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This series publishes monograph length conceptual papers designed to promote theory and research on important substantive and methodological topics in the field of human resources management. Volume 30 of Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management (RPHRM) contains a collection of papers on important issues in the field of human resources management, including insights on employment branding, family owned firms, virtual global teams and intrinsic motivation, thus continuing the tradition of the series to develop a more informed understanding of the field. This collection of papers represents excellent scholarship and illustrates the truly interdisciplinary character of the field.

A rich body of research in the area of leadership has examined the influence of transformational/charismatic forms of leadership on employees' motivation, attitudes, and behaviors. This research is based on the assumption that leaders are able to influence followers based on close, sustained, and personalized contact with them. However, new organizational realities are challenging this assumption. Drawing on the intersections between social identity theory and leadership research, this study highlights the importance of inspirational leaders who, by developing socialized relationships with team members, can foster attitudes that are critical for team effectiveness in geographically dispersed settings. Findings support the role of this form of leadership in dispersed settings. Inspirational leadership emerged as a significant predictor of individuals' trust in team members and commitment to the team. Further, the positive relationship between inspirational leadership and individuals' commitment to the team and trust in team members was strengthened in teams that were more dispersed suggesting that inspirational leaders are important in all contexts but that their importance is underscored in highly dispersed contexts. Finally, shared perceptions of trust and commitment predicted performance at the team level.

Extending insights from Cox's interactional model of cultural diversity [Cox, T. H., Jr. 1994. Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research and Practice. Berett-Koehler, San Francisco], we examine the influence of diversity climate on customer satisfaction, a key business-unit outcome. In addition, we explore service climate and minority and female representations as boundary conditions of the diversity climate–customer satisfaction relationship. Utilizing longitudinal data from 59,592 employees and 1.2 million customers of 769 store units of a large U.S. national retail organization, the results reveal that, as hypothesized, diversity climate is positively and significantly related to customer satisfaction measured a year later. Moreover, the diversity climate–customer satisfaction relationship is most strongly positive in predominately minority, highly pro-service store units, whereas female representation exhibits null moderating effects. These findings have important research and practical implications.

Abstract. Background: In mainland China, frequent Internet suicide pacts in recent years have raised strong concerns from several social sectors and the influence of social networks on suicide is constantly growing. Aims: To identify the epidemiological characteristics of media-reported Internet suicide pacts in mainland China. Method: Our study comprised 62 Internet suicide pacts involving 159 victims in mainland China before June 1, 2015. Kendall's randomness test, a trend test, and a circular distribution test were applied to identify the rising or concentrated trends in the time of occurrence of Internet suicide pacts. Results: The overall male-to-female ratio was 2.3:1. Suicide victims were mainly people in their 20s to 30s (84.1%). In all, 87.1% suicide victims completed suicide in sealed hotels or rental housing, and charcoal-burning suicide accounted for 80.6% of cases. Conclusion: People who complete suicide as part of an Internet suicide pact are more likely to be males, aged 20–30 years. Charcoal-burning suicide in sealed hotels or rental housing was the commonest way of dying.

What is the effect of trait narcissism on creative performance? Although both constructs share an emphasis on uniqueness and novelty, prior investigations of the narcissism–creative performance relationship have produced inconsistent findings and failed to provide conclusive answers to this question. One possible reason for the seemingly contradictory evidence is that extant research has examined the influences of leader and follower narcissism separately rather than simultaneously. In this study, we address this issue by investigating leader–follower narcissism (in)congruence to comprehensively understand when and why leader or follower narcissism is beneficial or detrimental to creative performance. Integrating the self-orientation model of narcissism and narcissistic-tolerance theory, we posit that leader and follower narcissism jointly influence creative performance via identification with the leader, and that different leader–follower narcissism (in)congruence combinations exhibit distinct effects. The analyses of two-wave, two-level, and multi-source data from 421 followers and 54 direct leaders, using cross-level polynomial regressions, support our hypotheses: (1) identification with the leader is maximized when leader narcissism and follower narcissism are congruent; (2) identification with the leader is minimized when leader narcissism is higher than follower narcissism; and (3) identification with the leader mediates the effects of leader–follower narcissism (in)congruence combinations on creative performance.