Abstract The main aim of this study is to explore the mediating effect of innovation in the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance. HRM practices are observed through selective hiring, training, participative decision-making, and rewarding. Innovation is conceptualized over behavioral, product, process, and market innovation. The study relies upon the principles of social exchange theory and resource-based theory. Data were collected from 408 managers in an emerging economy context. The proposed conceptual model is evaluated with structural equation modeling using Lisrel 8.8 and SPSS 22. Study findings suggest that innovation influences the relationship between selective hiring, training, and participative decision-making and organizational performance. However, no mediating effect of innovation was found in a relationship between rewarding and organizational business performances. Since human resources and innovation are among the leading sources for building competitive advantage for companies, the study findings contribute to HRM and innovation.

This study aims to improve the understanding of perceived managerial decency by developing an initial set of items for its measurement scale. Based on the social exchange theory and driven by the strong need for instilling more decency and civility in managerial discourse, this study makes a comprehensive overview of the scope and domain of perceived managerial decency and extracts the potential decency dimensions. After conducting a literature review, 50 collected interview responses on typical examples of managerial decency, as perceived by employees, served as a basis for further analysis. Using the content analysis tools, we generated a set of initial items and dimensions of decency. Those were further refined by 21 experts (5 from academia and 16 from the target audience) using the means of qualitative and quantitative assessment. as a result, we define the perceived managerial decency construct and outline its six potential dimensions: (1) respectful interactions, (2) treatment with good manners, (3) employee development, (4) mutual trust, (5) decent feedback, and (6) providing insight into a bigger picture, as well as generate a set of 75 valid items that reflect the decency construct. We further discuss the research implications for theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new theoretical insight regarding top managers' personal values in developing countries based on the Schwartz Values Theory (Schwartz, 1992, 1996, 2006; Schwartz and Bilsky, 1990) and to explore the influence of top managers' personal values on sustainability performances of successful businesses. The research describes personal values differences between top managers and their commitment to pro-social and pro-environmental responsibility who were approached through the validated and reliable questionnaire on identifying top managers' personal values (PVQ40) and questionnaire on sustainability indicators observed through the „triple bottom line“ concept which includes three measuring elements: financial, social and environmental performances (Fauzi, Svensson and Rahman, 2010). Given that top managers are very often the owners in SMEs, their values are largely reflected in the organizational values, which means that in small pro-environmentaly oriented firms, the personal values of owners-managers seem to play a much stronger part in motivating pro-environmental behaviors than in other SMEs (Lawrence at al., 2006). With regard to business sustainability, it is still insufficiently known, developed and understood in Southeast Europe and in developing countries. Therefore, this research may be used to encourage companies and local governments to include a sustainability issues in their business activities as a pre-condition for business success and competitiveness. The managers in SMEs can use this research as a guideline on introduction of contemporary principles of sustainability into their companies and to improve and direct their personal values towards sustainability.