Work-life balance has gained increasing popularity among scholars and practitioners since the beginning of the century. Despite significant attempts to consolidate this burgeoning field, the scholarly knowledge on work-life balance research remains fragmented and detached due to extant number of publications in the area and the mostly subjective approaches used to encapsulate the literature. As such, the current study presents an objective overview of work-life balance research between 2000 and 2020. Using bibliometric techniques, the authors examined 1190 articles indexed in Scopus database to identify the conceptual structure and current dynamics in the field. During the critical period between the reconceptualization of word-life balance and the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic, the findings reveal that the field was growing exponentially as a multidisciplinary research area. Most of the scholarly work originated in the US, UK, and Australia with a "locally-centralized-globally-discrete" collaboration pattern among scholars. The most relevant and developed research themes included, in addition to work-life balance, topics related to gender and family life. Furthermore, new emerging research directions had evolved beyond the traditional constructs including job security, flexible working hours, individual productivity, and work-life conflicts. The study contributes to the current knowledge on work-life balance by providing critical insights into the evolution of the field and offers potential avenues for scholars who are interested in this critical research domain and the changes it has experienced post pandemic.

This paper explains the contradictory findings on the relationship between stress and work engagement by including appraisals as a driving mechanism through which job stressors influence engagement. In doing so, it explores whether stressors categorised as either challenging or hindering can be appraised simultaneously as both. Second, it investigates whether stress mindset explains not only how stressors are appraised, but also how appraisals influence engagement. Over five workdays, 487 Canadian and American full-time employees indicated their stress mindset and appraised numerous challenging and hindering stressors, after which they self-reported their engagement at work. Results showed that employees rarely appraised stress as uniquely challenging or hindering. Moreover, when employees harbored positive views about stress, stressors overall were evaluated as less hindering and hindrance stressors were particularly more challenging. Stress mindset appears to be critical in modulating the genesis of stress appraisals. In turn, appraisals explained the stressor-engagement relationship, with challenge and hindrance stressors boosting and hampering engagement, respectively. Finally, positive stress mindset buffered the negative effect of hindrance appraisals on engagement. Our findings clarify misconceptions about how workplace stressors impact engagement and offer novel evidence that stress mindset is a key factor in stress at work.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of a new construct, namely COVID-19 safety, on customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions in the context of fast-food restaurants (FFRs), while accounting for the effect of service quality, perceived value, and food quality. Using an online questionnaire, data was collected from 219 FFR customers. A series of confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to demonstrate the construct validity of this study variables. This study proposed and examined three conceptual models. To test the hypotheses of the three models, structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was employed using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) software. This study shows that compliance with COVID-19 safety measures is a key determinant of customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions in the fast-food industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, the results reveal that when simultaneously including service quality, perceived value, COVID-19 safety, and food quality as predictors of customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions, only COVID-19 safety and food quality are significant predictors. Managers, owners, and employees of FFRs need to comply with COVID-19 safety measures and improve food quality in order to enhance customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions toward their restaurants. This seminal study examines the determinants of fast-food customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study proposes and validates a new construct for COVID-19 safety in the FFRs.

This paper measures the readiness of the Kuwaiti small and medium sized manufacturing industries to implement the lean system through an evaluation of their existing quality practices, and compare such readiness among different product sectors and ownership types. The study adopts the measurement framework developed by Al-Najem et al. (2013), which establishes six constructs related to lean quality practices, namely: process, planning and control, customer relations, suppliers relations, HR, and top management and leadership. Data were collected from a survey of 50 Kuwaiti small and medium sized manufacturing companies. One research question and two hypotheses were developed and tested using t-test and Levene's test, descriptive statistics, and one-way ANOVA. The results demonstrate that the Kuwaiti small and medium sized manufacturing industries are far from being ready to implement lean. In addition, the study found that product sector and ownership type have no significant impact on the lean readiness in the Kuwaiti small and medium sized manufacturing industries.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the quality performance of the Egyptian manufacturing industry based on Flynn's quality management practices framework.Design/methodology/approach: A literature-based questionnaire was developed to collect the research data. The sample studied included 193 professionals from different manufacturing firms in Egypt. The research model utilized seven first-order constructs to measure infrastructure and core quality practices and the model was analyzed by structural equation modeling.Findings: The results of the study showed that infrastructure practices had a positive effect on core quality practices, which in turn, significantly influenced quality performance. The findings confirmed that Egyptian manufacturing firms have a good foundation of quality management practices enabling them to improve quality performance.Practical implications: This study provides a foundation for Egyptian manufacturing firms to develop a practical plan for implementing total quality management (TQM). In addition, the results of this study will help managers and policy makers develop a thorough understanding of the current status of TQM initiatives, enablers and barriers in Egypt.Originality/value: The study represents one of the few attempts to examine quality practices and quality performance in the manufacturing sector in Egypt. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study to examine these parameters in this context in Egypt.

Retail format hypermarkets are emerging in numbers and contributing $2.5 billion a year to the economy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Despite their importance and to the best of the authors' knowledge, no other studies specifically explore the service quality of such markets in the UAE. To fill this gap, this empirical study employs the SERVQUAL model to examine the antecedents of hypermarkets service quality in the UAE using structural equation modeling. The study sample included 1,248 respondents from different hypermarkets across the UAE. The research findings demonstrate that reliability, assurance, and empathy are the key determinants of hypermarkets service quality in the UAE, while tangibility and responsiveness are not significant. The authors' research contributes to the literature on hypermarket service quality in an understudied region and provides information for administrators to make informed decisions. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.