 1.02 4. “I set challenging goals for my work because I have faith in my organization and want us to succeed” 3.67 1.18 5. “I demonstrate my faith in my organization and its mission by doing everything I can to help us succeed” 4.03 1.02 Altruistic love 1. “My organization really cares about its people” 3.67 1.18 2. “My organization is kind & considerate toward its workers, and when they are suffering, wants to do something about it” 3.73 1.11 3. “The leaders in my organization walk the walk as well as talk the talk” 3.74 1.15 4. “My organization is trustworthy and loyal to its employees” 3.66 1.19 5. “My organization does not punish honest mistakes” 3.62 1.18 6. “The leaders in my organization are honest and without false pride” 3.76 1.10 7. “The leaders in my organization have the courage to stand up for their people” 3.69 1.18 Workplace Spirituality Meaningful work 1. “I experience joy in work” 3.82 1.14 2. “Spirit is energized by work” 3.85 1.03 3. “Work is connected to what I think is important in life” 3.90 1.02 4. “I look forward to coming to work” 3.81 1.05 5. “I see a connection between work and social good” 3.83 1.03 6. “I understand what gives my work personal meaning” 4.00 0.96 Sense of community 1. “Working cooperatively with others is valued” 4.04 1.11 2. “I feel part of a community” 4.05 1.01 3. “I believe people support each other” 3.80 1.06 4. “I feel free to express opinions” 3.80 1.10 5. “I think employees are linked with a common purpose” 3.74 1.07 6. “I believe employees genuinely care about each other” 3.70 1.09 7. “I feel there is a sense of being a part of a family” 3.75 1.12 Alignment of values 1. “I feel positive about the values of the organization” 3.81 1.12 2. “Our organization is concerned about the poor” 3.64 1.15 3. “Our organization cares about all its employees” 3.60 1.16 4. “Our organization has a conscience” 3.78 1.08 5. “I feel connected with the organization’s goals” 3.76 1.04 6. “Our organization is concerned about health of employees” 3.77 1.08 7. “I feel connected with the mission of the organization” 3.81 1.01 8. “Our organization cares about whether my spirit is energized” 3.75 1.09 Service Innovative Behavior 1. “At work, I come up with innovative and creative notions” 3.87 1.04 2. “At work, I try to propose my own creative ideas and convince others” 3.92 0.96 3. “At work, I seek new service techniques, methods, or techniques” 3.97 0.93 4. “At work, I provide a suitable plan for developing new ideas” 3.93 0.96 5. “At work, I try to secure the funding and resources needed to implement innovations” 3.90 0.98 6. “Overall, I consider myself a creative member of my team” 4.01 1.01 Appendix I: Measurement Items (continues) DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0023 Narcissistic Leadership and Workplace Deviance: A Moderated Mediation Model of Organizational Aggression and Workplace Hostility Hussein Hurajah ALHASNAWI1, Ali Abdulhassan ABBAS2 1 University of Kerbala, College of Administration and Economics, Business Administration Department, Kerbala, Iraq, hussein.alhasnawi@uokerbala.edu.iq 2 University of Kerbala, College of Administration and Economics, Department of Accounting, Kerbala, Iraq, ali.abd.alhassan@uokerbala.edu.iq Background: Workplace Deviance are among the most common phenomena observed in organizations. This might be attributed to narcissistic style of leadership and the manifestations of organizational aggression. It is further ag­gravated by increased workplace hostility. The main purpose of this research is to observe the impact of moderated mediation of organizational aggression and workplace hostility upon the relationship between narcissistic leadership and workplace deviance. Methodology: A cross-sectional investigation was conducted using self-survey method. With 673 participants in the study, the author used an electronic questionnaire (Google Forms) to collect data from employees working at five food product companies in Iraq. Mediation model, moderation analysis, and moderated mediation models were evaluated using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for which AMOS V.23 software was used. Results inferred that organizational aggression partially mediates a positive relationship between narcissistic lead­ership and workplace deviance. Further, the relationship between organizational aggression and workplace devi­ance depends on the changes in level of workplace hostility. Moreover, the study empirically supports the funda­mentals of moderated mediation model. In other terms, the study infers that indirect effect of narcissistic leadership in workplace deviance through organizational aggression has been significantly moderated by workplace hostility. Conclusion: When leaders adopt narcissistic behaviors to achieve their personal interests, it leads to increased organizational aggression and workplace deviance that eventually increase the levels of workplace hostility. Accord­ingly, moderated mediation model provides a better understanding about how narcissistic leadership, organizational aggression, and workplace hostility all work together to influence workplace deviance. Keywords: Narcissistic leadership, Organizational aggression, Workplace hostility, Workplace deviance 1 Introduction Narcissistic leadership is one of the leadership styles in which the leader does not care about his followers whereas his or her only priority is to project himself. Such a lead­er possess characteristics such as arrogance, domination, hostility etc. (Aboramadan et al., 2021). Further, they cre­ate a hostile work environment among his or her follow­ers too (Redondo et al., 2017). As time passes by, the gap among the employees increases and the hostility in their workplace rises to an unprecedented level which can be understood by organizational aggression and selfish be­havior of the narcissistic leader (Yildiz & Alpkan, 2015). Narcissistic leaders bring specific groups of workers close to them and stay away from other groups (Fatfouta, 2019). This characteristic increases the organizational ag­gression among groups and workers adopt aggressive be­havior that harms other groups (Olson et al., 2006). Organ­izational aggression often originates from the groups that are close to the leader. Continuous arrogance and authori­tarian behavior and partiality towards other groups who do not admire his or her behavior results in the development of a hostile work environment (Ghislieri et al., 2019). It negatively affects the creativity and leads to a decline in organizational loyalty, these consequences drive the work­ers to deviate from their workplace (Bowles & Gelfand, 2010). Because the employees feel they are treated une­qually, and loss of harmony and compatibility between the leader and rest of the employees create an unrest in the organization (Nevicka et al., 2013). Employees who are loyal to the narcissistic leader are the first ones to implement deviance in their work envi­ronment. This phenomenon occurs since such employees feel that they are supported by the leader (Rahman et al., 2018; Judge et al., 2006a). This motivates other groups to get drawn towards the workplace deviance behavior, because they feel unfair treatment is rendered to them in a hostile work environment (Rosenthal, 2006). The em­ployees further feel pushed towards deviation in the work­place and express it as an aggressive behavior against the behavior of narcissistic leader (Burton & Hoobler, 2011) Who always seeks to achieve his self-interest rooted in his self-egomaniacal belief (Aboramadan et al., 2021) In this case, thoughts of deviation and aggression rising due to the leader narcissism, and the subsequent harmful behaviors of the followers (Tiwari & Jha, 2021). Based on the previous studies, there is a need arise here to conduct more studies on the relationship among narcis­sistic leadership, and aggressive and deviant behaviors in the workplace (Michel & Bowling, 2013) add to that and after reviewing the literature concerning narcissistic lead­ership, we found only one study, which examined the links between leader narcissism and workplace deviance (Judge et al., 2006a). On the other hand, escalation effects of the narcissism in creating aggressive behaviors in the work en­vironment and the exacerbation of its effects on the career level (Li et al., 2016). It is also very important to under­stand the causes of deviant behaviors in the food industry and the resulting frustration and exhaustion at work, and to determine their future treatments. (Jacinto et al., 2009). The need for current research is evident through increas­ing adoption of leaders to narcissistic traits that stimulate emergence of deviant and hostility behaviors among em­ployees in the industrial sector and to diagnose their ef­fects on performance. The current research work refers to a number of scientific contributions that established the rela­tionship between the above-mentioned variables by adopt­ing moderated mediation model among food product com­panies in Iraq. The current research work has a framework to achieve achieving four goals which are given herewith; first is to diagnose the extent of link between narcissistic leadership, organizational aggression, and hostility in the workplace with that of the workplace deviance. The sec­ond goal is to examine whether organizational aggression mediates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and workplace deviance. The third goal is to ascertain the moderated role played by workplace hostility in the relationship between organizational aggression and work­place deviance. Fourth goal is to understand the impact of narcissistic leadership on workplace deviance through organizational aggression conditions on increasing levels of workplace hostility. 2 Theoretical Background 2.1 Narcissistic leadership Narcissism is a personality trait that includes grandi­osity, arrogance, aggression, loss of self and entitlement, fragile self-respect, and hostility towards others (Fatfouta, 2019). Narcissistic leaders possess leadership beliefs and styles which are generally motivated by their needs for power and admiration, rather than emotional concern for components and organizations which they lead (Rosen­thal, 2006). Narcissistic leaders feel that they must rely on themselves rather than others to satisfy their needs of life. They fake self-sufficiency (Nevicka et al., 2013; Huang et al., 2020). In narcissistic leadership, leaders’ actions are primarily driven by their selfish needs and beliefs. Narcis­sistic personality is a great sense of self-importance, pre­occupied with illusions of unlimited success and power, excessive need for admiration, envy, inferiority, and hy­persensitivity (Fatfouta, 2019). It also leads to excessive self-centered behavior, manipulation, lack of empathy, and exploitation of others. Moreover, these aspects may trans­late into a competitive and unreliable climate which nega­tively affects the organizational culture (Ong et al., 2016). Narcissistic leaders like to be in professional environments that allow their narcissism to thrive, they look for organi­zations that tolerate their narcissistic traits. If an organiza­tion does not appreciate these traits, they avoid such organ­izations with flourishing cultures that are mission-focused (Anderson et al., 2007). Further, they look for hostile envi­ronments for their narcissism to thrive (Hellmich & Hell­mich, 2019). These characteristics make narcissists more inclined towards leadership positions. It ultimately results in negative consequences, in terms of decreased support, for follower’s professional growth and poor work quality (Ghislieri et al., 2019). 2.2 Organizational aggression Organizational aggression is defined as a behavior ex­hibited by a person who intends to harm another party. It is similar to chronic stress in the workplace which results in a state of panic, psychological and emotional stress in the organization (Ersan, 2020). Aggression is highly dan­gerous if it is issued by the leadership towards specific cat­egories of employees (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010). Ag­gression behaviour can be understood through intentional harming of one or more persons or even the organization. It may involve personal aggression too, driven by factors within the organization (Wittmer et al., 2013). Aggression within organizations may have several causes such as type of leadership and the approximation of some employees while rejecting other categories. This scenario creates ag­gression and workplace deviance for some groups from the right path, especially those employees who are close to the leader (Bryant & Smith, 2001). In the United States of America and Europe, researchers estimated that organ­izational aggression costs organizations billions of dollars annually. These costs include direct costs such as workers’ compensation, and indirect costs such as employee with­drawal behaviors or shareholder depreciation (Olson et al., 2006). Aggressive behavior can otherwise be detailed as an individual or group social interaction that intends to harm the group or the company. There are two types of aggres­sions present such as emotional and reactive or vengeful aggression. While the latter occurs as a response to prov­ocation and the former includes the means or directed to­wards a goal or predation (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). A number of classifications and dimensions of aggres­sion has been suggested so far. Aggression may be in kind of forms such as verbal or physical, whether or not harm is intended to others and whether it is actively carried out or expressed negatively (Ramirez & Andreu, 2006). The classification may also include emotions associated with aggression (such as anger) and mental states (such as im­pulsivity and hostility) while aggression may occur in re­sponse to social and antisocial factors (Ersan, 2020). 2.3 Workplace hostility Workplace hostility may include physical actions, such as standing close to an individual, blocking doorways, and turning around hallways, Workplace hostility may also in­clude subtle, but equally-frightening behavior, such as ex­clusion of individuals (Dickmann & Watson, 2017). Hos­tility of the workplace negatively affects innovation and results in reduced organizational loyalty, the employees tend to move towards workplace deviance due to inequal­ity in such hostile environment. Such behaviour is charac­terized by uncertainty during when it becomes highly chal­lenging to obtain accurate information in a timely manner (Calantone & Di Benedetto, 1994). The risks of working in such hostile work environments reduce the employees’ ability to cope up which eventually cause stress among the employees. This stress reduces the employees’ levels of adaptation to their environment and makes them undergo a phase of psychological burnout, isolation and increased levels of stress (Vance et al., 2004). Likewise, gender dis­crimination at work also increases the stress and make work environment hostile in the form of usage of vulgar words when dealing with employees, deliberate rejection of the leadership towards specific groups, sexual harass­ment and the lack of treatment (Walker, 2018; Worley & Worley, 2020). Workplace turns hostility when leadership acts in a determined and intended manner to make the em­ployee resign in retaliation for some actions. For example, employers force employees to resign by imposing undue discipline, reducing working hours, reducing wages, or transferring the complaining employee to a remote work­place (Maneethai, 2019). 2.4 Workplace deviance Workplace deviance can be defined as any behav­ior that violates the values and standards of a governing society (Fagbenro & Olasupo, 2020). These values and standards may be known or unknown while the deviant act harms and damages others and their private and public properties (de Lara et al., 2007). Workplace deviance is a voluntary behavior that violates the organizational rules, it is adopted by an individual or a group of people who endanger the health of other employees or the organization (Bowles & Gelfand, 2010). Workplace deviance behavior is understood through different forms such as extortion of money, abuse of position, sexual harassment, gross diso­bedience, acceptance of fraud, impersonation, distortion of employee records, and manipulation (Fagbenro & Ola­supo, 2020; Abbas & Al Hasnawi, 2020). Workplace de­viance is a global phenomenon that has begun to spread widely in the recent years. It includes the exploitation of the employee and resources of an organization to achieve personal or collective benefits in violation of honor and official regulations (Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Workplace deviance has multiple negative effects, the most important of which are loss of job integrity, robbing honor and neutrality of an employee and broken justice and equality between individuals and the groups (Robin­son & Bennett, 1995). When employees suffer from weak relationships with the leader and when they receive fewer resources, responsibilities, and results for the same job title for many years, their behavior is likely to turn negative which can be understood through their performance (Ma­lik & Lenka, 2018). 2.5 Hypotheses development Nowadays, organizations undergo different challeng­es and crises who hinder the growth of the organiza­tion. These events may affect the behavior of the leader and subordinates in the organization (Yildiz & Alpkan, 2015). Especially, when the leader has narcissistic char­acteristics, this growth hindrance reflects on the employ­ees in the form of aggression (Jřrstad, 1996). Therefore, tools with psychometric safeguards are needed to assess aggression, anger and hostility among aggressive leaders (Judge et al., 2006a). These variables indicate the intensity of aggression and violence committed by leaders towards their employees. These are highly essential and should be considered when designing specific and effective inter­vention programs for these groups of leaders (Redondo et al., 2017). Extremely high levels of a leader’s narcissistic traits are often associated with significant social impair­ment, increased alcohol use, aggressiveness, and antisocial behavior (Semenyna, 2018). Leadership narcissism affects individuals’ relationships within the work environment and provokes aggressive behavior for them to achieve self-gain (Michel & Bowling, 2013). Therefore, narcissists aggress others once they feel that their ego is loomed up (Mousa et al., 2020). Also, workplace deviance may be a violation of laws, rules, and regulations that govern the relationship of individuals with each other and with that of the public or private organization (Fagbenro & Olasupo, 2020). This deviation occurs due to several reasons, including employ­ees’ exposure to organizational aggression by their leader or by other groups that are loyal to the leader (Michel & Bowling, 2013). When their interests conflict with other groups in the same workplace, this makes the workers re­sort to workplace deviance (Rahman et al., 2021; Rahman et al., 2020; Yildiz & Alpkan, 2015). In addition, the lack of harmony between workers in the same organization in­creases ostracism and hostility between individuals, and they divide into groups that supports the leader or oppose them which is in conflict with them (Judge, 2006b). The narcissistic type of leader often reacts in an aggressive manner to negative opinions and criticism, which in turn is reflected in employee deviation (Mousa et al., 2020). In contrast, employees with negative work climates will be more inclined to morally disengage when they experience perceived narcissistic supervision and implement organi­zational deviance (Zhang et al., 2018). This gets reflected in low performance of the individuals, lack of commit­ment, and weak organizational loyalty. All these factors together cause workplace deviance, due to these negative behaviors (Alavosius, 2008). Based on the above discussion, the following hypoth­eses are proposed. Hypothesis 1: Narcissistic leadership positively affects organizational aggression. Hypothesis 2: Organizational aggression positively af­fects workplace deviance. Hypothesis 3: Narcissistic leadership positively affects workplace deviance. Hypothesis 4: Workplace hostility positively affects workplace deviance. Some researchers argue that the negative impact of narcissistic personality of the leader leads to an increase in organizational aggression among workers (Li et al., 2016; Redondo et al., 2017). This phenomenon is represented by physical aggressive behavior since a group of employees feel dejected by their leader, and they feel they are con­temptuous of the leader which finally ends their devia­tion (Michel & Bowling, 2013). Traits of narcissism also stimulate aggression, arrogance, and control over others (Rosenthal, 2006). These characteristics encourage more workplace devi­ance (Malik & Lenka, 2018). Especially if the narcissistic leader continue pressurizing the employees, it gets convert­ed into aggression and is reflected by increased workplace deviance (Ghislieri et al., 2019). Negative work conditions increase aggression among workers. If a hostile environ­ment is available, it is considered as a predisposing factor for organizational aggression. This situation may develop further, and becomes highly dangerous and turns into quar­rel and attacks in the work environment (Posthuma et al., 2019). The leader’s negative behavior and increased prac­ticing of psychological terror towards employees leads to an increase in organizational aggression. It turns into a violent phase of systematic attack against colleagues or subordinates (Godhardt, 2017). and this effects increase with the hostile climates of the work environment, such as poor relations with colleagues and weak cooperation in completing tasks (Greitemeyer & Sagioglou, 2017). The individual leaves the organization or reaches a state in which he or she could not practice the profession and lose commitment to it which also drives him or her towards de­viance (Krsnik Horvat & Pagon, 2012). The arrogant and selfish behavior of the narcissistic leader may contribute in the creation of increased organizational aggression among workers. All of these qualities turn the organization dys­functional, influence workers not to be committed towards the organization’s goals and mission and search for their personal interests. The hostility of the work environment increases further and results in lower performance. Finally, most workers exhibit workplace deviation in their behav­ior and functioning (Goldman, 2009). Based on the above discussion, the following hypotheses are proposed. Hypothesis 5: Organizational aggression mediates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and work­place deviance. Hypothesis 6: Workplace hostility moderates the re­lationship between organizational aggression and work­place deviance. Hypothesis 7: There is an indirect effect of narcissis­tic leadership in the workplace deviance of organizational aggression conditional on increased workplace hostility. Based on the above hypotheses, the conceptual model shown in Figure 1 is proposed. 3 Methodology 3.1 Sample and data collection Food production sector in Iraq was chosen as the study setting since it has a heavy role in influencing the lives of citizens and it is important in the economic growth of the country. The data was collected in September 2020 by ran­domly selecting employees who work in five food product companies under different departments such as adminis­tration, technical, marketing and production. Online data was collected through questionnaire using google forms. A total of 673 completed questionnaires was selected for statistical analysis which represent 39% of the total pop­ulation. Unfilled and partially-filled questionnaires were ignored for further analysis. The staff were given 10 days to complete the survey. Table 1 illustrates the distribution of sample among the companies under study. Among the study population, 5% of the participants hold a higher degree, whereas 69% people completed their university studies whereas rest of the proportion remain on hold a high school degree. Out of the total samples, males were (64%) whereas females were (36%). The ages of the respondents were in the range of (21) to (63) years. In terms of nature of activity, (48%) workers function under production department while the remaining (52%) people work in administrative and technical departments. 3.2 Measures Narcissistic leadership: This variable is measured on the basis of (Fung et al., 2019). The measure included four sub-dimensions: Entitlement / exploitativeness (EE) 4 items, Authority / Leadership (AL) 4 items, Superiority / Arrogance (SA) 4 items, and Self-admiration / Self-ab­sorption (SS) 4 items. Organizational Aggression: This variable is calculat­ed on the basis of (Bryant & Smith, 2001) and includes four dimensions such as Physical Aggression (PA) 9 items, Verbal Aggression (VA) 5 items, Anger (AN) 7 items, Hos­tility (HO) 8 items. Workplace Hostility: This variable is measured on the basis of (Selden & Downey, 2012) and includes three di­mensions: Interference with Work (IWW) 14 items, Deni­gration (DE) 11 items, Exclusion (EX) 5 items. Workplace deviance: This measure was adopted from (Bennett & Robinson, 2000) and includes two dimensions namely, Interpersonal Deviance (ID) 7 items and Organi­zational Deviance (OD) 12 items. 4 Data analysis and results 4.1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) confirm the ex­istence of a relationship between dimensions and items. Further, it ensures that the items do not go to all dimen­sions and every dimension is represented by a clear and appropriate number of non-measured items (Al Hasnawi & Abbas, 2020). When performing CFA analysis for four variables, it becomes clear whether The Standards Load­ings of all items are acceptable and exceeds the ratio of 0.40 (Holtzman & Sailesh, 2011). The values were found to be significant since the critical ratio for them were sig­nificant values, as shown in Table 2. Structural models for variables has a high degree of fit and, and values of the Compound Reliability coefficient has exceeded (0.7). the values of the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for the variables were good and exceeded (0.50) (Hair et al, 2017), as shown in Table 3. Table 4 shows Cronbach’s Alpha, descriptive statistics and the correlation coefficient among the variables. 4.2 Hypothesis testing 4.2.1 Test hypotheses of direct effect Direct effect hypotheses were tested based on regres­sion analysis method using SPSS V.24 software. As shown in Table 5, a significant positive effect was observed be­tween narcissistic leadership and organizational aggres­sion (ß = .613, p <.01, R2 = .376) and this result supports (H1). It is also evident from Table 5 that there is a signif­icant effect of organizational aggression upon workplace deviance (ß = .541, p <.01, R2 = .292). Therefore, (H2) is supported. A significant effect of narcissistic leadership is evident in workplace deviance (ß = .482, p <.01, R2 = .232) which supports (H3). A significant effect was found between workplace hostility and workplace deviance (= .374, p <.01, R2 = .140) due to which (H4) is supported. 4.2.2 Hypothesis testing for mediating effect Figure 2 shows the structural model of mediating ef­fect of organizational aggression upon the relationship be­tween narcissistic leadership and workplace deviance. It is evident from the figure that there is a direct and significant impact created by narcissistic leadership upon workplace deviance (ß = .24, p <.01). As per Table 6, the presence of an indirect impact of narcissistic leadership upon work­place deviance through the mediating role of organization­al aggression (ß = .238, p <.01) is confirmed. With regards to the value of coefficient of determination (R2 = .332), narcissistic leadership and organizational aggression result in (33%) of the changes that occur in workplace deviance. Thus, it is inferred that organizational aggression partially mediates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and workplace deviance. The study results supports (H5). 4.2.3 Hypothesis testing for moderation effect From Figure 3, it is evident that the regression coef­ficient of interaction variable (ß = .29, p <.01) is a sig­nificant value through (R2) value as shown in Table 7. It is evident from the figure that the first regression model reached explanatory ability (R2 = .258) and the second re­gression model (R2 = .371) was attained. This indicates a positive difference between two models in (R2) value that reaches the (Change of R2 = .113). Further, this difference is due to the entry of interaction variable as third variable in second regression model. Through the application of ef­fect size equation (f 2), it becomes clear that the workplace hostility, by interacting with organizational aggression, resulted in workplace deviance and it reached (.180) ac­cording to (Selya et al., 2012). Figure 4 shows the graph of interactive relationship among the research variables. Thus, the results support (H6). 4.2.4 Moderated mediation model test The moderated mediation regression analysis deter­mines whether workplace hostility increases the indirect effect of narcissistic leadership in workplace deviance through organizational aggression at the companies under study. Figure 5 and Table 8 show the parameters of for moderated mediation regression model. As a regression coefficient of interaction variable between organizational aggression and workplace hostility, in the presence of in­dependent variable, narcissistic leadership (ß= .17, p <.01) remained a significant value. The value of coefficient of determination (R2 = .38) was higher than its value in all existing regression models. This proved the usefulness of the moderated mediation model. Three levels of standard deviation of the moderated variable were also tested for workplace aggression (low, medium, and high). The results showed that the negative impact of organizational aggression in workplace deviance tend to increase with workplace hostility levels. Through bootstrapping test, the conditional indirect effects of nar­cissistic leadership on workplace deviance through organi­zational aggression were examined at three different work­place hostility levels (low, medium, and high) as shown in Table 9. The results showed that conditional indirect effect increased, when the levels of workplace hostility increas­es. Thus, it has been proven that the moderated mediation model is significant (p = .0042) which confirms that the mediating effect has been moderated through workplace hostility. Thus, the current result supports (H7). 5 Discussion The results from hypothesis testing infer that narcis­sistic leadership has a direct impact on both organization­al aggression and workplace deviance. This is embodied through narcissistic behaviors exhibited by the leader to achieve personal gain. But the phenomenon results in the emergence of some aggressive manifestations among employees (Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006). Also, aggres­sive behavior of narcissistic leaders, when dealing with followers, leads to the emergence of a state of hatred and indifference between the leader and his followers. It fur­ther establishes a state of organizational aggression in the future (Jřrstad, 1996). Such leaders fail to establish posi­tive relationships with their followers in the organization. They leverage their skills to create a suitable work envi­ronment for their goals in which their self-interests can be attained (Higgs, 2009). Such leaders exhibit contradictory behaviors whose behaviors differ and negatively influence in the performance of their followers. This scenario results in aggression, workplace deviance, and inappropriate en­vironment for work (Al Hasnawi & Abbas, 2020). It is also evident from hypotheses testing that there is a direct effect of organizational aggression upon workplace deviance. The deviation in job behavior indicates the ex­istence of ethical crisis in behavior. This further can be understood through imbalance in values and deviations in attitudes. Mostly, it gets expressed through sound controls and standards that may be due to aggressive behaviors in work environment (Yildiz & Alpkan, 2015). The employ­ees who are exposed to aggression are likely to get dis­satisfied or absent for their work or leave or change their jobs. Thus, the reduction in employee participation can be understood through their work performance which in turn increases the number of workplace deviance cases (Michel & Bowling, 2013). The results further infer that workplace hostility direct­ly impacts the employees and induce workplace deviance. This phenomenon can be confirmed through interference with work, distortion of reputation, gossip, self-love and self-preference over others. All these scenarios increase the employees’ deviation at workplace (Alavosius, 2008). Also, behavioral patterns in hostile work environments of all kinds may lead to demeaning social behavior and silver gestures that increase employees’ tendency to devi­ate (Gates, 2016). This may lead them to violate job rules and threaten the well-being of an organization (Rahman et al., 2017; Fagbenro & Olasupo, 2020). The results also demonstrated that organizational aggression partially me­diates the relationship between narcissistic leadership and workplace deviance. Thus, it is inferred that narcissistic leaders have high aggression rate as a result of their arro­gance which can be understood from their aggressive be­haviors towards others (Lee et al., 2013). Narcissistic lead­er may reach a stage in which he or she turns destructive to the organization by implementing excessive aggression at workplace and exhibit aggressive behaviors that push employees to deviate (Beugre, 2005). It is a dark side in or­ganizational work that occurs mainly due to its leader. The consequences get reflected in the deviation of employees, due to aggressive behaviors in workplace (Baars, 2015). The results further infer that workplace hostility mod­erates the relationship between organizational aggression and workplace deviance. The behavior of job delinquency arises from several aggressive factors spread across job en­vironment. Its impact gets increased with absence of con­science, wrong family upbringing, weak supervision and disciplinary systems (Bowles & Gelfand, 2010; Selden & Downey, 2012). The employees exhibit laziness in com­pleting the tasks and if done so, the tasks are improper and unfulfilled. This increases the deviations of the em­ployee when they perform their duties related to regularity at work and behavioral, financial and criminal deviations (Bennett& Robinson, 2000; Malik & Lenka, 2018). The hypotheses testing further established the role played by moderated mediation effect of the variables. The organizational aggression played a mediating effect in the relationship between narcissistic leadership and workplace deviance through workplace hostility. In other terms, the relationship between organizational aggression and work­place deviance was proved in the presence of independent variable. Narcissistic leadership increases with increasing level of hostility in the workplace. As the hostility of work­place increases, the negative factors in the organization also increase. For instance, the type of leadership that en­courages and supports certain groups and aims at them to favor their personal interests. This contributes in providing such leaders a fertile ground for organizational aggression. Such situation turns the organization in a state of uncer­tainty, loss of stability and motivates the employees to de­viate from workplace (Posthuma et al., 2019). Also, organ­izational aggression continues in the work environment as a result of leadership’s failure to interfere in finding quick solutions. This occurs especially if the leadership is iso­lated from employees as in narcissistic leadership. Such leaders create barriers from their employees and often do not listen to them (Selden & Downey, 2012). The compe­tition among employees often creates a hostile work envi­ronment. This environment is mostly created by the lead­ership characterized by behavioral and social imbalance and those who prefer personal interest over public interest. This behaviors deviates the employees through aggression that may spread among them (Godhardt, 2017). 6 Theoretical and Practical implications To our best knowledge, this is contribution to supply­ing literatures with a moderated mediation model of the relationship between narcissistic leadership and workplace deviation by mediating organizational aggression and by adopting workplace hostility as a moderator variable. The current study identified new insights on the level of ad­ministrative work regarding current variables. First, in general, the current study draws attention of the leaders of companies i.e., the sample considered for the study, to­wards the negative aspects included in study variables. It may appear in the workplace that narcissistic leaders are busy in proving their sufficiency, strength, beauty, stature and superiority. However, it is striking to know about the behavior of these individuals in terms of personal exploita­tion of followers and making them live under delusion re­sulting in workplace deviation during many times (Braun, 2017). Second, as per the study results, one of the most common reasons in the emergence of workplace deviance is the prevalence of hostility factors in work environment, especially in food industries and the companies under study. This findings necessitate that the leaders should pay attention to prevent interference in work and the destruc­tive factors such as defamation, exploitation, exclusion and personal favoritism at work so that deviation can be avoided (Lyubykh et al., 2020). Third, it turns out that organizational aggression me­diates a positive relationship between narcissistic lead­ership and workplace deviance. Narcissistic leaders are self-absorbed, and can be distinguished by their aggressive tendencies under criticism. They tend to prove their self-worth by detracting from others which drives other indi­viduals to deviate from the true course of action (Nevicka et al., 2018). Fourth, this study found that workplace hostility in­creases the impact of organizational aggression on work­place deviance. The organizational aggression leads to the emergence of behavior that deviates from agreed standards to achieve special goals and objectives. This gets increased by hostility factors that spread from time to time in the work environment (De Lara, 2004). Fifth, this study contribut­ed an in-depth understanding about the moderated medi­ation role. Further it also demonstrated the indirect effect of narcissistic leadership in workplace deviance through organizational aggression conditioned on increasing lev­els of workplace hostility. This proves the opinion that in many cases, due to narcissistic behaviors, leader adopts an aggressive environment in his dealings. This contradicts with the values and expectations of the employees in the organization which in turn results in the existence of hos­tile work climate. Such hostile climate negatively affects the employees through their actions and communications with their colleagues at work (Heathfield, 2014). 7 Conclusions On the basis of experimental results attained from this study, it can be concluded that leadership narcissism is an indicator of functional deviation. A narcissistic leader achieves an increase in organizational aggression which in turn results in more deviation at personal and organization­al level. Likewise, workplace hostility is an important fac­tor that predicts the level of workplace deviance, especial­ly with regard to interference in work and personal affairs by colleagues or by direct higher official. Workplace hos­tility continues with distortion of reputation, relationships, exceptions, and personal favoritism that gets justified for deviation and error in case if it spreads too. On the basis of current study results, it can be con­cluded that the narcissistic behaviors of a leader, in their day-to-day activities, increase the aggressiveness of organ­izational environment in terms of persistence of employ­ees against verbal and physical aggression and hostility behavior towards others. This becomes a reason for some to practice deviant behaviors in their workplace. Moreo­ver, the study found that there is a relationship between organizational aggression and workplace deviance chang­es, according to the variations in the level of workplace hostility. This scenario has been proved at corporate level too. The study results mentioned that, in terms of negative factors, sometimes the aggressive behavior spreads in or­ganizational and functional environment too and lend their shadows. The prevailing organizational climate clearly increased the impact of aggressive behaviors towards em­ployee deviation at workplace. Based on the above results, the study draws attention to the indirect role of narcissistic leadership in workplace deviance through organizational aggression conditioned on workplace hostility. The study results leads to an im­portant conclusion that the deviant behaviors of the em­ployees are motivated at individual and organizational level with increase in the narcissism of leaders. This phe­nomenon occurs in terms of exploiting the efforts of indi­viduals, admiring oneself, bullying others, arrogance, and the desire to accomplish victory at the expense of others that accentuate negative, unsupportive climates, tension, intimidation, sabotage at work and aggressive behavior. In organizational environment, whether public or private, there are increasing levels of workplace hostility observed these days in terms of increased work pressures, gossip, ostracism, harassment, interference in work, and organiza­tional violations. 8 Limitations and Future trends Despite the contributions of current study on address­ing the identified gaps and the importance of relationships between study variables, there are some potential limita­tions related to this investigation as well. First, the study data was obtained from five organizations in the food industry. The generalizability of our results to rest of the industrial sectors is limited. So, this calls for implementa­tion of current study model in other industries such as con­struction, textile, rubber industries, and service fields in future studies. Second, the study was conducted in private sector organizations and it did not include public sector organizations characterized by high workplace deviance due to huge number of employees and nature of prevailing structures. Third, since the adopted measures are based on self-report method, this raises the possibility of restricted results, due to difference in common method/source. Thus, future studies should consider in-depth reliability of multi­ple sources used in data collection. The future directions of the current study are as fol­lows: First, although the current study findings proved the moderated mediation role among the study variables, there is still room for more empirical research for these variables to determine other predictors of workplace deviance. Sec­ond, the current study intended to identify some indicators that correspond to workplace deviance. So, future studies should be conducted to identify other indicators that exert the same effect, for example negative relationship between the leader and the followers, ostracism in workplace, lead­er’s contradictory behaviors, gossip at workplace, bul­lying behavior at work, and authoritarian leadership and so on. Third, it will be highly useful if future studies try to include some positive variables that reduce the level of workplace deviance. The future researchers may also adopt variables that reduce the negative effects of organ­izational aggression or workplace hostility such as trust, justice, organizational integrity, and positive leadership theories such as authentic, participatory and paternal lead­ership as positive functions to reduce the effect of negative variables considered in this study. Literature 1Received: 13th April 2021; revised: 14th September 2021; accepted: 23th September 2021 Figure 1: The conceptual model of research Table 1: No. of samples collected from each company Company name Number of filled questionnaire The General Co. for Food Products 204 Tariq Food Products Co. 81 Etihad Food Industries Co. Ltd. 174 Advanced Foodstuff Industrial Co. 122 Yafa Co. foods industries 92 Total Sample 673 Table 2: The Standard Loadings, Critical Ratios for Measurement model Narcissistic Leadership Organizational Aggression Workplace Hostility Workplace Deviance Items Loading Critical Ratio Items Loading Critical Ratio Items Loading Critical Ratio Items Loading Critical Ratio EE1 .602 5.448 PA1 .561 *** IWW1 .786 9.032 ID1 .885 7.387 EE2 .578 5.273 PA2 .796 7.500 IWW2 .802 10.107 ID2 .912 5.882 EE3 .791 6.925 PA3 .802 7.507 IWW3 .894 5.832 ID3 .726 *** EE4 .632 *** PA4 .600 6.898 IWW4 .961 7.174 ID4 .671 6.135 AL1 .758 *** PA5 .776 7.788 IWW5 .954 6.180 ID5 .634 6.688 AL2 .584 5.989 PA6 .731 6.226 IWW6 .654 6.627 ID6 .817 5.864 AL3 .842 9.108 PA7 .689 5.243 IWW7 .863 *** ID7 .662 5.255 AL4 .763 6.953 PA8 .510 4.317 IWW8 .629 6.514 OD1 .695 8.286 SA1 .544 5.692 PA9 .979 5.001 IWW9 .662 6.653 OD2 .810 8.738 SA2 .619 5.679 VA1 .793 *** IWW10 .680 7.564 OD3 .673 *** SA3 .822 9.175 VA2 .792 5.612 IWW11 .808 7.213 OD4 .762 7.583 SA4 .789 *** VA3 .649 5.338 IWW12 .722 7.210 OD5 .704 8.357 SS1 .764 4.446 VA4 .753 5.162 IWW13 .692 8.322 OD6 .756 7.490 SS2 .741 7.407 VA5 .646 5.318 IWW14 .954 6.808 OD7 .782 6.380 SS3 .933 8.332 AN1 .679 5.495 DE1 .802 6.940 OD8 .679 6.354 SS4 .678 *** AN2 .565 *** DE2 .704 *** OD9 .645 7.380 AN3 .766 7.107 DE3 .464 5.424 OD10 .892 6.323 AN4 .698 5.555 DE4 .648 7.344 OD11 .616 5.964 AN5 .723 7.728 DE5 .796 7.108 OD12 .663 5.289 AN6 .712 7.541 DE6 .859 7.564 AN7 .801 8.589 DE7 .851 6.307 HO1 .876 7.541 DE8 .710 6.520 HO2 .752 *** DE9 .629 7.297 HO3 .697 7.443 DE10 .761 9.412 HO4 .743 7.960 DE11 .907 12.483 HO5 .726 7.445 EX1 .837 *** HO6 .923 7.830 EX2 .870 13.992 HO7 .538 6.621 EX3 .772 9.883 HO8 .565 7.218 EX4 .722 8.645 EX5 .829 10.444 Table 3: Fit indices, Discriminant and convergent validity Indices for research variables Fit Indices, Discriminant and conver­gent validity Indices Narcissistic Lead­ership Organizational Aggression Workplace Hostility Workplace Deviance .2 1089.312 933.845 1288.440 1108.220 CMIN/DF 2.126 1.993 2.471 2.055 GFI .925 .908 .914 .919 CFI .958 .933 .942 .949 IFI .963 .938 .947 .954 TLI .916 .901 .910 .918 RMSEA .060 .076 .068 .056 Composed Reliability (CR) 0.918 0.918 0.884 0.808 Average Variance Extracted (AVE) 0.557 0.617 0.528 0.523 The Square Root (AVE) 0.746 0.785 0.727 0.722 Maximum Shard Variance (MSV) 0.376 0.376 0.376 0.376 Maximum Reliability MaxR(H) 0.929 0.926 0.901 0.816 Table 4: Cronbach’s Alpha, Descriptive statistics, and the correlation coefficient 4 3 2 1 SD M a Variables 1 .774 3.118 .829 1. Narcissistic Leadership 1 .613** .765 3.223 .784 2. Organizational Aggression 1 .517** .483** .806 3.177 .746 3. Workplace Hostility 1 .374** .541** .482** .929 2.965 .868 4. Workplace Deviance **Correlation is Significant at the .01 level, n=673. Table 5: Hypotheses testing for direct effect between the variables R2 P t B Regression Paths .376 .000 20.113 .613** NarLea —> OrgAgg .292 .000 16.646 .541** OrgAgg —> WorDev .232 .000 14.256 .482** NarLea —> WorDev .140 .000 10.436 .374** WorHos —> WorDev Notes: n=673. **p<0.01 Figure 2: Hypothesis test of the mediating effect Table 6: Hypothesis test parameters for mediating effect R2 Total Effect Indirect Effect Direct Effect Regression Paths .332 .479 - .241 NarLea —> WorDev .238 - NarLea —> OrgAgg —> WorDev Figure 3: Hypothesis test of the moderated effect Table 7: Hypothesis testing parameters for the moderated effect R2 P C.R. S.E. Estimate Regression Paths Model 1 R2 = .258 Model 2 R2 = .371 *** 10.664 .037 .394 ZOrgAgg —> ZWorDev .040 2.051 .036 .074 ZWorHos —> ZWorDev *** 8.544 .028 .243 Interaction Var. —> ZWorDev OrgAgg × WorHos Figure 4: Moderated effect of workplace hostility upon relation between organizational aggression and workplace deviance Figure 5: Hypothesis test of the moderated mediation effect Table 8: Parameters of hypothesis test of the moderated mediation effect Paths S.R.W. Estimate S.E. C.R. P Narcissistic leadership —> Workplace Deviance .230 .277 .047 5.909 *** Narcissistic leadership —> Organizational Aggression .613 .607 .030 20.128 *** Organizational Aggression —> Workplace Deviance .396 .481 .047 10.316 *** Workplace Hostility —> Workplace Deviance .207 .132 .020 6.500 *** Interaction Var. OrgAgg×WorHos —> Workplace Deviance .170 .093 .017 5.346 *** Table 9: Bootstrapping test of the moderated mediation model Parameter Estimate Lower Upper P Low_SS .4069 .3157 .5021 .0001 Med_SS .4812 .3772 .5839 .0001 High_SS .5599 .4576 .6401 .0000 Low_CIE .2465 .1396 .3505 .0001 Med_CIE .2926 .1989 .3836 .0001 High_CIE .338 .2198 .4429 .0000 Mod_Med .045 .0223 .0694 .0042 (Low_SS , Med_SS , High_SS) Simple Slope ; (Low_CIE, Med_CIE, High_CIE) Conditional Indirect Effect; (Mod_Med) Hayes Index of Moderated Mediation. Narcisoidno vodenje in deviantnost na delovnem mestu: moderiran model organizacijske agresije in sovra­žnosti na delovnem mestu Ozadje: Deviantnost na delovnem mestu je eden pogostih pojavov, ki jih opazimo v organizacijah. Mogoce ga je pripisati narcisticnemu stilu vodenja in manifestacijam organizacijske agresije. Še dodatno ga poslabša povecana sovražnost na delovnem mestu. Glavni namen te raziskave je prouciti posredni vpliv organizacijske agresije in so­vražnosti na delovnem mestu na odnos med narcisticnim vodenjem in deviantnostjo na delovnem mestu. Metode: Podatke za raziskavo smo zbrali z anketiranjem 673 zaposlenih v petih podjetjih živilske industrije v Iraku. Za modeliranje in analizo posrednih vplivov smo uporabili strukturne enacbe (SEM) in programsko opremo AMOS V.23. Rezultati: Rezultati so pokazali, da organizacijska agresija delno moderira pozitiven odnos med narcisticnim vod­stvom in deviantnostjo na delovnem mestu. Poleg tega je povezava med organizacijsko agresivnostjo in devian­tnostjo na delovnem mestu odvisna od sprememb v ravni sovražnosti na delovnem mestu. Študija empiricno podpira osnove modela moderirane mediacije: študija ugotavlja, da je posredni vpliv narcisoidnega vodenja na deviantnost na delovnem mestu skozi organizacijsko agresijo znatno moderiral sovražnost na delovnem mestu. Zakljucek: Ko managerji uporabijo narcisoidno vedenje, da bi dosegli svoje osebne interese, to vodi v povecano organizacijsko agresijo in deviantnost na delovnem mestu, ki scasoma povecata raven sovražnosti na delovnem mestu. V skladu s tem model moderirane mediacije omogoca boljše razumevanje tega, kako narcisoidno vodstvo, organizacijska agresija in sovražnost na delovnem mestu delujejo skupaj, da vplivajo na deviantnost na delovnem mestu. 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Organizacija is covered by the following services: Cabell’s Directory, CEJSH (The Central European Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities), Celdes, Clarivate Analytics - Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), CNPIEC, Die Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek, DOAJ, EBSCO - TOC Premier, EBSCO Discovery Service, ECONIS, Ergonomics Abstracts, ERIH PLUS, Google Scholar, Inspec, International Abstracts in Operations Research, J-Gate, Microsoft Academic Search, Naviga (Softweco), Primo Central (ExLibris), ProQuest - Advanced Polymers Abstracts, ProQuest - Aluminium Industry Abstracts, ProQuest - Ceramic Abstracts/World Ceramics Abstracts, ProQuest - Composites Industry Abstracts, ProQuest - Computer and Information Systems Abstracts, ProQuest - Corrosion Abstracts, ProQuest - Electronics and Communications Abstracts, ProQuest - Engineered Materials Abstracts, ProQuest - Mechanical & Transportation Engineering Abstracts, ProQuest - METADEX (Metals Abstracts), ProQuest - Sociological Abstracts, ProQuest - Solid State and Superconductivity Abstracts, Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), SCOPUS, Summon (Serials Solutions/ProQuest), TDOne (TDNet), TEMA Technik und Management, WorldCat (OCLC) CONTENTS - 4/2021 255 256 275 293 306 320 334 Iztok PODBREGAR In Memoriam: Dr Jožef Ovsenik Olfat GANJI BIDMESHK, Mohammad MEHRAEEN, Alireza POOYA, Yaghoob MAHARATI The FunCaps Framework: Reconceptualizing Operational Alignment Anja ŽNIDARŠIC, Alenka BAGGIA, Antonín PAVLÍCEK, Jakub FISCHER, Maciej ROSTANSKI, Borut WERBER Are we Ready to Use Microchip Implants? An International Cross-sectional Study Vasja ROBLEK, Maja MEŠKO, Iztok PODBREGAR Mapping of the Emergence of Society 5.0: A Bibliometric Analysis Maryam BABAEI AGHBOLAGH, Farzad Sattari ARDABILI, Elena VOITENKO Content Analysis of Gossip at Different Levels of a Hospital Hebah Suliman ALFARAJAT, Okechukwu Lawrence EMEAGWALI Antecedents of Service Innovative Behavior: The Role of Spiritual Leadership and Workplace Spirituality Hussein Hurajah ALHASNAWI, Ali Abdulhassan ABBAS Narcissistic Leadership and Workplace Deviance: a Moderated Mediation Model of Organizational Aggression and Workplace Hostility