The Impact of the Work Environment on Innovation and Business Sustainability in SMEs

Innovation is a process, where the interpersonal relationships of employees are key to the creation of ideas that will contribute to the generation of value for organizations in the face of disruptive environments. This chapter analyzes the relationship between the work environment as a key factor and its impact on the development of innovation processes and business sustainability, taking as a sample 182 SMEs, from commercial, footwear, and textile sectors from the city of Cúcuta. The results showed an interrelation between the organizational climate and the culture of innovation as an agent that generates change that contributes to business sustainability.

Problem Solving and Risk Management Methodology

Intending to lead organizations to continuous improvement, this chapter proposes a methodology that involves three axes: risk management, problem- solving, and feedback experience. This methodology allows organizations to characterize the experiences they have already confronted, as well as new experiences (which can be risks or problems) with the use of taxonomies established by the organization. It also enables them to capitalize and exploit their knowledge base. This work proposes a best-use approach of the past experiences that are similar to a current event and facilitate their treatment and provide solutions. The authors take the feedback as a point of articulation between the two methodologies because it is a mechanism that offers knowledge where it can be found that the organizations must avoid and take advantage of.

Self-Perception of Leadership in Mexican Businesswomen

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the self-perception of their own leadership in Mexican businesswomen. With this information, it can build a female leadership model, which allows knowing the self-perception of skills and characteristics they have as leaders, the situations that led them to use this leadership, the challenges they face daily in the performance of their activities, and the context in which they operate. Among the main results, it was found that Mexican businesswomen have a balanced leadership between the search for economic results and the development of quality relationships. This means that they manage to have efficient communication, they take their employees into account in the development of their companies, but they are also interested in the achievement of organizational objectives. They develop this leadership in a context where family support is key to achieving success and the main challenge they face is economic. Also, they have managed to break with the traditional scheme of work and female business leadership.

Research on Corporate Sustainability

Corporate sustainability (CS) has many advantages such as enhancing brand value, providing reputation, and also focuses on gaining the trust of stakeholders. This is a qualitative exploratory study; its goal is to understand how CS research has changed over time. The most cited articles were selected from the journals indexed in SSCI (2000-2019). One hundred and two articles were selected and analyzed by content analysis method. Nature of typical samples, major themes, and research methods used were sought to investigate in CS research. Results showed that there was some scarcity in studies choosing a particular country as a sample. There were no articles in areas important for sustainability research. Besides, index types are barely used in articles. Some subject areas have attracted attention for years and haven't lost their popularity, but some remained in the background. The most used method was content analysis.

Managing Human Resources as a Business Strategy in Times of Disruption

This chapter establishes a tripartite relationship of high impact and validity in the business world. The three concepts that are intertwined are the management of human talent, the concept of disruption, and business strategy as drivers in organizations that seek to fulfill the visionary unit that has been proposed in the existing conditions of a particular environment that presents new movements, questions, and events derived from factors such as public health, the fourth industrial revolution, caring for the environment, generational social interaction. Once the concepts described above have been understood, the authors proceed to establish the relationship that allows them to intertwine and find the points of convergence so that they can have the proposal to manage human talent in times of disruption as a business sustainability strategy.

The Appreciative Inquiry Methodology as an Instrument for the Analysis of the Sustainability of Companies

There are currently various social innovation practices and efforts to address sustainability and its impact on the world. One of them is the use of the appreciative inquiry methodology (AIM), which results in applying a SOAR analysis focused on sustainability and discovering the strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results of a company. Thus, the company plays a fundamental role through corporate social responsibility (CSR) that seeks to carry out concrete actions that benefit society. This chapter will define what this methodology consists of, its scope, uses, and initiatives that have adopted it as part of their practices for the measurement and promotion of sustainability. One of the main results of using this methodology is to share success stories about innovations that meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through organizations such as AIM2Flourish and B Corp.

Management Practices in Chaotic Environments of SMEs in Bogota

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the management practices in chaotic environments followed by micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Bogota, specifically in the neighborhoods of Candelaria, Bosa, Puente Aranda, and Tunjuelito to generate sales and profit. In order to accomplish the foregoing, a co-relation analysis is made among the management practices that can be implemented by MSEs in sales and profit when faced with chaotic environments. The management practices used as independent variables in this study were human resources management, market analysis, suppliers, direction management, finance, sales, production-operation, innovation, marketing, and entrepreneurial responsibility. The dependent variables considered were annual sales and profit.

Instrument Validation of Organizational Dimensions That Learn in a Context of Chaos

The ability to learn and thus adapt to change is without doubt one of the most effective tools to emerge victorious in the face of chaos. But how do you know if an organization has this capability? The objective of this study is to validate the instrument of the dimensions of the organization that learns DLOQ (Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire). The DLOQ has 21 items or reagents distributed in seven different but related dimensions. The instrument seeks to be an initial intervention tool for contexts of chaos. The instrument was applied with a total of 21 items, in 14 organizations in the southern center of the state of Guanajuato, in Mexico, achieving the application of 536 valid cases. Based on the factor analysis carried out in the SPSS program, two important dimensions are observed, one of which is more important and contributes to 34,113% of the total average, a second factor of 28,764% of the total average. Factor one is called the organization's ability to learn, the second dialogue, and team learning.

Happiness

Happiness, job competence, and emotional competence, from an integrative perspective, are incorporated with the characteristics of the collaborator and the factors of the organization. They are emphasizing the classification of job skills and the opportunity to include emotional skills as a specific section. At the same time, it reflects on the components of happiness proposed by Seligman and the interest in relating it to job satisfaction based on the preceding scientific research. Finally, the usefulness of emotional competence is analyzed as a specific section within the general labor competencies, once happiness is considered as an emotion and therefore labor competency.

Project Management Tools and Techniques to Deal With Disruptive Situations in Projects

This research work aims to analyze how project management tools and techniques help project managers to deal the disruption in projects in the Colombian business context. Firstly, a detailed literature review about project management and disruption was conducted. Secondly, a comprehensive scientometric analysis of project management and disruptive situations on this kind of endeavor was undertaken. Thirdly, tools and techniques suitable for handling disruptive situations on projects were identified. Fourthly, an extensive fieldwork over 700 organizations from the Colombian organizational context was executed. Fifthly, a detailed statistical analysis was carried out to determinate how project management tools and techniques contribute to handle disruption on this kind of initiatives. And finally, research findings were documented, a positive effect of the use of project management tools and techniques to face disruptive situations on project was found, conclusions were set, and future lines of research were defined.