Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have become a vibrant and dynamic sector of the world economy. Information technology plays a vital role in improving the productivity and competitiveness of SMEs. The dynamic business environment has brought fierce competition among SMEs and, therefore, requires the owners to interact with internal and external members actively. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of technology, organization, and environment as important factors in the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises. It also examines the mediating role of social media adoption. Items were developed to measure the various purposes of social media use in organizations, which contribute to increasing the measurement of social media usage. For the empirical investigation, this paper used a closed-ended questionnaire. Using a quantitative method, we observed 423 responses through structural equation modeling. The findings of the study indicate that technology, organization, and the environment play effective roles for SME performance. More importantly, social media adoption positively mediates the relationship between technology, organization, environment, and SME performance. The study also helps organizations realize the advantages of using social media and specifies the rationale behind an organization’s investment in social media.
Purpose
By applying displaced aggression and conservation of resource theory, this paper aims to investigate the effect of supervisors’ workplace stress over subordinates' unethical behavior through displaced aggression as an underlying mechanism. Moreover, it tests the moderating effect of despotic leadership between supervisors’ workplace stress and displaced aggression.
Design/methodology/approach
The data consists of three hierarchy levels: despotic leadership (top manager), supervisor’s (immediate supervisor/middle manager) workplace stress and displaced aggression and subordinates’ unethical behavior. The data was collected from 80 managers about their workplace stress and displaced aggression besides perceived unethical behavior of their 240 subordinates.
Findings
The data analysis of 80 bank managers of Pakistan about their perception of top managers’ despotic behavior and unethical behavior of their 240 subordinates shows the support for all hypothesized relationships. Supervisors’ workplace stress positively affected their displaced aggression over their subordinates, which motivated subordinates to engage in unethical behavior. Moreover, the findings supported the moderating effect of despotic leadership in the relationship between supervisors’ workplace stress and displaced aggression.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the limited studies on the trickledown displaced aggression phenomenon in the service (banking) sector. Moreover, the manager’s despotic leadership role as a higher-level negative supervisory behavior in increasing the supervisors’ displaced aggression shows the critical aspect in such a stressful workplace situation.
The paper defines and presents 'Expatriate Job Performance' in a manner that sheds light on the construct and sets the stage for future research. The findings from the review of the related literature suggest that additional research is needed to empirically validate the concept through systematic investigations and devise a means to measure it with the help of four hypotheses suggested. The paper is original and makes the foundational contribution for a beginning stream of expatriate research.
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