A rapid pace of change presents an unforeseen and perpetual competitive challenge for organizations. Despite the existence of numerous change management models, organizational change leaders often encounter obstacles during the implementation phase that limit change effectiveness. This paper seeks to make a difference in managerial actions, specifically when implementing planned change, by directing them to use specific leadership actions during the change stage. While previous research has acknowledged the potential linkage between leadership and change effectiveness, a comprehensive exploration of this relationship within the realm of strategic change management remains lacking. This study aims to address this gap by comparing transactional and transformational leadership styles through the lens of the leadership-as-practice perspective. Specifically, this paper analyzes the alignment of these leadership styles with the Kotter model for implementing organizational change and investigates which leadership components or behaviors positively impact predetermined stages of change. Using the MLQ and a developed Kotter questionnaire, data was collected from 385 Lebanese employees working in SMEs experiencing change across the five provinces of Lebanon. PLS structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze the results, and the GoF value indicated that the study model is valid to be considered as a PLS global model. Our findings shed light on the dynamic interplay between leadership efficacy and distinct change stages. Rooted in the leadership-as-practice perspective, this study contributes a nuanced understanding of effective leadership’s crucial role in navigating the multifaceted challenges of organizational change, offering insights for practitioners and scholars alike.

Purpose: The negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic situation, especially in certain countries, have compelled organizations to shrink their hierarchies, reduce working hours, freeze hiring, and rely on gig workers to perform tasks. While these circumstances may be seen as a threat, certain vulnerable labor groups, such as women, seized the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills and launch their own firms. Others addressed smart platforms to engage in gig economy activities. This research investigates the aspects that drive women to be entrepreneurs, exploring the relationships between the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the gig economy, and women's entrepreneurship in a developing country.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 300 female entrepreneurs in Lebanon through questionnaires that measured the indicators and variables of the proposed model, which was tested applying partial least square.Findings: The results show a positive influence of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and gig economy on women's entrepreneurship, stronger in the case of entrepreneurial ecosystem elements and almost similar for opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship.Originality/value: This research achieves empirical evidence on the relationship between the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the gig economy, and women's entrepreneurship in the case of a developing country. The originality of this paper lies in its empirical and gendered approach, considering together the effects of entrepreneurial ecosystem factors and gig economy practices on women's entrepreneurship, especially relevant in a regional context like Lebanon, where digital economy may constitute an opportunity for economically vulnerable groups.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the potential impact of Industry 5.0 on businesses and management by integrating advanced technologies to develop smart cities (Society 5.0) and digital value chains, leading to Innovation 5.0 and triple bottom line sustainability. We propose an Organization Value Chain 5.0 model to describe the ecosystem interactions that leverage organizational innovative behavior through knowledge management.Design/methodology/approach: Using a systematic literature review methodology, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of 968 Industry 5.0 articles, 297 Innovation 5.0 articles and 510 Society 5.0 articles from the WOS and Scopus databases. This analysis supports the development of our conceptual model.Findings: This allowed us to propose the conceptual model for the new notion of Organization Value Chain 5.0 and its ecosystem components.Originality/value: This study provides a detailed analysis of Industry 5.0, its technological elements and its relevance to creating Society 5.0, smart cities and digitalized value chains. It highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement and integration for effective digital industrial transformation.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has experienced major technological and procedural changes that will continue in the post-pandemic age. For this reason, firms are expected to learn from such an unprecedented experience and ensure that the managerial and workforce practices in the post-pandemic period are directed toward rebuilding and reinventing the workplace. Within the scope of the research topic: “Diversity, Innovations, and Entrepreneurship in Post-crisis Periods”, this study accentuates the positive impact of human capital development programs in enhancing employee performance. Moreover, the roles of resilience, empowerment, and mimetic isomorphism are analyzed to better enable firms to learn from their past experience and develop practices that fit the agile environment. A questionnaire was administered targeting 370 employees in 12 SMEs in Lebanon. A conditional analysis was used to test the hypotheses through SPSS, PROCESS. The results of this study showed that the deployment of developmental programs is deemed indispensable for enhancing the performance of SME employees and helping them overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic through empowerment and resilience. This study can be useful for academics who might benefit from its theoretical implications and prospective directions for future analyses. Moreover, its results can also be helpful for practitioners, specifically managers of SMEs who are seeking to reinvent their workplace in a responsive way in the post-pandemic age.

Adding more scope and breadth to the reviews on leadership literature, this paper aims at developing a bibliometric study on 1059 articles that covered transactional and transformational leadership styles research and are published in the Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus platforms from 2004 to 2019. This bibliometric review implies providing a map of this field using VOSViewer visualisation of co-citation, co-occurrence and co-authorship, and descriptive analysis to show the quality of the publications. The aim of this review is to determine the evolution of research, where this topic raises a greater interest, among which academics, countries and journals, the most relevant affiliations and their collaborations and to identify the research with greater impact, developing several citation analyses. This study draws conclusions and up-to-date insights to provide readers with a preview on the development of transactional and transformational leadership research, along with those who contributed the most to this development and advice for future research.