Purpose-Despite the claim that internal corporate social responsibility plays an important role, the understanding of this phenomenon has been neglected. This paper intends to contribute to fill this gap by looking into the relation between CSR and employee engagement. Design/methodology/approach-A survey research was conducted and three different groups of respondents were faced with three different CSR scenarios (general, internal, external) and respondents' employee engagement was measured. Findings-The results show that there are no statistically significant differences in levels of engagement between employees exposed to external and internal CSR practices. Nevertheless, employees exposed to internal CSR are more engaged than those exposed only to external CSR practices. Research limitations/implications-The use of scenarios, although a grounded approach, involves risks, including the difficulty of participants to put themselves in a fictional situation. Also, the scale used to measure employee engagement puts the emphasis on work rather than on the organisation. Practical implications-Although this study is not conclusive it raises the need for companies to look at their CSR strategy in a holistic approach, i.e. internal and external. Originality/value-This paper represents a contribution to understand CSR strategic status and the need to enlighten the impact that social responsible practices can have on employees' engagement.

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to provide practical justification for performance measurement and management within a collaborative business network. The basic performance measurement indicators are elaborated within the scope of this research. Design/methodology/approach-Performance measurement techniques are highlighted through the application of an ICT-based solution approach, with special focus on business collaboration among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Findings-From the basic need to measure the performance of individual partners within a business network, this research proposes a generic framework and process flow with the objective of evaluating the individual partners in terms of various performance indicators such as key success factors (KSF), key performance factors (KPF) and key performance indicators (KPI). The outcomes from this framework or process flow will help partners in the network to build valuable trust, cooperation and coordination. Originality/value-The focus of this paper is to demonstrate the methodological approach of measuring the performance through identifying and prioritizing the performance indicators (KSF, KPF, KPI) among collaborative partners and to highlight their importance for successful business operations.

Framed by the consumer-brand relationship theory, this paper investigates the path from the brand-consumer behaviour interaction to the relationship durability and stability, through brand relationship quality. Specifically, it examines brand experience as an antecedent of brand love, and customer loyalty and satisfaction as outcomes in the retail setting. Based on 560 customers' responses to a face-to-face questionnaire administered in a fashion brand retail store, research hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model. The findings suggest that brand experience influences brand love, with a higher incidence of sensory and affective dimensions. Brand love, in turn, influences customer loyalty, both directly and indirectly through customer satisfaction. This research contributes to the still understudied relation between brand experience and brand love in the retail context and to the need to understand the satisfaction-loyalty relation involving other variables as predictors. Nevertheless, results are limited to one specific retail fashion brand and generalizations should be taken carefully.This outcome in the form of the brand relationship quality starts, however, in the interaction between brand and consumer behaviours. The set of actions taken by both the consumer and the brand initiates a process of meaning creation, elaboration and reinforcement (Fournier, 1998). This process may be understood as the set of experiences lived by the consumer. Thus, creating meaning, elaborating and reinforcing is consistent with the notion of brand experience, conceptualized as "subjective, internal consumer responses (sensations, feelings, and cognitions) and behavioural responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand's design and identity, packaging, communications, and environments" (Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello 2009, p. 53). The processes of meaning creation, elaboration and reinforcement, which can be encapsulated in the concept of brand experience, contribute to the strength and durability of the brand-consumer relationship (Chang and Chieng, 2006;Schembri, 2009).Among the positive feelings, love is considered one of the most strong brand relationships, going beyond the simple notion of brand preference (Fournier, 1998). But despite this strength, only recently it caught the attention of researchers (Ahuvia et al. Maxian et al., 2013). Brand love is the result of strong emotional relationships that can be considerably more intense than simple liking, although there are fundamental similarities between interpersonal love and love in consumer contexts (Ahuvia, 2005).Despite the evidence suggesting the importance of brand love, there is still few evidence of how brand experience can influence such a positive feeling as brand love. In fact, research has examined several antecedents of brand love, such as interpersonal antecedents (Long-Tolbert and Gammoth, 2012), brand image and social-self (Unal and Aydin, 2013), brand personality (Ismail and Spinelli, 2012), brand identification and bra...

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Although burnout is a widely studied topic, there is still much to learn about this symptom during a pandemic crisis like the one caused by COVID-19. Moreover, and according to the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, the relation between personal resources and burnout is still an understudied topic. The main goal of this research is to understand the influence of mental resilience on the three dimensions of burnout-emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal achievement-among healthcare workers when exposed to a pandemic situation. A cross-sectional study was conducted based on the administration of an online survey to a sample of 196 healthcare workers (nurses and doctors) during the second wave of COVID-19 in Portugal. Hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares. The results show that during a pandemic situation, higher levels of resilience associated both with lower levels of emotional exhaustion (Emotional Exhaustion: −0.17; 95% Confidence Interval–CI: −0.38, 0.04) and depersonalization (Depersonalization: −0.17; 95% CI: −0.31, −0.03), and higher levels of personal achievement (Personal Achievement: 0.50; 95% CI: 0.40, 0.61). Resilience should be considered an important asset for reducing levels of burnout when facing highly stressing situations. The main contribution of this research is related to the role of personal resources as an inhibitor of negative consequences of job strain, such as burnout. The findings add new knowledge to the topic of fighting (not just understanding) burnout in deeply stressful situations, like the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforcing the importance of developing personal resources. Resilience skills may be developed, thus reducing the risk of burnout.